Meh

Well, I'm quite chuffed. Looks like I was right about Vista. Look. Seems no one else wants it yet either. What I am thinking about getting tho, is an external hard disk, I need one for backup. I'm just trying to decide weather to build my own or buy one pre-built. I'm doing Dandy one soon, so Ill see how that goes. I haven't done a lot recently, just been playing the new Guitar Hero Jam got on Friday. Its super cool, has a wireless controller, and he already had the controller from the last one, so now we have 2 player. It has a much better selection of songs on as well, seems they've got more record industry backing this time. I'm now downloading all the songs from it, cos some of them are very catchy.

I also saw the Hitman film last night, that was pretty odd. For those who don't game, Hitman is a series of computer games about a genetically engineer super assassin called 47, who you play, and you have a series of missions to kill various people in various exotic locations. You can do so employing stealth or violence, or an mixture of the two. You get rated on how successfully you complete the mission and given appropriate amounts of cash to buy new tools for the next level. Its one of my favourite games. I was worried the translation into film would ruin it, and admittedly, it wasn't great, but it wasn't awful. The script was corny and barely had any dialogue at all, the characters were completely flat, and the plot very simple. But the cast was good, and there was a lot of stylish action. But It did leave me disappointed, it felt more like a trailer for a film then a actual film, since barely any plot or characters were exposed. Never the less, I don't regret watching it and recommend it to fans of action and the games.

I doubt I'm going to write much on here for the next week, cos Ive got a lot of work due in at the end of the week and next week, since its near end of term.

New year, new OS?

For:

• It looks pretty
• The Beta version I had before XP ran ok, and its improved since then.
  
• I can have more then 3.5GBs of RAM
• and DirectX 10 graphics.
  
• I'm going to have to get used to it's new layout and style because: its the future.
• I know my hardware will work with it, because Ive used it before (apart from my wireless dongle which I don't think will work with it, but their cheap)
  
• SP1 is nearly here
• It actually works, Ive used it on Jam's PC, hes had for about 2 months now, and it hasn't gone horribly wrong.
• I don't have to buy it, cos the university gave it too me for free and legal!
• I can show off.
• It has Mahjong, which makes me feel warm inside.
  

Against:

• It asks for admin privileges every time you change any settings or install anything
• It makes annoying sounds.
  
• XP runs fine with 2GB of RAM, so do I really need 4GB if I'm not going to run Vista anyway?
• Vista might work with 2GB RAM, but I'm not sure, so Id probably have to buy more RAM which is an extra expense. But I get a free copy of Vista, so that's the only cost.
• I will probably have to wipe my PC and reinstall everything.
• Something might not work with it.
• It uses up a lot of RAM, so some games may go slower.
• Do I really need DirectX 10? I find it very hard to see any actual difference, except smoke and water look a bit better. And although I wouldn't be using the DX10, a new graphics card on XP would still give a massive performance boost, which is what I need.
  
• It takes up more room on my hard disk then XP does.
• Its still not as tried and tested as XP, so I may still find software I need doesn't work.
• My wireless dongle won't work with it (but their cheap and I got Jam one that does support Vista so I know where I can get one).
• No IE6 or Media Player 9, I would be forced into having IE7 and MP11, which are both total wank! (but not a big problem, since I use Firefox and VLC now anyway)
• I'm not nearly as familiar with it as XP, so if something goes wrong, will I be able to fix it as easily? (Although, this could be seen as a plus because it means I get to learn to fix Vista)

Conclusion:
At the moment, I think I'm going to keep my university copy of Vista Business, but not install it, and wait, until I'm sure. Because at the moment, I think Vista is mostly vanity, there is no real underlying need for it, and its new demands on my system and my brain don't sound appealing at the moment. But I'm pretty sure some day Ill have to use it, probably on my next PC.

Fun Blog

Ok, hopefully this blog should be a bit more jolly then most, since Ive found some amusing websites:

Face transformer - Lets you upload a picture and muck about with it, quite amusing too see what you look like as an ape man.

