University and Stuffs

Why hello there again. I have been having lots of fun in the time I have neglected you, sorry I don't post more. As you can see below, my idea of fun includes skewering my tongue on a sharp piece of metal.

Some of my fun has included my first proper dress up attempt for halloween. May I present to you, Silent Bob(as me):

I am quite happily enjoying my new found freedom as you can tell from the above face-holing. It's a nice feeling to not be restrained by others living with you and not having to deal with family in every day life. This means I am generally of a happier disposition (which I am usually anyway). I have also broked my foot and have been limping about for the last week or so and today I am going out with the full intention of dancing lots, fingers crossed I don't re-injure it.

Still Here Are You?

I appear to have been neglecting you as of late, maybe because nothing much interesting has been happenning to me. Maybe because I'm just too damn lazy. Anyway, having family around for the FA Cup final today, football not being my forte (or any other spectation of sport for that matter) I shall be spending a bit of time away from the living room, hardly surprising to the guests or my family. I've begun a Rick Dias Master Grade recently and that's been coming along nicely. Other than that there's not really much else to tell you, still unemployed, still slightly down because of it etc. Since I've got nothing better to do I've decided to start exercising regularly each day to both kill some time and try and burn off some energy that I don't use sat around the house all day. First day resulting in muscle pains I've given myself a few days off to recover, sounds like procrastination doesn't it?

Written to: Def Leppard - Lady Strange

Photography?

As you may or may not know, my old man is a photographer. Recently at some weddings he let me loose with his pro Digital SLR for testing whilst he works with his 35mm Cannon EOS-1. Here's a couple of the shots I like:

Musings

Just a random thought I had yesterday that I thought I ought to write down. Why is it that despite the American civil war America is still so unbearably puritanical?

Oh, also the head arrived for my valkyrie but my brother seems to have thieved my camera to Greece so I can't show it just yet. I might have a shot at panel lining it before he gets back so it looks even nicer.

More Giant Robot-y Stuff

Just finished an absolutely HUGE model kit so I thought I'd share my joy with you. This is the Perfect Zeong from Gundam along with its nemisis the Perfect Gundam. They're from a series called MSV or Mobile Suit Variation in which the original designs of first Gundam are remixed to make them funkier.



On my macross Valyrie, HLJ have shipped me a replacement head for the kit so I'm very happy about that, now if it'd just arrive already I'd be even happier.

In other more world shaking news, it seems the motion for European Software patents has been passed despite being refused so many times by numerous countries, it better get revoked soon before the great american patent machine starts rolling out lawsuits. For those unfamiliar with it, the EU had an until recently settled on not allowing companies the ability to patent software, only things that could be used for Commercial uses are patentable only in their current form so if say someone were to make a piece of software that did the same thing as another, the one holding the patent holder could sue regardless of if one is made differently from the other. The new directive allows companies to sue for any software whatsoever in this manner and in the longterm just serves to line companies pockets with endless lawsuits generating their revenue even if they havn't made the software described in the patents. This is bad for the open source movement which encourages the free exchange of ideas and functions to the benifit of the public as they will no doubt be stifled by countless lawsuits. Sadly was already the case in America and was pushed by American companies in the EU against our best interests. If you want to know more check out FFII for information on what's going on and the mailing list if you want to keep up.

Hello There

Sorry, I'd almost forgotten about you. It turns out that after 13 weeks apparently the job centre classes you as chronically unemployable and begins putting pressure on you to get a job and forces you to attend interviews. Buggery. HLJ have finally shipped me a new replacement head for my valkyrie so expect pictures of that at some point, maybe with panel lines too. I've begun recieving forms for my University accommodation in september when I'm off to Liverpool and hopefully the student loan forms should arrive soon too then I can start filling them all out.

I'm Sorry Flickr

I never doubted your greatness, I have just discovered that it does infact allow me to view my images full size and I was just too tired and/or silly at the time to notice it. Here's a sample of two decent pics I uploaded to it today:


New toy from Hobbylink Japan, a 1/48 Roy Focker Valyrie from Macross unfortunately the kit had a little problem in the fact that the black visor that goes into a socket in the head is completely missing. Very irritating indeed.

