Why do birds suddenly appear, every time I wear my birdseed overcoat?

Why do birds suddenly appear, every time I wear my birdseed overcoat?

Answer here

Tumblr

Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable has happened.

I have become drawn to another blogging website. Tumblr.
Now, don't start packing up all your belongings, burning all identification documents and heading for the border just yet, because things aren't as fatal as I just made it sound.

I do indeed have a new blog. And it is indeed awesome. And I do indeed love Tumblr for being awesome. But I am not going to abandon this blog. Well, no more than I do already. Ahem.
I am going to post more personal, introspective blog posts on my Tumblr blog (think 'dear diary'). The more entertaining, reader-oriented blog posts will be put onto here.
I will post onto Tumblr for my own benefit, while posting onto Blogger for yours.

Here's a rundown, just in case you're an idiot (it's possible - you're reading my blog, after all)

BLOGGER

• Humorous stuff
• Internet finds
• Cartoons (both mine and other people's)

TUMBLR

• Personal blog posts
• Artwork
• Project updates

Chin up. It'll be awesome.

Sometimes I do worthwhile things

This is a piece of English Language coursework by Corrie Smith and me, teaching about the arrival of the Anglo Saxons to Britain and their subsequent impact on the English language. All very edu-ma-cational. Lap it up.

Me and my issues, eh?

Rejoice, Planet Earth! Look to the skies, and praise the Heavens! For it was Mr Ross Milnes' 18th birthday on Monday! So happy birthday to Mr Ross Milnes for back then.
It's the subsequent birthday party tonight, which should be fun. Sightings of me at any social gathering are rare, and anyone who has seen me outside of school should appreciate how unusual that is. I am a bit of an introvert, admittedly; I enjoy spending my free time by myself, drawing, animating, watching TV, having one of my many Wikipedia sessions (did you know that Lee Mack's real surname is McKillop?) or just sleeping off the many insanely early mornings I have to endure on a school week. All that considered, I think I've developed surprisingly well as a human being - I don't suffer from low social comfortability, like being unable to hold a conversation with someone I don't know very well, and I enjoy the parties and days out that I do attend - but despite this stroke of luck regarding my relative adaptability, I still seem to place my alone time on a higher pedestal than my time with others, and I don't know why.
Well, I have a theory.

Human beings are strangely drawn to patterns. As an English Language student currently studying child language acquisition, this aspect of human nature is something I find rather interesting, as patterns help our brains to make complex information more palatable. Take rhymes, for instance. Children's books are full of rhymes, and it's easy to see why. If one word rhymes with another, the brain doesn't have to remember both words separately; it can remember the whole of one word, and just the different part of the other word. This understanding of similarities between certain things means that our young minds, absorbing information at a frightening rate, can compress all this new-found knowledge so that it doesn't get jumbled up and confused in our brains. Naturally, the more routines the child has in its life, the more organised its mind will be in later life.

Growing up, I lacked consistency. Now, before you picture me as some sort of liquid-y mess in a bowl, with two eyes floating on the surface, I mean 'consistency' in the other sense. I mean 'consistency' in terms of routine; in terms of my life having patterns, repetition, a recognisable sequence of events that I could grasp hold and make use of. I lived in the sleepy village of Scampton for a while, before moving to live with my mum above a noisy pub in Lincoln, after which I returned back to Scampton, to live with my dad again. Then, I moved back into Lincoln, to live with my mum on Burton Road, and then there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between Scampton and Lincoln for a couple of years, before I ended up at Scampton.
Now, this must have been playing havoc with my young mind. For a while, I wasn't sure where my definitive home was; it fluctuated so frequently, it baffled me. I had a bedroom at my godfather's house, also on Burton Road, that served as a sort of half-way house in slightly more organisationally-convoluted scenarios, so I was right royally bewildered. And I'm sure it's taken a toll on my mind - I'm terrible at organising data in my head.
But perhaps this is why I am so 'intelligent', as people hasten to call me. Never, in my younger formative years, did I develop this natural knack for sorting out, and prioritising, information. I can tell you how they get turkeys to go indoors when it rains in America, but ask me where I left my house keys and I will have to stop and mull it over for a moment.

Now, I feel that as a result of all that inconsistency, I fear change. I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive in that I crave routine - I sit in the same seat on the school bus every morning; I eat more or less the same lunch every day; the list goes on. Strangest of all, I have to have the volume on the television at seven, a multiple of seven, or a number three less than seven or a multiple of seven, so it has to be one of the numbers 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 25, 28, 32, 35, etcetera. Is that normal?
So when everyone else hit adolescence and started rebelling, the thought of change concerned me slightly, and as a result I never really rebelled. I don't shout at my parents, I rarely swear, and I do well at school. These are the good points. A bad point, perhaps, is that when faced with an invitation to a party or some other sort of social gathering, I panic. "It's going to destroy my routine," I think to myself. "I'll be lost and bewildered, and my carefully-laid plans, mostly involving sleeping, will be scuppered!"

