Maddy

Yesterday while short on ideas I 'blogged' about Sarah. Clearly jealous about this Maddy demanded it be her today. So I complied.

This is Maddy. She's from Canadia and has awesome hair.

Maddy r cool!!!

Ciao

xox

Sarah

I haven't been very creative recently so I asked for an idea from Sarah. She failed so I have no choice but to...

This is Sarah. Say hello to Sarah.

She's hardcore.

Ciao xox

Not In The Mood

I'm not in the mood to blog tonight so I'll just leave you with this

Heroes!

This was obviously going to be the blog tonight. Heroes: Fugitives resurfaced onto BBC this week so I watched it. And then the second one.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who Sky Plus'd it but it was *high pituch* awesome. I really can't go into much detail but all you need to is that the legend is back, and he is kicking ass. Sylar's going all 'Saw' on everyone so I guess this series is going to be amazing.

SYLAR!

Ciao

xox

ID Please

A quick apology for not blogging in a while. I've had really bad migraines the last few days which and last night I was at Kezi's party. Which was awesome, by the way.

Anyway, back to the real point of this blog, IDs. On my bus based voyage home I popped into Forbidden Planet to see the price of Call of Duty: World at War. £40 was an acceptable price but I though I may be able to get a cheaper price at GAME. I skip walked over to GAME and looked through their games, and as I predicted it was only £35, saving me a cheeky fiver. Feeling like I was being thrifty with my money I head to the checkout to hear the words that have haunted me for so long: 'You got an ID, mate.' I never carry ID, I can't be bothered and being known as John Doe would be cool for a while.

A tad defeated over how I couldn't show I was over 15 and trekked onwards until 30 seconds later I saw HMV. Oh, how I do love His Masters Voice. They are so lose with the IDs. Don't often get 18's there but everything else has been easy to get. Since abotu 12 they've given me 15's, and in the summer I got an 18 off them though last week they wanted proof I was 18. Back to the story, so I snook into the store, grabbed the game (which was £40 here) and stealthily approached the checkout. The guy was more than happy to serve me. I believe he is well aware of the economic situation so is happy to bring any money in.

So there it is. The story of how I got Call of Duty: World at War, not very exciting but there it is.

Ciao

xox

You Slut!

It's unlikely you'll have heard of this band but I reckon it's still very much worth a listen. It's MyBloodyJesusExplorerOnFire by You Slut! To quote a dear friend on why they are so amazing is because: 'Cuz they're so fudgin riff-tastic.'

Which pretty much sums them up in a line. And in even better news they are Nottingham/Derby local so I could even go see them live!

That is all for tonight, children

Ciao

xox

Not Much

Not going to be much of a blog tonight. I have a migrain, I reckon I'm dehydrated. I've been running around for two hours playing Korfball, didn't score tonight but I think I set up two goals. We beat Notts Uni 7-5. I'm really quite tired so I'll be going soon. In more nerdy news I got level 20 on Fallout 3 which meant three Silver Trophies.

Ciao

xox

Grindcore

As I progress deeper into the subgenres of metal I am discovering more and more interesting stuff. The most recent discovery of mine is Grindcore.

I am not sure what sets Grindcore apart from the other Core genres but I still really like it. I think what makes 'Grind' is the disembowlment references. Not quite sure exactly why but all the songs sound gory. Not sure in what way exactly I get the feeling of gore and blood and such but it is the feeling that comes of it.

Enjoy the music

Ciao

xox

I Don't Want To Set It On Fire

You don't need to watch the above video as the image stays the same throughout. Just click play and listen.

Most of you will have realised I have been playing Fallout 3 quite a bit over the last weeks. If you are not sure what it is then check my previous blog Three Dog Fever. I'll assume you now know what I am on about so I will carry on.

This hame is absolutely fantastic, and while playing a marathon run of it today to finish up all the quests (only The Nuka-Cola Challenge left) the largest factor for this became obvious. The atmosphere you play the game in. You really do feel it is a post-apocalyptic world. The game map takes up a considerable chunk of Washington D.C. and is accurately map as such.   Though it takes up a massive of what is currently massively populated the game is quite empty. It has areas of dense activity such as around the Washington Memorial and all the political areas, but venture outside of them and you have huge expanses of nothing. It takes about 5-10 minutes to jog between these areas.