Portal Cat ^_^

Aberystwyth man crushed under house full of rubbish - Ok, so some people might not find this funny, but I just found it a bit odd, and wondered if that might happen when someone next stays in the spare bedroom...

Jellyfish launch assault on Salmon fortress - Lol, I just thought it was funny, that even the fish in Northern Ireland are at war with each other.... I think their just in a power struggle now Ming, the Mighty 400 year old clam Warlord, is dead.

The ultimate children's character, made by Zippy...

MOO - A very trippy animation about cows, with some quite cool music. It gets better near the end so I recommend watching it through if your interested. Quite gorey as well, I wonder if the maker eats meat?

My poor computer

Me and my computer have separated after a few days of spending too long together, and I'm now having an affair with this university workstation. It is a cruel mistress, which I had to "manually power cycle" after it wouldn't recognise my portable HD. Oh well, its being compliant now. And too add to my computers woes, I'm downloading two things that will punish it for failing me graphically in Crysis: Vista and Unreal Tournament 3 Beta. I'm downloading Vista, because as regular readers will know, I plan to upgrade once I get my mitts on a better graphics card, and I get a free copy of Vista Business edition off the university, so I might as well take it. Unreal Tournament 3, I'm just downloading just because I really want to prove to myself that my graphics card is rubbish and I have to buy a new one soon. I would use my home PC to download these, but I fear my housemates might batter me to death if I try to download 3GBs of stuff in the middle of the evening, so I thought Id rinse the University's net connection instead.

Crysis was good. I recommend it to anyone whose into pretty shooting things games. I finished it yesterday after 48 hours of hiding away with it. I managed to get quite a lot of work done as well. I'm feeling quite chuffed in a way. I haven't finished a computer game Ive bought in years, but then this seemed very short. But I think the fun of Crysis is that you can replay it a million times, because its levels are so large, there are so many different ways of doing things. Its very open ended, unlike most the console games Ive seen Jam play recently (CoD 4 and Halo 3), so its definitely getting replayed in DX10.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe overclocking my current graphics card might make things a bit better for now. I read an article about it, it doesn't sound that hard, although there is a risk of system instability and heat damaging the thing. Also, I'm not sure if I should add more RAM when I upgrade to Vista, because I read a lot of conflicting things about how much RAM it really needs. I had a Beta (RC2) Vista on my box before I put XP on it, and that ran ok with my 2GB of RAM. But some say you need 4GB, Jams has 4GBs, and that runs well. I should just try it with 2GB, see if its stable and responsive, and if not, RAM prices will have fallen and Il get some more RAM. Yeah, Ill probably do that. I need an external HD, a bigger one, before I upgrade to Vista as well, so I can backup everything. Ive currently got about 350GBs of crap on my box, so it will need to be bigger then my current one.

News:

1. Apparently some hacker has broken the new encryption on BluRay discs. Although, it should be noted that this wasn't the original BluRay encryption, but another stronger layer (called BD+) they added on a few DVDs after the last lot of BluRay encryption, used on most discs, was broken ages ago. Makes me wonder why they bother. LINK


2. More HD news: The BBC finally catches up with the rest of the universe and starts talking about HDTV. Pity they screwed up Freeview. I say this, because, from what Ive heard, apparently Freeview can't do HD, because they didn't allow enough space for the signals on the digital Freeview spectrum, so their going to have to re-shuffle all the signals to get it to work, which means we all need new Freeview boxes. Clever. LINK


3. Leave Heather Mills alone, that poor women, their now claiming she drinks rats milk! Come on people, get over it, shes not Satan, shes just rinsing some silly old sod stupid enough to marry her for all hes worth. He'll still have a couple of hundred million quid left, I'm sure we won't see him busking anytime soon. LINK


4. This ones just stupid: Christians are trying to sue someone over the Jerry Springer musical. Why do we still have a blasphemy law? In this day and age, of a multi-cultural, multi-faith England, do we still have laws that stop us saying whatever we like about a bunch of one faith's fictional characters? Am I now going to be burnt at the stake for riding in a horseless carriage or something? Apparently it won't get by the judges, and contravenes EU human rights laws. Thank fuck, at least the EU has done something useful for once. LINK


5. Hmm... more bollocks about Dianne.. Oh look, UT3 Beta has finished downloading ^_^
   
6. umm... probably more bollocks about Madeline...
   


