Cogaime

Once upon a time, a young Yeti not a million miles from here asked his dad what the thing on the table he was working on was. His dad picked him up and put him on his lap and said "This son, is a computer" he then went on to show his son what could be done on this strange white buzzing box the young Yeti had never seen before. And when his dad had finished showing him this new machine and telling the young Yeti "how powerful a tool a computer is" he tried to maximise from the taskbar what he was working on. He clicked on the little rectangle several times but nothing happened. The young Yeti knew something was wrong and hopped off his father's lap and went out of the room to play with his Lego. The young Yeti's first memory of a 'computer' 'crashing' was the sound of his dad hitting the keyboard in the next room.

The next day the young Yeti went to his friend's house. The young Yeti's friend had seen a computer before and was allowed to use it, he showed the young Yeti what he could do on it, and what games he could play. The young Yeti starred blankly at the black screen that didn't change for a very long time, not knowing what to expect from this game in the white buzzing box: his friend hadn't handed him any dice. Suddenly, the screen turned white, the young Yeti brought up his hand to block the dazzling light. Four blue letters made of massive blue squares materialised on the screen, so big were the letters that the young Yeti had to use his whole hand to cover up the last bit of the word, and then the first part of the word to sound the word out. Se. Ga. "What's Seegar?" the young Yeti asked his friend. "It's Sega" replied his friend with a twinkle in his eye. The four blue letters were then replaced by a picture of a portion of a blue circular saw with arms and legs, and underneath the picture were the words Sonic the Hedgehog. All in massive squares. The young Yeti's friend then set the blue circular saw hurtling around forests, and sewers and spaceships at breakneck speeds. The young Yeti starred open mouthed and knew that his life would never be the same. When the young Yeti's friend grew bored of the speedy power tool and left to play with his Lego, the young Yeti got up from off the floor and sat on the chair infront of the white humming box. He placed his hands on the thin rectangle his dad tried to break the day before. The scaled down saw mill moved, but try as he might, the young Yeti couldn't make the square blue thing fly like his friend could. When the young Yeti's friend came back and saw that the square blue thing wasn't flying but barely limping along he laughed and pointed at the young Yeti. The young Yeti felt bad. That was when the young Yeti made a pact with himself to become better at the game than his friend and surprise him how good he was next time he went to his house.

Some time later, the young Yeti, his mum, his dad and his sister went to the mall. The young Yeti told his mum and his dad that he wanted the game he saw at his friend’s house, he poked his sister in the back as they walked. The young Yeti's mum and dad took the young Yeti to the shop they thought they could buy the game from. When they arrived at the shop the young Yeti looked in awe at the unbelievable amount of games on the unbelievable amount of shelves that towered above his head. The young Yeti had thought the square blue thing was the only game there was. And although the shop was full of older intimidating boys, the young Yeti walked around the shop trying to look at all the games they had.

I have a confession to make, that young Yeti was me.

That's pretty much when the computer game drug got me. From that point on every pound I could lay my hands on was spend on computer games, they say cocaine is addictive sheesh. If there was a game I really wanted but didn't have enough money, I'd buy two games from the budget shelf. I don't think it really mattered what the game was as long as it was a computer game. Over the past few years I can easily say I've bought hundreds of pounds worth of computer games, each one of them holding my attention for maybe a month, tops. Although this lack of attention span per game is probably attributed to my absolute in ability to play them: I had five games free when I finally managed to convince my parents to get me a PlayStation for Christmas and one of those games was Driver. The first level of Driver requires you to do several driving tricks in an underground garage in under a minute without trashing the car. I trashed the car, every time, this meant that game was instantly useless. Then there was Quake 2, I'm a jumpy person, when the god-knows-what enemy of massive squares ambles onto the screen I jump and panic, not a good reaction for progressing in that kind of game. Civilization games, it has a button that will allow you to cheat, what more can I say? This button was pressed all the time. Alien Vs Predator, see Quake 2. And so it goes on and on for year and years.