As well as the enrivonment there is one other massive factor that helps you get into the game. G. N. R. Or Galaxy News Radio to you lesser mortals. GNR is the main radio station in Fallout 3. The Enclave, the bad guys who are acting under 'President' Eden, but there music is mainly patriotic rubbish with a load of Brahmin-shit propaganda. GNR plays old pre-War music as well as the ramblings of Three Dog, the local disc jockey. The music played truly adds to the game as so much of the game is created in the style of 1950's perfect family America. Everything from the Pip-Boy (your inventory and general Role-Playing Game options), the loading screens and the Vaults themselves which make up a crucial part of the story-line. The above song is my favourite from the game and when this song is played about once every hour it very quickly gets stuck in your head. Using simple laws of averages I must have heard it at least 35 times, and it never loses it's appeal.

I'll be doing some work experience this week so that might be blogged about tomorrow

Ciao

xox

The Aim

I'm getting my haircut on Monday, by someone who I hope is half compontent. The aim is to grow it as long as I can before school tries to stop me

His hair, that's the goal :)

Want That

This weeks must have item is the Gomboc. To see what it does all you need to do is watch the first twenty seconds of the above video.

All it really does is right is self right itself to the same exact point from no matter where you let it go from. It's called a mono monostatic item and required a large amount of mathematics to figure out. If any of the sides are out of proportion by a hundreth of a millimetre the Gomboc won't right it self to the same position everytime.

To put it bluntly, I want one. Even though it may be quite simple in it's appearance I'm pretty sure it would ammuse me for ages.

Ciao

xox 

Download

Slipknot are playing at Download. I am going somehow. We want everyone to go.

That is all that is needed for this blog. Everything else has been made redundant.

Ciao

xox

SuperConductivity

This is going to be a short blog as it is quite late and I want to go and get some sleep.

This evening we had a lecture on Superconductivity by Prof. Adrian Porch. While some didn't seem to enjoy the lecture I found it really good as Physics is where most of my interest lies and superconductivity is an aspect of solid state physics that is still not fully understand. To those unaware, superconductivity is when a metal, or metal compound is cooled down to a point where it has an electrical resistance of zero. This means that it has no heat loss when a current is passed through it and can induce magnets to create levitation.

It was a good lecture as I finally got to learn the theory behind what happens during this bizarre phenomena. If I weren't pursuing a medical career then Physics would be where I was going and this would probably be something I'd look at. If I get lucky then I get a Noble prize. 

My brains been worked today, so I need to rest it.

Ciao

xox

Music

The above video is What The Buck's take on the Grammy's very much worth a watch as everything Buckley does makes me laugh.

Many of you reading this will know my music and a lot of you have your hate for it. Consisting mainly of Metal, Heavy through to Core, with a tiny bit of Classic Rock in there out of respect for the legends. Throw in a bit of Screamo, Deathcore and some other stuff I've stolen from the interweb and you have my music collection.

Those that hate on it seem to have many excuses for it. I'll list a few and point out why they are wrong.

'I can't hear the words.' That isn't true if you actually listen. Their are times when lyrics get muddled in your head when the sylables mix up and swap over as they can speak to fast at time. Such as in Eyeless I couldn't work out what was being said in the line 'You can't see California without Marlon Brando's eyes.' I was not expecting Marlon Brando to be mentioned so it took me a while to work it out. Though with pretty much every other song I can hear every word. Wait And Bleed as even during the heaviest parts the words are quite obvious. The same applies for Screamo as even in the most tortured parts of Chelsea Smile, it's very obvious what he's saying.

'It's not music.' It clearly is.It has all the traits of music, even if you think it's bad music. Your still saying it's music. I say what you listen to is crap, but I admit it's music.

'It's just noise.' This has one of two answers. Either that all music is just noise as when you look at it, that's all it is. The other answer is no, it isn't. If music isn't just noise then this isn't. All of the stuff I listen to takes skill to play, ok, except for Swallow The Sun. Pick any song I like on my iPod and I guarantee you couldn't play any of it, except for Humphries on the drums. You can't call them talentless if you can't do it.