7. oh, Firefox 3 is out soon! That will be good, to watch it put the final nails in IE's coffin.
   


8. Sony have released software update for the PS3, no surprises there....
   


9. The internet needs more bandwidth, because we're watching too much streamed video, apparently.


10. The Germans are kicking off about the iPhone because you have to sign up for a 24 month T-mobile contract to get one there apparently.
    


11. And then there is all this stuff about this stupid Custom's and Revenue department losing a load of data. What a bunch of newbs. They just stuck it in the post, not registered or special delivery, just normal post, and now its gone missing. Twice. Oh well, at least they managed to at least to remember to back it up and not send the originals. Twits.

Sorry this has been so long... downloading Vista is on 38% =( what am I going to do now? Oh well, I'm sure Ill think of something else... bye for now.

Hiding

Urgh: people.

Despite everything that's happened, I didn't lock myself away in my room. I tried going out and being sociable, I make a lot of effort to be nice to them and make them laugh. I spend hours talking to them on MSN, and try to help them with their stupid problems: their broken relationships and computers. I listen to them moan about their stupid boring crap for hours on end. And what do I get back? I get ignored, or told I'm useless, and treated like I'm some horrible disease that won't go away. Like I'm so demanding, like I ask for so much, just for one person to ask me how I am and actually care, and give me a hug and make me not feel so useless, not like I'm just in their way.

So that's it, I've given up on all that useless caring-sharing crap, I'm going back to hiding in my room, playing computer games (Crysis is the bomb BTW) and listening to my metal. Makes me wish I had my job back, at least there I was doing something everyday, I had responsibility, people needed me, every now and then praised me. Or fuck them, if they didn't praise me, at least I was being paid, I knew I was getting somewhere and being rewarded. And the walk home from work... listening to my music so loud my ears would bleed, knowing I could just eat and go to bed, was the best thing ever. I didn't have a care in the world. Now I've got nagging lecturers and deadlines, no responsibility or praise, just a constant feeling that everything I do isn't good enough.

So sod it, I've got a lot of work to do, a lot of good computer games and music, and the internet has been alright for the last 2 days (touch wood), I need not waste my time on ungrateful people any more. I would stop blogging as well, but I enjoy it even if no one read it, so I won't let them stop me. Curse you all, men.

Anyway, news. Crysis is amazing, but I really need my new graphics card to get it to run as well as it should. I really can't wait till I get to play it on a good PC with DirectX 10. I'm still not sure weather to go the whole hog at Christmas and upgrade my RAM and go to Vista. Apparently Vista SP1 will be out soon, RC1 is out now, so maybe I should wait for that. I should really read more computer news, but generally the news just bores me, seems to be repeats of the same stories about the Wii and PS3. And non-techy news is just too depressing, so I won't talk about any of that.

So its just a useal monday really: regretting ever getting out of bed. 10th blog, woot!

Missing Information Gutter

It would seem I left out quite a few things I was meaning to share with you in my last blog, due to having so much to say. Firstly, here are some more pictures of Jac from yesterday, to backup my case for him being the cutest entity in the known universe. Their on facebook, but Ive gone to great lengths to try and make sure it doesn't make you login to look at them. Just click on the link, then the picture of him, and it should bring up the whole album's collection.

Secondly, I remembered something which was one of the main reasons for my displeasure yesterday. Just after I got back from my wasted trip up the hill for a cancelled lecture, Jenny phoned me and told me my estranged pet rabbit Trotsky had died. He was probably about three years old, and had to be put down cos he had myxomatosis. Not a huge personal loss, in perspective, because of me not having seen him for about two years. It just brought back a lot of memories of Jenny and all the time we used to spend together playing with him, before she moved to Rosser and I went on my industrial year. She told me shes currently living in a YMCA. I don't really know why, I can't keep track of everyone's lives at the moment.

