Advice

Do it.

Unless it’s bad.

Then don’t do it.

Blog Laziness – the Whys, Hows and Who Cares[s]

I’ve been surfing the Internet, as old (40+) people put it, looking for an idea for a blog post or two when I realized a simple and inescapable truth:

I am Bad At Blogging.

Some people are Bad At Sport, or Bad At Writing, and I have come to the conclusion that I am simply not blogger material. Every once and a while I write something, but for weeks on end I find that my mind is as blank as – uh… – something rather blank. Without anything on it. I’m trying to avoid sinking into a nobody care about me boo-hoo tantrum, because that’s silly. So I will just say that I will still post stuff (occasionally) and someone needs to come up with a Blog Laziness vaccine quickly, before I use ‘uh’ in a sentence anymore.

Doctor Who: Series Two, Episode One – The Christmas Invasion

I’ve just decided to re-watch all the David Tennant episodes I’ve missed (ie. most of them), so here are my thoughts on ‘the Christmas Invasion’.

The idea was to introduce the new Doctor in a way that, while showcasing the differences between him and Number Nine, also made it clear that it was still the same show with the same people. It did exactly that. From “Am I ginger?” to “Six words”, it is obvious that the 10th Doctor is different kettle of fish entirely from his badass, leather-jacketed predecessor. The only thing I was unimpressed with was the alien menace, the violent, dangerous, skull-wearing Sycorax dudes who wanted to sell the human race into slavery and steal our stuff. With swords. And a spaceship made out of rock. Uh, yeah… Not especially scary. And the Doctor fighting the Sycorax Leader looked very fake and somewhat contrived.

But, the italicized ‘but’, The Christmas Invasion is fun, if not amazing, to watch, and a good introduction to the new Doctor. Allons-y!

Doctor Who, Series 7, Episode 9: Hide

Just watched Hide on ABC iView and I decided, having nothing else to do, to share my opinions on it.

Just for the record, I cannot handle scary stuff. I saw the trailer for Hide and thought Oh my God I am dead!, but I have to say it was somewhat lacking in the scare department. Yes, I watched the scene with Emma and the ghost with my hands over my eyes (C’mon! It’s a ghost) but it wasn’t anywhere near as creepy as I had thought. Then we have the monster. I know that monsters and aliens have always been a staple of Sci-Fi shows, and in Doctor Who they’re normally handled great. But I hate, hate, hate it when they have a reasonably good episode with some mysterious shapes and such in the background, and then they show the monster (which generally looks like something that was coughed up by a cat six hundred years ago)! To be fair, Hide was pretty good, Emma and Alec had some nice character development going on, and I loved the Screaming Woman Photos.                                                                                                                      (I’m not sure what was up with the Doctor and that circle he drew on the floor, though…)

Daily Prompt: Million Dollar Question

Why do you blog?
Shhh! Never, ever ask that question! That’s like the third biggest question in the history of the universe, just below ‘Doctor who?’ and ‘What is the Question to the Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything (and what does it have to do with forty-two)?’

Asking that question will open a hole in the fabric of the blog/time continuum, unleashing swarms of Backspaceasaurs and Flying Rollbacks! I remember the last time someone asked that question… [Story]

It was 1962, and John F. Kennedy was typing away at his blog, TheWhiteHouseFiles, when his secretary sent him a memo, which said ‘why do you blog?’ It was later shown that the message had come from a sleeper agent working for the USSR and was revenge for the attempted murder of Fidel Castro by the CIA with a poisoned wetsuit. This resulted in several Hackmonsters entering the Pentagon’s computer network, nearly triggering World War Three. Luckily, an unnamed FBI agent used an extremely malicious killcode, not only wiping out  the invading creatures but also all computer hard drives within 10 miles. So remember,boys and girls, beware the question! Beware…  [/story]

Book Review: Dead End In Norvelt (Jack Gantos)

