2005

I’ve just been reading through some stuff and got so distracted that I forgot where I was.
For no longer than 30 seconds I thought that I was sat at the computer desk at home next to the stairs. Then somebody signed onto MSN and I crashed back into the present.
Pretty crazy experience.

Too Serious for Facebook.

1.) I don’t talk to anybody I went to primary school with.
2.) I had a lot of hate at secondary school and I vented most of it on the wrong people.
3.) I feel fortunate to still have one person from secondary school that I can still call a friend.
4.) When I stopped to think about it, there’s only one other person from secondary school who I would still like to call a friend.
5.) I made my friends for life at college; we’ve shared more good times than anyone else ever could.
6.) I regret not trying to acheive better things in college, it would have been nice to go to a recognised university but I love my course here and I’m really enjoying it.
7.) I don’t really get along with most people I know from university but the ones that I do get along with are awesome.
8.) It worries me that some people my age know what they want to do when they leave university.
9.) The best things I have learnt whilst at university have been self taught and practised in the kitchen. I bloody love cooking.
10.) Having been at university my relationship with my parents has improved and I’m glad of this. I reckon my parents are the most socially acceptable out there.
11.) I’d love to write a book of publishable quality at some stage of my life.
12.) I’d like to see at least one of my friends make it big and be there to congratulate him when it happens.
13.) I am overly into listening to music and buying CDs.
14.) I like Marvel over DC. I don’t care about the arguments for or against either. I grew up watching X-Men and Spiderman cartoons, and I found them much better than the Batman and Superman equivalents.
15.) People should always be forgiven for what they do when they are drunk or otherwise inebriated.

I’m not going for the full 25 that occurs on Facebook for the following reasons: I don’t want to.
I didn’t want to put this onto Facebook because I don’t like the notes and the tagging of people in them. It reminds me too much of the bulletin function on MySpace.
Well, anyway there you go. 15 (interesting/unknown/boring) things about me.

The Best Album of ‘08

Unlike people in the film industry who claim that the first film out in the new year is the best film of the year, I like to wait until I’ve heard the best of what a year has to offer before I share what I feel the best album of the past year has been.

There are only two real candidates in my mind, and they are:
The Subways – All or Nothing
Foals – Antidotes

According to Metacritic Antidotes made it to Number 5 in Filter and NME and All or Nothing doesn’t even get a mention. So, according to the public of the two, the better is clearly Antidotes.
I would be inclined to agree, but All or Nothing takes it for me. It has a wider range of styles and is what comes close to my perfect album.

Rockband

I was having a debate recently about the Rockband and Guitar Hero series with someone I know. I was arguing that neither of them requires skill or intelligence to play, which might be somewhat of an exaggeration but I’ll explain my point momentarily. My opposition was completely against what I was saying and felt that you needed both skill and intelligence to play such games.

My point is not that anyone can play these games, although at one stage I did argue that a Chimpanzee could learn to play such a game, but rather those people who do play them do not show any signs of skill or intelligence in playing. This can be read in two ways I would imagine; am I suggesting that all people who play Rockband are retarded, or that two copy something which is presented to you does not require skill or intelligence. My opposition obviously found a break here and began arguing that the better you are at the game the more skill you have showing that you must need a certain level of skill to play the game.

Skill
I imagine everyone knows the set up of the “band” video games. In the case of the guitar you have a plastic controller shaped like a guitar with some coloured buttons in place of frets and a plastic flap in place of strings; so it resembles a guitar but isn’t all much like one. Now for the actual playing of the controller; you have to push the flap up or down and press one of the coloured buttons when it appears at a certain point on the screen. That then is the skill of the game. To press a button and push a flap when you are told to. Doing what you are told is a skill; being able to copy on a screen is a skill. Does anybody know where I can get a chimpanzee and test my theory out? Or better yet, does anybody want to donate one to a good cause?
After some research I’ve found that actually chimpanzees are propbably better at playing instruments than some bands that the music industry has recently produced.

Intelligence
Skill then is the ability to do as you are told so where lies the intelligence in the game? Oh, of course it’s being able to do as you are told! If I couldn’t get a chimp on Rockband, I sure-as-hell could get a primary school student to play it more competently than some of the people on youtube do.