RIP Trotsky Marklew Gray

Today so far has been pretty rubbish, I woke up with a headache and my housemates moaning the internet wasn't working. I fixed it and then went back to bed. I then go up for a drink, spoke to Dandy, and remembered my DVD I ordered should have arrived. I ran downstairs, found it and a large pile of Time magazines for Hazel (why she needs 4 the same I will never know). I opened the box only to discover, instead of the original Matrix on DVD, I had been sent a second hand computer game called Myst IV Revelations. To be fair, Ive ordered off PlayTrade about 5 times now, and normally its pretty much the same as normal Play.com service, just a bit cheaper, some more rare stuff, and it normally takes longer to come. This is the first real problem Ive ever had with anything Ive ordered online. I hope its the last.

After marching around the house verbally expressing my displeasure, I emailed the seller asking what I had to do to get rid of it and get my DVD. They replied asking for an order code, because apparently the 3 Play.com order codes I provided weren't enough. I find this all highly annoying, as Ive had to wait a week for this DVD already, and now I have to pay out my own money to send this stupid computer game back and then wait another week for my DVD. I'm not impressed. I'm beginning to feel like Victor Meldrew mixed with Ozzy Osbourne more then ever right now. Apart from when I had broken ribs, when I actually looked, walked and mumbled like Ozzy and was probably equally dosed up.

This may interest people who are from Aberystwyth: NO MORE 24/7 DRINKING AT INN ON THE PIER

Current Technologies

I'm quiet excited, I've been trying to choose what graphics card I'm going to get for Christmas. I really need a new one, all the latest games run quite badly on my setup, but that is considering the stupidly high resolutions (1680 x 1050) I need for them to look good on my screen. I might also get some more RAM, maybe move up to Vista. Been quite impressed with Jam's PC I built a month or two ago which Vista on, it seems very stable and funky. It annoys me how I can't find anything though. Must be like someone else's kitchen or something, you know everything you need is there, but you just don't know the right place to get at it quickly. Still, its not as baffling as Linux or Mac OS, so Microsoft is still the way forward for me. I've ordered Crysis, the latest in graphics, physics and shooting stuff, should be here soon, I hope my hardware doesn't ruin my enjoyment of it. Reviews say its very fun. Jam's excited about the new Mario game, I'm sure that will be fun too, if a bit childish and irritating like most Nintendo games.

Crysis almost looks a bit too real

Can't believe how cheap all the computer stuff is now. 500GB hard disks for 50 quid, 75 quid for an external one and 48 quid for 2 sticks of 2GB ram (4GB in total). Its making upgrading quite an attractive prospect. Except graphics cards, which because of new APIs and chips for Vista (DX10 and HDCP) are stupidly expensive. I was hoping this would have sorted out by Christmas, but appears Nvidia and ATI have only just started pushing out mid range cards. When I built my PC, you either spent 100 quid or less and got a DX9 which wouldn't last, or spend 300 quid and get a future proof beast. Now, you can get some pretty good 200 – 250 priced ones. I don't know, but I really need something better then what I've got. Something better then what Jams got.

I read an interesting thing the other day. Microsoft are currently claiming victory over everyone because of the Halo 3 launch, and are touting the fact that it was the highest grossing “media launch” ever, beating Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter. What they fail to mention: tickets for Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter books don't cost 40 quid each. Apparently, if Harry Potter books did, they would have made twice what Halo 3 did. Mind you, that's a very simple way of looking at it. Maybe Harry Potter sold so well because it was cheaper? But still, Microsoft's PR machine is definitely behind these figures being slightly warped. I still think their doing better then Sony are though. If they keep cutting features off the PS3, there isn't going to be much left. And BluRay sounds like a load of wank. I mean, I saw it once in Oxford street, did look kind of pretty, but I bet the highly compressed discs scratch better then ever before. I haven't tested it, but it makes sense.

I'm loosing faith in optical media on the whole, they seem to break far to easily. I'm now considering getting an external HD just for backup because DVD-R are useless for it. It makes my piracy hard as well, I keep copying movies for people and then finding out their DVD players lasers are too weak to read them. I mean, we did have this problem with CDs for a while, but not this bad, and the technology has been around long enough now for them to sort it out. But, I bet their keeping the lasers weak, to stop pirates probably, same as the region encoding, we see that the distributors are willing to cripple a format just for a few sales. Which might be fine for them, but what about me trying to do my perfectly legal backup?