One of my latest additions to my museum of games is The Sims 2. I kinda bought this on solely it's hype and the look of it's graphics. I should have known better. I should have remembered why I stopped playing the orginial Sims, because it was mind numbingly boring. The only thing I got out of it was building the houses, making the families. I even made a www.doodles.tk family members including me, Agatha my virtual wife, Paige our daughter (I was going for the pun of Web Paige) and our butler Trevor, who if any of you have been on this page long enough will know he was this blog's butler, but he has sadly passed away because I don't write about him anymore. Making a family for the blog, and building them a house to live in (Trevor had his own bachelor pad/cuboard) was fun, but looking after them was boardering on stressful. Keeping them all happy and in time for work was enough to bring me to exit without saving the game.

Recently my computer game buying ways have died down, I might buy a game a year now, this I but down to spending all my money on many books, and the geriatric of a computer I own. I have a game in my draw that I can't play on because the graphics card it needs makes the graphics card I've got look like a cheese cracker. And that's the only thing I pretend to understand, any new piece of software made after 2001 makes this machine want to put its false memory in a glass of oil and go to sleep.

Oh well, at least I still have minesweeper.

For lack of an update.

Here are some pictures from a couple of weeks ago to disract you from the lack of an update.

The funniest thing I've seen today?

Oh I'd have to say Goth Lightbulbs. I thought they were mutually exclusive.

Time Filler

Hey ducks.
I've got about an hour and ten minutes to kill before a program about nuclear fusion comes on TV so I thought about I'd write something. Nothing of particular interest but something none the less. Besides, I can't think of anything else to do sad as it is. I've just spent about an hour reading about various things on Wiki without my glasses so my vision is kind of blurry and nauseating, so I can't go and read something. Just another sign that I'm getting old, adding to my quarter-life crisis.

Another sign that I'm getting old is that I went to a university open day today at Aston University. To cut an uninteresting story short it looked like any other university, nothing wrong with it, but hardly anything to fill a paragraph with. We had a tour around the halls of residence, or the cupboards with a sink as they would more accurately be described, but they had a nice view of the back of the adjacent building. I didn't really need to go on around the halls as I'll be living at home if go to Aston or Birmingham University, but it was quite an eye opener for me, if St. Andrews ever get back to me with an offer I'd (obviously) have to live up there as it's a decent 500 miles away. I think I'd like to go to St. Andrews, not because it's propaganda department did a better job of selling it that Aston or Birmingham, but because I know if I don't leave home soon I think I'll still be living here when I'm forty because my home sickness is so strong. It'd be nice to have a big change, but looking at the unusual walls of the halls of residence of Aston I felt home sick even there, so to settle in to a new home in effectively a different country knowing absolutely no one (yet another big problem for me) and then be expected to study would be very hard. That is of course, if they ever get back to me.

On a side note, UP YOURS BRISTOL AND WARWICK!!! (They declined me a position).

Fifty-six minutes to go.

Bit a hole into my forefinger today, and it starts to bleed if I try to do anything too dextrous. I keep doing things like that, my teeth are obviously too sharp. I bit a chunk out of my lip a couple of weeks ago thinking it was a scab. But it wasn't. It was right in the middle of the bottom lip, so whenever I smiled or laughed or even sneezed the small amount of what had healed ripped open again, which was rather painful. Plus it didn't help that I picked at it, much to the chagrin of some of my friends. However, I am happy to report that it is almost fully healed now, with only the little bits of skin that overlap sticking up out of my lip. No only if I could stop biting my fingers.

Forty-nine minutes to go.

Need the loo. Back in a sec.

Forty-seven minutes to go.

Cup of tea and a game of solitaire.

Forty one minutes to go.

Ok, just a cup of tea now, I got bored of solitaire. I hate it when you get a game where all the beginning cards are the same colour, or towards the end where you can't put all the kings in the leftmost slots next to each other, or when the one card you need to complete the whole thing is under a card which you can't move. And the status bar, I had to turn that off, first turning off the time mode then the whole thing looking in despair as my score went down a hundred points just for turning over the deck. Here's a tip if you want to improve your game, listen to Franz Ferdinand. Someone out there I'm sure has given up the 'Undo' button for lent.

