Comics

So, I considered naming this post 'Comic Books' but then I changed my mind because that would make me try to decide what was a book and what wasn't. Therefore, I decided to change this one. When I read comics, I don't read them physically most of the time. I usually read them on the Comixology app on my iPod Touch. Now that I've lost my iPod Touch, I can't really do that any more so I have resorted to reading comics that I've borrowed from the library. It's the only way that I can really read comics because any comic shops that we have near me are pretty creepy.

Bulletstorm Review

So, I bought Bulletstorm in the Steam sale the other day and I decided to finish it really quickly. Once I started playing it, it wasn't all that hard to do. Bulletstorm is the best shooter I've played in quite a while. Bearing in mind that I have COD fatigue (which is basically just a fancy way of saying that I'm bored as hell of samey military shooters), I was really looking for a shooter that did something different. And Bulletstorm is definitely that shooter. 

Board Games

So, to begin, I used to be a fan of Monopoly. I don't feel that this needs an explanation because everybody knows what Monopoly is because... Ahh... It's Monopoly. It's the classic board game that people decide to play when they are feeling bored and don't want to watch TV or talk to other people.

I Gots A Busted Machine

So, tradegy has struck. My BackTrack machine has a busted something... After an update that I did the other day (fairly large because I hadn't updated for a few days at that point), I rebooted and got the usual terminal output that you usually see when booting linux. That all seemed fairly normal. But then, tor started to do a little bit of weirdness. Usually, it starts up with linux (or BT, at least) unlike a Vidalia style thing but it usually doesn't output all of it's stuff so verbosely so that you see how far through it's checks it is. So when it starts to do that, I though 'Oops...'

Etiquette [Part 3] - Just Help Out!

So, I love people. And messing with people. And socialising in general. You will see that in this post. With that, it's anecdote time.

I was walking home yesterday, probably at about 11:30 in the AM and I walked past an old woman trying to lug a big bag of what appeared to be cement up her garden path. She gave me a smile that was actually more like a grimace and I returned it. As I walked on, I thought: 'That's a pretty huge path...' and it was. It was probably 20 feet long and at a 55 or 60 degree angle. I instantly asked myself how the hell she was going to get up there with that bag and felt kind of bad. So I backtracked a little and offered her my help to carry it up the path. She accepted, thanked me and I got on with it. I lugged it up the path with an iota of the effort that it seemed to be taking her and she thanked me. We chatted for a second then I took off, waved goodbye and felt good about myself.

All I am saying in this small post is just help out. If you see somebody struggling with something, just help them out. They're not going to kill you (I hope...) and they'll probably thank you for it.

Don't You Just Love Education?

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As a weekly thing, students at our college have a bulletein emailed to them which alerts them of any interesting things that are happening at the college in the week. Check out a couple of choice slides from the most recent one.

 

'Old' Music

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So, of late I have been listing to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code. You can go and Google that if you want to know what it’s all about but it’s basically just a radio show that’s streamed live and then podcasted. It’s open source and he takes songs that have been dropped in people’s dropboxes and plays those, which replaces the call-in feature of a normal radio show. I started listening to it because I had heard on No Agenda that he had started back up again and even though I didn’t listen to it before he stopped; I thought I’d give it a try.

I listened to the latest one which was his ‘tribute to the fallen’ episode. He played loads of music from folks that he missed (who were obviously dead) and because he worked in radio and TV for ages, he had stories about a bunch of them. I didn’t really know what to expect going in because I’d never heard the show before and in the opening, he mentioned that he was drunk. Good times!

I really liked it but not just because of the show itself; I loved the music that he played. Stuff like ‘I Can Dream About You’ by Dan Hartman and ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong. Music that I’d heard of but never actually heard myself. I made myself push on the couple of tracks that I didn’t like but the good thing is that, with it being a podcast, if you don’t like a song you just fast forward the show: bonus! Because of this, I found a bunch of amazing songs that I have added to my Easy Listening playlist and now listen to all of the time.

This just reinforces my philosophy of musical diversity. If you only listen to one genre then you are severely limiting yourself. If you like music instead of only liking rap or metal, you will find music that can suit any mood that you’re in. Maybe it’s just me who finds that music helps them to change their mood but I’m pretty sure that others feel the same way.  In that case, you can use jazz to relax and metal to amp yourself up or some combination thereof. Today’s message is basically ‘Enjoy All Music!’ which I think is simple enough to understand. Go and broaden your horizons, folks!