Also, parcelforce are wankers, I spent the mostpart of the last two days trying to contact parcelforce to try and get this thing delivered as it has a customs charge on it and they wouldn't release it without me paying for it, so I phone around trying to get the thing paid for and released and finally ended up with a depot number to phone, thank christ I thought. Phoning the number I realised this wasn't the end of my ordeal, the phone rings and rings until the 4 minute timeout kicks in and the phone disconnects itself from the call, they weren't answering. After much exasperation phoning this same number on day one I decided on day two to phone parcelforce and complain. They fobbed me off onto a poor guy in royalmail complaints, who was very understanding and helpful and he followed it all up, within 2 hours of me talking to this guy there was a courrier at my door asking for the customs charge brandishing my package. I don't know who the guy is or how he managed it but I'm very thankful that he did, I'd like to buy him a pint someday if I ever find out who he was.

I'm a Girl

Apparently, at least according to the Gender Genie and its analyses of my blog entries here. It's nice to know all these scientific studies going on are accurate and stuff. So, erm yes I kinda forgot to sign on on friday this week and now I'm slightly worried about what'll happen when I can get through to the jobcentre on monday as I was told they're implementing penalties for being late for your sign on day soon. I'm hoping a first offense wont be too bad and it'll all just roll around smoothly.

Another thing, on friday I apparently got a package in the mail but didn't answer the door so I looked through the online tracking system and no fucking wonder I didn't answer, they decided they'd try and deliver a package at five fucking am in the morning, how's that for service? "sir your package got to its destination ahead of time but nobody was there to collect it". Stupid stupid idea. Really.

I think this blog is starting to settle down now, I'm making regular contributions to it which is what I intended to do. I had a nice time last night at my cousins 18th birthday party, she's hopefully having lots of fun today with the presents she's gotten from various people. I'm still not touching my guitar, either a sign of laziness or apathy neither of which I'm happy with but nothing I can do about them either.

More Good News

Yesterday after much toil I finally sold my Ferox Battlecruiser and got back into a lovely new scorpion. Here she is in dock:

Now I have to get to work on getting lots of agent missions done, I need implants to sell for those killer modules to add to my ship. Need at least 2 to afford my intended setup then any more will contribute to buying me a Raven. Happy days eh?

Fun Few Days

I've been enjoying myself for the last few days, Monday night was an organised outing with everyone I work with including parents etc. Much getting drunk and munching on chinese food before starting a napkin whipping fight and being told by a bunch of students at another table to "grow up" which amused me greatly. Tuesday I went skirmishing for the first time in a while and had a lot of fun, I got asked to join the local team and accepted so I'm hoping to do lots more of it. Yesterday I was working hard but it was an ejoyable job so I didn't have a bad time, there was a nice american guy there who was playing guitar who reminded me I wanted to start teaching myself again after I lost interest at 15 because of crap teachers.

I'm now going to go back to working through my 4.5k track music colletion in alphabetical order, currently on Ash, long way to go then...

More Guns

And before I forget, I got a shiny new gun yesterday (well, second hand) a full stock M3 Super 90 Shotgun, I'm at a loss as to how I'm going to transport it to my regular airsoft site though.

Some Eve Screenshots

Well, since about October last year I've been playing a game called Eve, it's an MMORPG set in space with 3 civilisations descended from our galaxy who have survived stranded in the Eve galaxy after the wormhole that brought civilisation there closed unexpectedly. I thought I'd bring you some screenies of my playing experience and what I've been doing in there.

Firstly is my friend Alex in his nice Brutix Battlecruiser, a new ship class introduced in the most recent update to the game, Exodus.

This was taken during a mining operation long before I got a battleship, Minerals Mined can be refined and with the use of blueprints made into components and ships, the entire economy in Eve is player run, players build and sell things on the market with the exception of skill books which are used to train new skills.

Secondly, here's me on the same mining op in a Celestis, a less powerful Cruiser class ship which I selected mainly for it's capacity for missile carrying which all other ships of the same race lack in that class.

The use of missile slots though hinders my mining ability as I can't equip mining turrets to dig up those minerals. :)

Now is the Eve Radio Army, a regular excursion of players in frigates and newbie ships that goes out into follishly dangerous space and attacks things that frigates and newbie ships really shouldn't be attacking, it's great fun and worth a try just for its entertainment value. Lots of these so bear with it.

This is the group gathering prior to heading off into a nasty area.

More gathering.

This is us in the nasty area, not much to see yet.

This is with the UI showing on print screens, the thing in the middle that's dying is an enemy celestis, which, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear we killed. The red crosses on the scanner to the right represent hostile craft and purple ones represent the other ERA members in the gang.

This is the explosion of one of the enemy structures in search of an item that'll allow us to access the next level of the complex.