Speaking of lent it is going surprisingly well. The chips I don't miss at all, mostly, dinner doesn't seem to be too much of a problem without them. The absence of chocolate is going well as well, but I say this because mum has started buying shortbread biscuits instead of chocolate biscuits so I'm getting though at least twenty a day. Must cut down. Must cut down. Do you think they do a shortbread patch?

Or gum?

Thirty-four minutes to go.

A friend of my picked out my signature tune the other day, 'Somebody to love' by Queen, my beloved audience, I challenge you to the first line of that song.

Twenty-nine minutes to go.

Last day of half term tomorrow. And for it a plan on doing bugger all followed by a light lunch followed by bugger all followed by watching various sitcoms on ABC1 on freeview, my favourites being '8 Simple Rules...' of the John Ritter era, and 'Mad About You', while silently go mad due to the too frequent 'commercial' breaks of adverts for its own programs which never change. I have been watching ABC1 now for almost two months, there is a break just after the titles of a program and just before the credits, shows run back to back more or less. So there will be an advert for some terrible melodramatic midday soap, then the credits of the program, a short introduction for the next program, then the titles and then the same advert for the terrible melodramatic midday soap. It's like a small piece of American advertising policy right in your living room. It makes you wonder if they'll eventually start running commercials at the same time as the programs.

The freeview box which I what the two previously mentioned programs on is in the living room. This isn't too bad as there's some nice comfortable sofas in there. But when somebody rings us mum will answer the cordless phone and shout into it standing right next to the TV, or when mum or dad gets back from work they'll start talking and stand infront of the TV or generally do anything so I don't have a clue what's going on in the story. And if I turn up the volume I'm the rude one.

Sixteen minutes to go.

Well I think I'll go now. This machine is getting old now and it sometimes decides to restart instead of turn off so I've got to be around to sort it out. A world without computers, bliss. I've also got to track down the dibber (TV remote) in my room, it's wandered off somewhere.

So goodnight, if you've read this far well done you must be as bored as I am. If you haven't read this far, well you're not reading this so I don't have to say anything to you.

Goodnight ducks.

Tinkerbell

This post was supposed to be about (St.) Valentine's day. It wasn't going to be about how overly commercial it is and how the true meaning of the day (if there is one, I'll Wiki it later) has gone, for this point, in my opinion, has been over done, laboured past were it is still interesting. No, this post was supposed to be about how I viewed the whole event (a strange thing to be writing in a blog I know, stating one's own thoughts who'd have thought) and how it affected me, like how when asked by girls what I would want for Valentine's day so they would have an idea what to buy their boyfriend's I would always answer "I don't know" as there is something deeply tragic about some other person getting what I would want. Or how I wish I could grow up and get it out of my head that the days of the primary school taunting "#Gareth's got a girlfriend. Gareth's got a girlfriend#" when the slightest bit of affection for a girl (“#Hehe#”) is shown are over and could finally be a bit more open about my feelings. But, despite the apparent length of this opening paragraph, I'm not ready to talk about this....oh hello. Is this my shrink? Excellent, just put him in the corner, thanks. FedEx, is there anything they won't deliver?

No, instead this post is going to be about superpowers.

A common question on internet questionnaires, be it something like Quizilla or one of the e-mail questionnaires that everybody say they hate but fill in anyway, is that if you were to have one superpower what would it be? (The context of the question in the questionnaires is for the enjoyment of the user and not for the fight against evil/good.)

• To fly? Presumably this would require some kind of effort on behalf of the anti-gravity protester and so would be tiring. This introduces a problem, this merry isle we call Britain is surrounded by water, if you start to get tired somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, well, I hope you can swim.

• To become invisible? I can see no everyday use for this. Some bozo will then say "I could steal things and get away with it". Does getting away with it mean that a store full of people won't see a can of beans floating in mid air towards the door?

• To swing from webs like Spiderman? How far are you going to swing off a one-storey building? Hellllllooo Mr. Pavement.