This left my opposition in somewhat of a ditch. Skill and intelligence are the same thing, so you can’t possibly need both to play Rockband; one would do. Middle ground, half way between both of our positions would seem like a good place to stop. He didn’t seem to think so and quickly decided to change my mind about what my point was. Suddenly I was saying that all computer games don’t need skill or intelligence, which quickly moved onto all games; which I know isn’t true seeing as I am a huge fan of strategy games. Which left me feeling that I had been somewhat straw manned. Still, any views; does Rockband, or Guitar Hero require skill and intelligence?

Intelligence

I met the parent of a friend recently and it really got me wondering about hereditary traits and the one that really got me was whether or not people can be born with a ‘natural’ intelligence.

‘Natural’ Intelligence
It didn’t take too long for me to recognise that this isn’t really what would happen whether intelligence levels are hereditary or not because to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever given birth to an intelligent baby. It’s got to be noted than by intelligence there I actually mean something more along the lines of knowledge. So I decided that you probably don’t have facts about the world passed down to you from your parents genes and that you’re not born intelligent but then I moved on to think about something else.

The Ability to Learn
As I said, I don’t believe that anybody has ever given birth to a knowledgable baby but I’m more than sure that there are some babies that learn a hell of a lot faster than others, perhaps giving off an impression of being intelligent without actually having that intelligence but just a faster learning ability. That quickly led me onto maturity but I’m going to leave that for another time. Assuming that some children learn faster than others, how is it that they come to do so? Is it a part of their genetic code that was gained from their parents or is it something that they have learned to do? The latter of these two options seems far too circular for me so I’ve come to the conclusion that there is probably some genetic ability to learn, which moved me onto my final point, for this post anyway.

Why Are There Stupid People?
Now if my ponderings have any holding at all and that the ability to learn is hereditary then why do in every day life we find the general public to be so dense. Is it because the stupid gene is dominant? If this is the case then I wonder what went wrong in evolution to encourage it. Or is it that there is more than just a stupid/smart distinction. Perhaps there is another category, the one that certain individuals fall into that makes the actually smart general public appear to actually belong to the stupid category.

Untitled

It was somewhat confusing to come back here after such a long absense to find that everything has been moved around a bit.

Anyway, after several attempts at a return to blogging there is nothing left to do but try it again. One post a week, probably as many readers as well. This thing had a reason to exist once, now it just sits here clogged up without meaning. Hopefully I can get a real revival going even if it is just to practise my writing.

Here’s to, hopefully, a future on the net.

=?

=A =B =C =D =E =F =G =H =I =J =K =L =M
=N =O =P =Q =R =S =T =U =V =W =X =Y =Z

Anyone got any good definitions for the less obvious ones?
I like =M “OMGI’MABIRD”

And “TOASTERFACE”

University Pondering.

I’ve heard that everyone goes to Uni and do all these crazy things:

Drink ‘Til You Can’t See.
Take Up Smoking.
Acquire A Filthy Drug Habbit.
Get A Tattoo.
Get A Piercing.
Sleep With Everyone You Meet.
Drink ‘Til You Can’t See.

And I’m sure there are plenty more that I can’t be bothered to list. So being in my second year now, I’ve done at least two of the above, but it seems that everyone does these things just to fit in with what other people think about University life. Nobody can seriously enjoy the smoking, or drug habbit. Piercings and tattoos are only going to get old and irritating after a few years. Sleeping with everyone you meet is only going to end six feet under as well.
Why do people believe that everyone goes to uni’ just ro ruin their lives?

I’m Late

But fuck it; I’ve had things to do. From now, I’m going to try and stick to my word.

So let’s begin!

My Favourite Excuses

A list of the best and worst excuses people have made to avoid going out.

“I’m not going to come out if you’re only going to go to the pub.”
“My girlfriend’s hampster had a brain tumour and we had to put it down.”
“I’m waiting for a better offer.”
“It’s my mum’s birthday.”
“I have to return some video tapes.”
“My mum is angry at me and I have to tidy my room before I’m allowed anywhere.”
“My parents are coming home from holiday and I have to do some washing.”
“I’m washing my hair.”
“I have to have a blood test for EB.”
“It’ll take me an hour to get there and an hour to get back and it’s just not worth it.”