Enough of a rant, I just felt like posting some music links. Tomorrow should be a much better blog.

Ciao

xox

Dear Mrs Matthews

I wish to express an interesting in producing an EPQ.

I feel that taking part in the EPQ project will help with the development of my independent learning. Having to manage myself into producing a high quality document within a manageable timescale with minimal assistance will help me to improve my time management skills, ability to process information, essay writing ability and the style in which I independently learn. I believe all of these will be an asset to me in later life, especially during my studies at universities.

For my project I plan to investigate the science of cybernetics. Cybernetics is the combination of flesh and technology with the aim, generally, to improve the quality of the limb. Over the course of the EPQ I hope to learn about the history of cybernetics, the current development and the possible future advancements jut beyond the horizon. I am also interested to look at the difficulties and ethics surrounding the possible symbiotic of human and robotics in one person.

I understand that producing an EPQ is not a decision to be taken lightly so I have looked at the possible qualities I possess that will allow me to complete the EPQ at a high standard. I have a background fascination with robotics, cybernetics and artificial intelligence so I already an existing desire to learn about the subject. I can be very committed to certain projects which will allow me to dedicate specific time to completing sections of the EPQ. I also have high personal standards surrounding my work so I am unlikely to submit anything that I am unhappy with and this should lead to a high quality final project.

Yours sincerely,

Liam Dodd

Trophies

If you are aware of trophies and what they mean then skip to the next paragraph. For the rest of you I'll explain. Trophies are awarded for specific actions done in game. They are currently meaningless but rumours from Sony and from many of the major developers suggest that in the future they could have a meaning. Most games have about 50 trophies ranging through Bronze, Silver and Gold, with there being a few Gold for hard achievements, a few more silvers for mediocre achievements and many bronze's for stuff you have to do or that is very easy. There is also a Platinum on all Retail Games which is achieved for unlocking all other trophies

Why you may ask, am I blogging about them today? The answer is that they are the hugest double-edged sword on the PS3. They add longevity to games, they create a reason to play the extra bits and even venture online. On the otherside, once you have all the trophies for a game you're most likely to put it down and are unlikely to play it again. The last major problem for them is that they are addictive. If you manage to avoid them for a while the desire to get them never really surfaces, but if you were part of the group that began collecting them on release then you'll have entered a spiralling world of addiction.

It really doesn't suprise me when I think about it as I have an addictive personality. I played RuneScape at a high level for way too long, and only got out of it because I switched to PS3. I'm very bad at losing addictions, I just seem to hop between them. Today seemed to prove it as I spent 20 minutes clicking  and  until my Karma had changed enough to get the trophies I needed. And note how I write need rather than want. Hopefully with Killzone 2 drawing me online, and only having 4 online trophies, I will finally kick this habit.

Ciao

xox

Sporadic Sunday Conversations

To put it bluntly, me and Alice have no lives. On a Sunday of course.

When Sunday comes around it is a novelty of a day as it is the only day of the week we have no school. You would think that we'd go out, be social or just do something exciting. But that isn't the case.

Neither me, or Alice, do anything specific on a Sunday except lounge around in relative proximity to our laptops. This leads to days of Sporadic Sunday Conversations (as aptly names by Alice) which lead to very little.

The conversations mainly consist of greetings, Alice commenting on ow fat she feels, and then descending into comments of how we really should be working. Exciting I know, but you'd be suprised how entertaining they can be when you are doing very little else. I could say they were the highlight of my Sunday but unfortunately that would be lie. As even though I love them, Lost consumes me too greatly.

So, that explains what happened today, the last few Sundays, and most likely the next few Sundays. So the next few weeks of Sundays with be direct, with love, from Alice

Ciao

xox

Excuses

Sorry about being unable to blog yesterday. My brother turned 11 yesterday so for his birthday had 3 friends over for a sleepover. Three is enough to drive me nuts.

I just decided to hide up in my room out of the way rather than go anywhere near them, though they were on my PS3 playing Guitar Hero: World Tour and kept asking me to help them with either finishing songs or with setting stuff up.