This is all of the members final resting places, the battleship the remaining players are orbiting took out most of us singlehandedly and as I was the first to open fire, I quickly attracted his attention and was the first to die on the second level.


Now are some pictures of my Scorpion battleship, which was a huge investment and I had for approximately a week and a half when I got caught out helping a Corp mate with a mission in low security space, I got jumped by two other battleships and an assault cruiser which is pretty much equal in stature to a Battlecruiser for most people.
This is me destroying an enemy tracking array on a mission.

And this is me watching my squad of heavy drones take down some other structure which I don't remember.


Now is me currently, in a Ferox Battlecruiser of my own, docked in a station. It's a good ship but I still miss my battleship. :(

Well Now

Today has been one of those days where I just don't feel like doing anything at all, Started off to try and complete a half finished model kit I've had sitting around for about a month which didn't work, played Eve for maybe an hour or so before deciding I wasn't in the mood, I converted a load of game screenshots to .jpgs for uploading and tried to send them to flickr only to find that the bastard thing resizes them on my free account and so my pictures were worthless. I've since been sat on my arse shouting at various people through IRC whilst listening to the Eels.

These are the kind of days that really worry me and make me dread being unemployed, at least if I had a job I'd have to force myself to do something at work but like this I really do feel like a lump. Writing this post is possibly the most constructive thing I've done all day apart from maybe making breakfast for myself and that really does bother me; but I'm so unenthused about how hard it is to find a job at the moment that I'm considering taking one of my dads friends up on his offer and start helping him do videotography, it's hard work but good pay and I'd be a lot more happy because he could give me a reference afterwards which, working for my parents, wont happen for my current job. In other happier news I got myself a new airsoft item in the mail today so I'll be quite happy in a few days when it arrives and I can have a play.

Finally

Some time to rest. Been decorating the living room all week as you may have gathered from earlier posts. There is currently a builder making alcoves in the wall and electrician reinstalling the switches my dad installed himself yesterday because they were cocked up.

I logged onto IRC yesterday to find a most pleasant link in one of my regular channels for a game called Darwinia, it is basically an RTS set in a computer, you use various "programs" as units with an interesting UI to "run" programs, the demo consists of you having to travel between 3 islands to fight various "virii" and activate mines that produce polygons and a refinery that makes them into primatives and from there you can build things with primatives I've gathered, although the demo doesn't let you do this. On the whole it's a very nice retro kitsch style game with overtones of tron and the like. Go download it now.

Cocks

I hate cocks, I also hate DIY. The combination of the two in the past few days have been a source of great frustration for me, my dad, acting like a cock, has recently been persitently pissing me off. Here's how my day begins usually: late start, spend 10-20 minutes checking the web quickly after waking up and reorientating myself, then I go downstairs have breakfast and wait for the onslaught of the day. Currently what is happening is: I wake up normally, my old man doesn't have the patience to wait my 10-20 minutes and thus has unplugged the cable modem so I can't check my websites quickly in the morning, this results in much swearing and frustration and then I take it out on him by taking double the time I would usually to get down and help him. So that means we're both in bad moods when I come down for the first meal of the day, an exchange much like below occurs

Dad:"Oh lord, theres a stranger in my house, call the police."
Me:"twat"


Now as a result of impatience, I've not only helped less because I came down later, I'm also fucking things up because I'm in a bad mood and so is he and in general productivity is totally decreased. If he can't see this he's fucking blind and I have no want or need to tell him anymore than I already have. I'm now going to mulch on my nuggets and chips from the takeaway place as everyone is too tired to cook.

NP: Stevie Nicks - If Anyone Falls

Hrm

Yes well, I've hardly had the stamina to keep up with this recently. I'm far too lazy/forgetful to continuall update this blog without making a conscious effort. I've been feeling kinda down lately as a result of not being able to find work in the whole 5 months I've been out of education and eligible for full time work. Finally got round to signing on in November after I realised my job searching efforts were going nowhere. I'm gonna be trying to post to this more often, less for anyone reading and more for myself to look back at and think about.

Finally, there's the fun part of this post, my christmas presents which came in the form of a PSAGT Style helmet, Tactical Vest and Pistol Holster From www.flecktarn.co.uk.

Also a present for myself, I bought myself another Colt meaning I now have a pair for akimbos.

I think that's about it now. It's time to go help my dad with his misguided attempts to redecorate our living room.

NP: Megadeth Hangar 18