Sony just seem like a bunch of idiots right now. How did they manage to get so rich? Right now, seems like their always doing everything wrong. I mean, the PSP seemed shit to me, with its crappy movie format called UMD, which meant re-buying all you films, on little discs, so you could watch them on a crappy small screen? For 20 quid? PSP got totally kicked by the DS, so what do they do? Make a new slim version. And BluRay is like 25 quid per disc as well. Its apparently quite expensive for studios to make as well, limiting its appeal further. I keep predicting the demise of Sony recently, but I have to remember, the PS2 is still the most popular console, and most stuff from that works on the PS3, so maybe in a few years once its price comes down, everyone will switch and Ill be proved wrong. I just hope Sony can last that long.

I guess we'll see whose right: Nintendo, who say people want innovative games, not graphics and HD or a media centre, or Sony, who say the reverse. And Microsoft who are just playing the middle ground, Microsoft's online service is meant to be the best though, and the games line up is looking good so far. And most of the games for the Xbox end up on the PC as well, since they both use DirectX, so porting is easier. Which is good enough for me: Gears of War, here I come.

Catch up on life

I've split this blog in two, part one is about my life, and part two is about technology, so those interested in either can choose to ignore either part (or read both for John bonus points).

Well, so much for that whole idea of posting a nice update to the blog that afternoon. I spent the rest of that morning finishing off an essay and then sleeping. I think that essay killed all my desire to write things, which is my excuse why its taken me several days to blog again. That's the first essay I've done for about two years. I forgot how much they totally suck. It wasn't an easy one as well, because it was for my Media and Communications module, and that's a very essay based subject it would seem. So she expected it to be very well researched and structured. But I finally handed it in, I felt maybe my essay writing skills weren't up to scratch, but Id made some good points, so hopefully that will carry me through. I found a really interesting website while looking for sources for my essay. You should check it out, if you like psychology and analysing adverts and the media. It had some very interesting points about sexual politics and human desires. A lot of the stuff, I knew it was good, cos when I read it, it was like, I already knew it, but hadn't realised it because it was so obvious, id never questioned or examined it. I don't know, maybe I'm just dumb, but it was enlightening to me.

Our internet maybe back, but yesterday it was being rather rubbish and cutting out, and then our water went off. I had a rubbish day yesterday, cos not only did that happen, but I went to my lecture at 9am, and it was cancelled with no warning, so I was there for no reason and it was raining.

The last few days have been a bit shit. Once I hadn't the essay in on Tuesday, things went a bit down hill. Not really sure why, things just seemed to go wrong and I became quite unhappy. I'm feeling a bit better now, but I think I just got really fed up, having been locked in my room with little sleep for a few days, really took its toll on my temperament. I also started watching a lot of Monkey Dust and listening to Chris Morris's Blue Jam while I was doing my essay, and as funny as they are, they do have a rather bleak outlook. Dark humour can do that, somehow. Take something, really not funny, and make it funny, but it kind of makes me feel a bit dark inside once I think about it later. I think thinking about Christmas has made me feel a bit morbid as well, since mum was such a large part of it to me. I see things in the shops and keep thinking she'll probably be buying them, and then realising she isn't. I keep seeing boxes of mince pies and thinking about how she used to make them with us. Christmas, or winter, was always mum's time of year, because it was about food and family and being happy and festive. Its going to be quite a change, having a dark brooding Christmas. I'm looking forward to it though, I suppose its going to happen sooner or later and I'm sure we'll all make the best of it. I think she associated it heavily with her father as well, and last year was difficult for her, so I guess now its the same for me and the others. I wonder if the next generation of Grays will be the same, some day.