I know it's a poor excuse but I hope you enjoyed Sarah's little filler.

Now back to a real blog, covering songs. Covering songs, to those who live under rocks, is basically just playing someone else's songs. They are generally done in three different styles. Interprative covers such as William Shatner's rendition of Rocket Man originally by Elton John. Repeats which are just the same song by a different band and the best of all of them, the Ronson Cover.

I call it the Ronson Cover as Mark Ronson is the guy who has done it with the most profits. He's not the first or the last to do it but he is the guy I will remember for doing it. I was on the topic of covers as yesterday I downloaded 'Heavy Rock/Metal Covers' which is about 700 normal songs covered by Metal bands. Everthing from Sex Bomb by Megadeath to Eyeless by Bring Me The Horizon, it covers everything.

While listening to them I began to look for more and found loads of other covers I feel are worth a mention. I detest Avenged Sevenfold, as I which they would do something original, but the USC's Marching Bands version is absolutely brilliant. Cornershop's song Brimful of Asha was pretty good but Fatboyslim fixed it up to something quite amazing. My last one I'm going to cover today is by far the greatest of all covers. Travis Barker is the legendary drummer of Blink-182 is much cooler than the band he was in and since the band has ended has basically just pissed around. In his cover and remix of Crank That he manages to turn the most annoying hip-hop around into something that is highly amusing. Check it below.

Ciao

xox

I'll Explain Tomorrow

Due to circumstances I'll explain tomorrow I am unable to write a proper blog tonight. Instead, Sarah has kindly offered her wisdom instead.

'Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.'

Until tomorrow

Ciao

xox

Killzone 2

This was quite obviously going to be the blog of today. Even the non-Nerds will have heard of it, except Sarah the Fool, as it has had adverts lately, been the talk of the internet, and all those at school will have heard all of us talking about it.

The demo came out today and after about 5 hours of downloading it finally downloaded I got play twenty minutes of it. And they twenty fucking fantastic minutes.

You're dropped straight into the middle of the ISA's attempt to take the beach at a Helghan landing (which I believe to be an inside joke at the Medal of Honor games which always used to open with a beach landing year afer year). By dropped, I should say crashed. The vechile you were riding took damage as you approached and as such you crash into the beach, just down from the main attack. You run forward to rendevous with Echo group and as soon as you turn the first corner you see three Helghast massacring four of your own. You get to make the first kill of the game, and you get to make three.

After taking to cover and killing a few more Helghast you move around to try and destroy the bridge. I took out two of them from far away with a little scope and hope and then moved onto cover. As I turned around another corner I saw muppet standing there with an RPG waiting to get shot. I felt like saving him but watching he get filled with lead was funnier. The RPG destroyed the bridge in a beautiful fray of rolling flames and twisted metal.

I'll let those who haven't yet experienced the demo find out what happens next.

Before I had even finished the level I had spoke to Ben (who had played the level through 6 times) and he was commenting on the genius of the AI. I'd heard this too but seeing as enemy AI usually has no recognisable intelligence, people may be overreacting. They weren't.

This AI doesn't want to die, which is a lovely change from normal kazikame action of the Call of Duty series. They run around between cover a lot making it possible to pick them off in transit easily but once he bullets come towards them they duck behind cover, which is where there genius comes in. The second time through I wanted to see what they actualy did so I just ducked and watched them. A Helghast legged it fom the back of the truck he deployed, made a few shots and then began to take fire. He moved to take cover behind a small wall. Once there he sat there for a few seconds. He then blind fired over the top, which caused my ISA men to duck, and then he moved to a better position. Actually, he tried to because I put a bullet between eyes before he could crouch.

Tomorrow, I promise a non-Nerd blog

Ciao

xox

Snow

Anyway who hasn't heard (how is that Vault?) it snowed in Britain this week. These few inches of snow closed down most of Britain. The two days of closure apparently cost us £2 billion, cost the London Underground a few million and basically proved we are pathetic.

When I sat in my room on Sunday evening I was messaged by Pete, who sounded very excited, questioning me about the amount of snow I had received. At this time it was just a few sprinkles but it was still snow. An hour or two later a very happy Alice messaged me with 'SNOW!!!!' I was going to agree this time.