• To have x-ray vision? There is only one kind of person who would find this useful. Doctors. I bet you were thinking I was going to say something else. A doctor would find this power useful for obvious reasons, to see how much money you have on you.

• To be super strong? "Look honey, I can break things easier"

• To have frinkin' laser beams coming out of your eyes? If health and safety find out you can do that the only thing you'll be lighting is a fire in a drum down some back alley with your new hobo friends.

• To change shape into animals/inanimate objects? I'll be honest with you, I don't think many people have the desire to change into a toaster.

As you can see, many 'standard' superpowers have very little use in a 'have breakfast-go to work-have dinner-go to bed' life. So I pick none of these. Instead, I choose the 'temporally-free consciousness' power. This might take a little explaining since I have just made it up.

Every day you make choices, many if not all won't have too much of a dramatic effect on you life. But every now and then a choice will come along which might just open two or more avenues of the rest of your life. What if you make the wrong decision? Well basically that's it, you get on with it because there is nothing you can do about it. But what if every conscious thought you have is connected to every other conscious thought you have had and will have? If you could do this you could make a choice and see how it pans out. If it goes well, great! If it doesn't, your past self knows it was the wrong mistake because it is connected with your current self's thoughts and then can make another decision until the optimum decision is made. Of course there is the problem of a massive amount of information being processed on your consciousness with infinite choice permutations from the moment of birth to the moment of death. But hey, you could always choose not to worry about it.

Temporally-free consciousness, the optimum choice for the power crazed and insecure.

Somethings never change.

This I think is great. This is a screen shot of Windows up coming operating system Windows Longhorn from windowslonghorn.net. If you look at the bottom right of the picture it shows you what happens when something goes wrong. Apparently the new OS will be as annoying as the current one. Marketing obviously didn't think that one through.

The Curious Incident of Particle A

Particle A sits in a two-dimensional plane. For the time being Particle A only moves up or to the left in the plane. There is an obstruction that doesn't allow Particle A to move downwards or to the right.

Is Particle A free?

L.E.N.T.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I write to you this evening in the company of a large belly. A belly so full that the chair wheezed when it was sat on. And this belly just happens to belong to me. The reason for this sudden change in volume is due to today being the eve of Ash Wednesday, the day before the first day of lent.

For this annual period of "giving something up" I have decided to give up chocolate and chips, a rather foolish decision as this makes up at least 60% of my current diet. Being a man/boy (or whatever noun is used for this transitional period) of no religion this seems quiet a strange decision to make, to give something up when it isn't assumed of me. But I find it should provide a way for me to give up sneaking to that draw at the end of the kitchen that whispers so seductively to me whenever I step in the room, and beckons me to take just one more Rolo biscuit or KitKat and promises me that it will be the last one ever. Honest. If I feel as though I'm doing it for someone else instead of myself, I think I should be able to see it through. The chips I'm giving up simply because there are some weeks where I have them everyday, which is getting a little monotonous.

So today, on this hallowed day of Pancake Day, I said my goodbyes to the foods that have been with me for so long, by stuffing my face with anything that has even the infinitesimal amount of chocolate in it. To represent chips I used crisps by raiding the crisp cupboard that was handily located beneath the chocolate draw. For a couple of hours I was Pacman, eating everything in my way, even "....wokka wokka wokka...." escaping from my mouth. Both draw and cupboard are bare now leaving only chocolate wrapped around some preserved fruit and cheese and onion crisps.

Of course starting is the easy part. Even looking to the future of my meals is a little daunting but isn't causing me panic yet. I know I am so picky about food that I will probably be living off bacon sandwiches and beans on toast for the next couple of weeks (did someone say something about monotony?), but the fact hasn't actually sunk in yet.

And anyway, forty days isn't that long is it? Right?

Well if worst comes to worst I can always try fruit....



....nah.

(If you are wondering why the title of this post is in an abbreviated form it is because I was trying to think of a witty title for this post which would abbreviate to LENT, but couldn't think of one, or a better title. But the night is young for me to think of something and I've got enough sugar in me to keep me up for most of it)