Speaking of the next generation, I was cheered up immeasurably by getting to hold Sian's baby Jac again today. He is so perfect, I'm so proud of Sian for being able to bring something so beautiful into the world. It must be a very scary time for her, the father of her child doesn't want anything to do with it, but she's got some great friends and her family behind her, so I think they'll be ok. It seems utterly uncomprehendable that he wouldn't want to have anything to do with Jac, he is so cute. I guess some people just don't value the same things as me. I would personally give up everything for a child, especially one so perfect as Jac. He is a blessing, and few people are so lucky to have one, it seems bizarre to me that he doesn't even want to recognise it as his. I suppose he is just worried of the consequences, but I think a child isn't the sort of thing you should run away from. You only get so few chances to do something good and meaningful with your life, does he really think he can do better? People these days seem so concerned with selfish and utterly un-fulfilling pursuits, like money and vanity. I think id rather have a child then a few million pounds, big house, sports car and a hot wife when I die. I know which would bring me more comfort.

Anyway, sorry, that was a massive ramble, and not really my life as such, it just really got on my tits. I'm also rubbish at shopping for clothes. Mum used to help me a lot, because she loved it. Now I just sort of stumble around, look at a few things, not be sure about anything, and just leave feeling useless. I can choose clothes for myself, when I see clothes I want. Its just, shopping the other way round, when I need an item of clothing, like a coat, but don't know exactly what I want or where to go. I just wonder around in circles and give up. I have this idea in my head of what I don't want, but can't find out what I do want. And I can't wait till I just stumble across it, because its getting cold and I need a coat. Jam says he'll take me to civilisation (Birmingham) soon and we'll find something.

Rise Internet! Rise!

Im now back online after a week and a half battle with BT and Eclipse to sort out our broken ADSL. We're still not sure what the problem was, something had apparently blown up at the exchange and they didn't notice until we called a BT engineer out yesterday, who said our equipment was fine (which I already knew, thanks) and the problem must be at the exchange, which he then drove too, and a voila!

I find it most frustrating, being an IT student/semi-professional that it took me a week and a half to convince them that it wasn't our equipment at fault, and to actually come out and take a look. I suppose so many of the calls they get must be human error, it must be rare that something is actually broken at their end, so it took them a while to believe us. Anyway, I shall do a full and proper blog hopefully later today, I thought Id just do this in celebration of being able to blog on my own computer in my own room.

Computers fail epically

Urgh, after my experiences with the Pentium 2 machine I was using earlier, and as my lecture was right next door, I thought Id use the comp sci Sun lounge for my next blog. (ed FYI Sun, like Apple, make non-Windows/Microsoft PCs. SunRays, as their computers are called, are kinda like Macs, only less arty and sexy. The Comp Sci Sun Lounge is just a room full of them) Big mistake. Spent 30 mins trying to remember how to login, open a browser, then I had to manually input the university proxy settings, then Mozilla wouldn't load, and Ive just given up and moved to a room full of Windows PC.

Not to be beaten, Ive now looked up how to get Mozilla to load, turns out they changed the whole system last year, so my shell is out of date and Im going to have to open a command prompt and type in a couple of lines of code which I have no idea what they do to get it work again. Linux, you fail. Now we see why Microsoft really isn't scared of it, even the special Sun tailored version: you still need a PHD to use it.

Mind you, I then tried to open Word on this Windows PC, and got the shock of my life: Word 2007. How the smeg do you do.... anything? Whats this ribbon thing? Where are all the grey menus? All gone apparently. Like the book on standardisation, Microsoft has thrown their own GUI rules to the wind.
I think I might just go home now, I think Id like to stay inside, hug my XP machine for a while and remember the good times.

The Williams in Wetherspoons

Just thought you might want to coo over these images my friend Sian (the mother) added on facebook just now. They were taken yesterday afternoon in our local Wetherspoons, when we met her 2 week old baby Jac for the first time. Thats all for now, since I have a lecture in 3 minutes and Im currently writing this on the slowest computer Ive used for a few years (Pentium 2 I think). I think the internet is bad for me, Ive only been on here 30 mins and Ive just spent 30 quid on play.com (although I swear thats the last game im buying till Christmas). Also, at the request of Annie, I might turn comments on, although I might make it google members only to try and avoid spam. And also, to prove Im a geek, I managed to access my blog via Wap on my phone yesterday ^_^ woot.