It was snowing properly but putting my usual pessimism on the situation I expected the snow to be gone by the morning. I guess I was wrong. It snowed almost all night and a few inches of snows were left on the ground in the morning. Turning on the news showed me that the whole country had had snow, and most of it had shut down. It was embaressing to be British.

We have one of the most stable climates in Europe yet a little variation throws us off. Our brethen across the pond would merely brush off less then 12" of snow, yet an inch in London closes everything. Schools wer closed across the country because it was slippy while it would have to the Day After Tomorrow for a Canadian friends school to close. This country is pathetic.

My final point may seem a bit cold but it has to be made. Yesterday a girl died in a sledging accident. The first thing I did after reading this story was what the hell was she doing. She is apparently an intelligent girl, so how did she think it was a good idea for her and six of her friends to get in an upturned car roof and plough down a hill. Even if you were to do it, wouldn't you check what was at the bottom of the hill. A few barbed wire fences would be something that make me change my trajectory. My last point is that even if I had seen a nice clean path and then saw stuff was going on and we were heading towards a fence the first thing I would think to do is dive off the makeshift sledge. Just sitting and watching a fence charge towards would make me jump just as a primitive instinct.

To sum this up into one line, 'Britain has turned to shit, we are now pathetic.'

Ciao

xox

Fangirls

Any who has visited any gaming related site will be aware of Fanboys. To those who are unaware of them then this is the definition given by Wiktionary:

Noun: (fandom) Someone (normally male) who is utterly devoted to a single subject or hobby, often to the point where it is considered an obsession.

Which pretty much sums it up perfectly. These are people who refuse to debate the topic of which console is better and instead shout unfounded claims such as 'All Playstation3 games are brown!!!' or 'Online gaming sucks on the PS3!!!' They have very low intelligence and basically ruin all the forums for us, Playfire is a great example.

Enough about Fanboys, this blog was called Fangirls. In recent communications I discovered that there is a female version of Fanboys, and they are not just female geeks. The male is always considered the more perverted of the sexes but it seems these Fangirls get very worked up about certain guys, usualy from famous bands of the time.

The example I was given was Oli Sykes. Very few will be aware of who he is which is a shame as he's from a pretty awesome band, Bring Me The Horizon. I guess they fit into the Deathcore genre as you can see from Pray for Plagues (see below) but you don't really get a very good image of him so I added a quick link here. Any girls who read this, that means you Alice, can decde whether he is hot or not, all I know is that he has awesome tattoos including a High Five tattoo.

So there it is, a lesson in Fangirls.

Ciao

xox

Touch Typing

I was wondering i I dwas able to touch type so I c=decided to write this whole blog without actually looking at the keyboard to see if I canactually rouch type or ot.. It look like I canp;t but I;m enjoting tying.

I was wondering if I was able to touch type so I decided to write the whole blog without actually looking at the keyboard to see if I can actually touch type or not. I looks like I can't but I'm enjoying trying.

Not bad to be honest. Sorry for such a poor blog though. Sarah's promised something good for tomorrow.

Caio

xox

Zoso

Those four symbols are some of the most famous in the music world. They represent the name of Led Zeppelin's fourth album (referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, Four Symbols or Zoso). Those outside the Classic Rock bubble may be unaware of them but they still represent a huge amount for a lot of people. IV contained Led Zeppelin's most famous song, Stairway To Heaven.

Why am I bringing this up at this time, because of tattoos. I was earlier talking to Maddy about lip piercings, specifically snakebites, so when the time to blog came along the only thing on my mind was body modifications. I wasn't going to blog about snakebites but I decided against it, and consider yourself lucky as I was going to also show you how to give someone a split tongue. Instead I thought I'd blog about my desire to get a tattoo.

Incase you hadn't worked it out by now, those are the four symbols I want tattooed across my shoulder blade. I took a while to try and find a picture onthe internet and found almost exactly what I was looking for. This is an almost exact match to where I want it (this shows it in respect to the back).

Blog over, not particuarly fascinating or humourous but just something I wanted to write. Tomorrow, how to cut someones tongue in half

Ciao

xox