Dead End In Norvelt is a fictitious memoir of Jack Gantos, charting ‘the most boring summer ever’. At the beginning of summer holidays, Jack is playing around with some things his father found in a Japanese bunker during World War Two, including a (supposedly) unloaded rifle. Unfortunately, the gun goes off, triggering his stress-related nosebleed problem and getting him grounded for the rest of summer (FAIL!). Soon his mother forces him to work with old Ms Volker, who writes obituaries for the local newspaper, and Jack thinks his summer is as bad as they get. Then all the old people start dying like flies and a Hells’ Angels chapter swears vengeance on the town for the death of one of their comrades and Jack discovers that there’s almost no chance of him dying of boredom when there are so many other ways to end up six feet under…

This book is great! It’s well written, funny, and, being based on the author’s childhood, has a definite ring of truth that is far too often lost in other books. It has a lot of stuff I like, writing, history and an old lady who asks the Grim Reaper to tea. Unfortunately it did not involve llamas, so I give it (drumroll, please)… 8.5/10!

(Cue wild cheering) Thank you, thank you! I’ll be back soon with more great books!

Daily Prompt: Five A Day

You’ve been exiled to a private island, and your captors will only supply you with five foods. What do you pick?

Hmm… that’s a toughie. Sushi would be my first choice, because I love it and it has fish and rice and other important foodstuffs inside it. Next I might pick potatoes, because you can survive for years on potatoes alone. Does milk count? I’m a bit of a milkaholic so that would have to be included. What do you mean, there’s water there?! What, I’m supposed to drink water for the rest of my life? Yeah, right… Chocolate is essential. I can even mix it with my milk (which I am bringing, thank you very much) to make a milkshake and use it for firewood and whatnot. And finally, I want cheese. Why? It has been scientifically proven that it either a) gives you good dreams, or b) gives you weird dreams, which will be good while I slowly go insane from lack of books, wi-fi etc., because at least I’ll have imaginary people to talk to when I fall asleep.

Civilization V: How do I make it do what I want?

I am not a brilliant gamer. I do OK with Age of Empires, flail miserably at StarCraft II and can get about 10 kills on Halo 4. On a good day. But I just bought Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 and I figured that I might as well down my thoughts about it. Here goes:

After a couple hiccups in the installation process (because Steam hates my guts and decided that Civ needed to be downloaded sixty times) the 2K Games logo popped up, and I watched the entry video with amazement (I am a massive sucker for those). Then I found the entry screen and got started. Let me get this straight, I have never played a turn-based strategy game before, unless you count 10 minutes of the original Civilization at a gaming expo. So I didn’t have much of an idea what to do. I was America, because it was the default option and I figured I could do worse, and Chieftain difficulty for roughly the same reasons. I was spawned in the middle of a suspiciously England-shaped landmass, and an Ancient Greek lady popped up and advised me to found a city. I did that and then hunted around until I found the Next Turn button, and my adventure began.

I spent about 40-something turns setting up, fighting Persians and doing nothing much. I’ve now set up as Hiawatha of the Iroquois on Settler (sandbox) difficulty and I’m busy fighting Alexander the Great and island-hopping. Civilization is very fun, with great graphics and almost no bugs or glitches. For my first TBS, I think this was a pretty good choice.

The Ghost House

Italo Calvino said: The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts. Describe the ghosts that live in this house: Image credit: “love Don’t live here anymore…” – © 2009 Robb North – made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic

Ghosts? That house is so run down that I doubt there’s a single poltergeist, specter or phantom left to haunt it. However, judging by the long grass and the ‘middle of nowhere’ location, it’s probably home to several Pixies and maybe even a Trogg colony.

Death by Bandwidth!

I, true to form, completely forgot about my Atheneum and didn’t even log on for weeks, so it’s taken a massive crisis to get me back on: we have no bandwidth! That means NO Planetside 2, NO Age of Empires III and NO Minecraft CTF! I’m DOOMED!!!

No idea why I’m posting this but, hey, I might as well.