Jam and Jac

JacHazel and Jac

John and Jac

Tits and bent knees

This is me responding to my first piece of criticism, that my blog is boring and doesn't have enough "guns, tits and explosions", thank you Jami (ex-gf).

Well this one isn't really about tits as such, more just my musing on the lecture I just had. If you didn't read the end of my last blog, where I mentioned I was heading off to a lecture of media and communications. I opted to take one module of media and communications, because I thought it would make an refreshing change to my other lectures about "the web" which are really starting to blur into one. Also because I noticed a lot of girls in the queue for this departments modules. I'm serious, over half the class are girls, and not bad looking ones either. Compared to my comp sci lectures which manage about 2 girls per day, this is a massive improvement. Maybe thats shallow, but not really. I hate most people who take comp sci. I'm not sure weather this is part of some growing self loathing complex that Ive got, or weather they really just are that annoying. They tend to be two breeds of comp sci students: theres the cocky, self assured ones, who even though being as geeky as the others, seem to think that they are the shit, and that Microsoft is going to steal their Firefox plugin source code. The rest, are just Moss from the IT crowd, only without the cute funnyness, and generally uglier and smellier. Maybe Im just being really hypocritical, but I don't really see myself as either. Ok, im not especially good looking, or good at washing my clothes or hair, but Im not that bad. And I don't faint every time I see a girl. Bonus.

Hmm... actually, while changing track on my mp3 player, I thought, I probably do fit into the ultra geek category, especially since Im blogging, I spend most my free time playing or talking about computer games with Jam, and me and Hazel have 1337 Thursdays. But Hazels still a girl, even if she likes Lord of the Rings a lot, so I still win.

Anyway, so im now imprisoned in this computer workstation room, because its raining and I just really can't be bothered to walk down the hill home and get on with my life. So I might as well talk about this lecture I just had. Actually, Hazels just started talking to me on msn, so I might be running out of time, best hurry.

Well, in my heart of hearts, I think my lectuer was an hour and a half of man bashing. My lecturer seemed determined that adverts from the 70s were purely constructed to oppress women, by making them always lesser in height, or in a childish pose. She did have some good points, which I didn't immediately notice, such as how women often have bent knees in adverts. Im sure if I had looked enough adverts I might have noticed, but it was still a good point. This does kind of back up what she was saying, that they are shown as being playful, sexy, and submissive in adverts compared to men.

I think I freak most the people, mostly female, in that lecture out. Mainly cos when I stick my hand up, its normally some perverted comment about a sexual undertones. Like I pointed out that, in a advert for perfume for men and women, the man is in a athletic pose, like an Olympiad, which the lecturer liked. Then I pointed out the women was in a fetal pose, and dare I say it, a sexually receptive one? Apparently Im too shocking for these people. Media studies lecturers are odd, they either seem like complete prudes, like this one, who seem outraged at the idea of sex selling anything, or like my A level lecturer, constantly ranting about how penises are the key to all horror films, and being stabbed is being raped more or less. And vampires are a metaphor for aids, which she must have made up, since vampires existed first.

Then, I thought more about bent knees. People who do spiriting, don't they bend their knees? Doesn't dad bend his knees when hes doing squats? Doesn't plumbers get on their knees to fix sinks? Maybe their being submissive because they're being paid for a service? I don't know, I think Ill continue to contemplate the relevance of the bent knees. But yes, tits. Most people in my lecture don't seem to be able to grasp the difference between gender and sex. I think I do, from reading too many forums. Gender, is ones mental image of ones sexuality and personality, which is often reflected physically. Sex, is what genitals you have. Both can be pointing different ways, hence why there is a difference between Eddie Izzard, who I believe is perfectly comfortable with his genitals, but still crosses into the female gender.

I think Im with Bill Bailey, in that men feel slightly trapped by the label of "man", and prefer "bloke". I feel this is partly due to advertisers, who have now woven the ideal of manhood into this unreachable feat of being dominating, brave, physically fit, great in bed, and always right about everything. But now advertisers are capitalising on the blokes image in beer and magazine adverts, and I imagine soon we will have to create ourselves a new identity. I just get this feeling from the lecture I was just in. The mostly female audience seemed to generally smirk at any references to men being superior and quite frankly the guys seemed scared. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe us modern men are just slightly embarrassed about our past role as dominators of the un-PC days... Jam suggested to me the other day, that perhaps men are starting to get this kind of attitude because we are some of the first generations of men to be raised entirely by women, due to the increase of single parenting and that men no longer have any crafts or trades to pass down to their sons. This theory seems rather incomplete to me, but he was rather drunk at the time so maybe I just didn't understand, or it wasn't a serious point. Ill stop now. I want to blog more about technology though. And no more criticism, I've already sold out enough.

The day today

Ok, so Im quite a boring person really, I don't do alot. I sit, then I eat, or drink, while using a computer, to do something, normally destroying things rather then anything useful. So, Im going to fall back to the news for inspiration for what to blog about. So heres my first round up of today's headlines and my ignorant opinions about them.

News item 1
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2827491.ece

Well, what am I suppose to think about that? I suppose the two main points of view people are going to have of this, both mainly consist of outrage. I mean theres going to be view number one, which is "why should Sikhs be treated any different to other faiths? if catholics cant wear crosses etc. then how can the school allow her to wear whatever she wants" which was my initial reaction, then on reflection, I realised an important difference. I don't know anything about Sikhs, but by the sounds of it, she has to wear these 5 things, otherwise she isn't following her religion correctly. Catholics, however, I believe don't have to wear crosses all the time, although a fair few choose too. The other view, I guess would be outrage the that the school is telling her what to do, interfering with our right to freely practise religion.

I tend to think of myself as rather liberal and protective of rights in the face of oppression, but I still feel the article makes it sound rather like shes expecting special treatment in a main stream school, which certainly in my day, was not available. School was never about freedom of expression, it was about conformity, instilling a set of ideals into children so that they can function correctly in society later in life. Is that the right way to raise children? I don't know, indoctrination to a degree bothers me, but the other half of me is glad, because most people are idiots, and the more we contain them, the less likely they are to get in my way. I suppose this is exactly the kind of arcticle I should expect from the Times...

News item 2
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3832034&page=1
Ok, who really cares about this anymore? We all know hes a junkie, who cares? A rock star? Who does alot of drugs? That is so news worthy. Just because he was once involved with Kate Moss, who I also don't care about since shes a model, most of them are about as deep as a piece of paper. Or maybe just as thin as.

News items 3 and 4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7082478.stm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88042.php
These two are just here because I think their both just massive wins for convetional wisedom: Being fat makes you more likely to get cancer and making eye contact with people is good. Call me a genius but I could have already told you that years ago...

News item 5
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7084380.stm
This just makes me a sad panda. De-stablisation in that region could be really bad, since it shares a boarder with afganistan and indian. And also because I believe its common knowledge that pakistan has nuclear weapons. So it just generally seems like a bad thing all round really. Sort it out.

Anyway, thats enough of this. I think I might write more later, but I think I will focus more on technology news, since I generally know more about that. I know have a media and communcations lecture, which im really not looking forward too, since we're doing group work and most of my group doesn't speak English. Does that make racist? Im not sure. I tend to think not, since its actually true, they don't speak English.

The New Blog

You should have known it would be in black and complete with spelling errors...

Yes, Ive copied my dad and started blogging... Its probably not going to be nearly as intelligent or well punctuated, but thats just me really. I did have a blog (or journal as it was known on that website) a long time ago, on another site Id rather not mention. But reading my dad's made me realise I enjoyed doing my own and there always interesting to look back on. Also, Im feeling like im not really talking to as many people as I should be these days, so I thought id try this as a method of mass communication.

There is one slight problem however, I don't actually have the internet at my place of residence, but what il try doing is writing the blogs at home, then carting them up the hill on my pen drive and then upload them from a workstation room. Hopefully the internet situation will be resolved soon anyway, its been down nearly a week now. So yeah, postings might be abit irregular, and not really long or anything, but hopefully it will give you abit more incite into how Im getting on.