As a result, with Ross' party in a few hours, I've been incredibly neurotic today. What if something bad happens? What if I dress too casually, or not casually enough? What if? What if?

Deep down, I know I'm going to have a great time, and that I'll come back from it smiling broadly and cherishing the memories. But God knows where I'm going to fit in that cancelled Wikipedia session on Sunday...

Look, I never lay claim to amazing poetic prowess, okay?

 If you're reading this on Facebook as a note, please read it on the blog. I've played around with word sizes and everything, and only on my blog will you be able to see it.


He sits beneath his worries
And lingers, ever lingers
And he drums his bony fingers
On the crooked coffee table
As the hours become the days
And the days become the weeks
He seeks, within his clouded mind
A way to solve his problem mind
And he wishes he could find
Some sort of remedy to what he calls
His 'troubles'.

He's read the latest books
And he knows the terms within
Like they'd been written down by him
But not a single complex word
Can put out the raging fire
And as his eyes turn scarlet red
And his face a chalky white
To spite the darkness of his eyes
There is a war behind his eyes
A civil war between his mind
For to acquire an end to what
He tends to call
His 'troubles'.

Piss off, you grumpy killjoy!
You're ruining my fun!
You're self-deluded moanings
Mean nought to anyone!
But yet you seek to make DAMN SURE
That your debilitating issues
MEAN MORE
TO THE REST OF MY SUBCONSCIOUS
THAN ALL THE HAPPY THINGS
I HAVE THOUGHT, OR BROUGHT TO THE WORLD
OR WITNESS, HAVE PREVIOUSLY WITNESSED
AND EXPECT TO WITNESS
PUT TO-fucking-GETHER!

He gets angry at his 'troubles' -
When he is, he's almost able
To do away with all the worries
But he lingers, ever lingers
As he sits beneath his worries
And he drums his bony fingers
On the crooked coffee table.

Extra! Extra!

Here! Have some blog news.
The Milnesy & Wivell Blog: The Official Blog Of The Show, the official blog of the Milnesy & Wivell show, has been blocked by my school's wireless internet network. This makes me laugh; this is not a general blog-blocking procedure that my school employs, but a specific ban on that blog in particular. I know this because my blog hasn't been blocked (hence this - I'm at school right now).
So what has caused my school to block the M&W blog? I have a theory. Mr Ross Milnes, author of the rant-tastic Mind Of Milnesy blog, also contributes to the Milnesy & Wivell blog (hence its name - duh), and in a moment of passionate fury posted a furious and somewhat sweary rant, directed at Big Brother. By all means check that out - it's so hate-filled, it's funny. My theory is that the school network picked up on the blue language and blocked the blog (Ross' blog is also blocked, so this is highly likely).

This makes me laugh. You see? Politeness pays.

Twitface

It's funny how we sometimes do things without thinking. Occasionally, the lack of conscious thought proves to be a disadvantage, like when someone crosses the road without thinking and becomes another road safety statistic. More often, however, we do things without thinking simply because the reasoning behind it goes without saying; the mentality of the decision is so seemingly straightforward that the brain bypasses 'ponder' mode and just gets on with the job.

Usually, such decisions come and go. Some, though, do not; the decisions where we opted not to do something, where the option to change our minds lingers, does not always disappear into obscurity as quickly as others. On the occasions when such decisions, made without thinking, are suddenly brought forward, once again, to the centre stage of our minds, it is interesting to explore the thought processes that initially occurred when the decision was first made. Sometimes we learn why we didn't dwell on it.

I say this because such an occasion recently happened to me, and I discovered that the reason I decided what I decided, without thinking about it, was because thinking it over would just get me unnecessarily angry and worked up. And lyrical. Hence this. Sorry about that.

The other day, someone asked me "Why don't you connect your Twitter account with Facebook so that your tweets will appear on your Facebook profile?" This threw me for a moment, as the concept, as constantly evident to me as it was and has been for ages, hadn't really jostled through, and to the front of, my hypothetical to-do list and announced itself as a practical and logical idea at any point; it sort of hung about, in the areas of my mind that teetered on peripheral, close to plummeting into the abyss of discarded ponderings, and never really drew attention to itself. Basically, what I mean is that without ever dwelling on my reasoning, I never considered connecting Twitter to Facebook as a good idea.

So I was taken aback slightly when this person - a real-life human being, with opposable thumbs and a digestive tract - suggested the idea to me again. This idea, something that I had always known about but had ignored because common sense told me to, was being dragged through the crowd of thoughts, into the spotlight of my conscious mind, by someone who showed no hint of irony or sarcasm in their facial expression or tone of voice. This person was being serious. And it caused me, for the first time, to take a long hard look at my decision and try to understand the subconscious reasoning behind it.

Twitter and Facebook are not the same thing. Not by a long shot. Sure, they 'borrow' ideas and gimmicks off one another, and some people (trying, no doubt, to be hilarious) say that it's getting harder to tell the difference between the two websites. Take a look at Twitter and Facebook; compare them for yourself and you can clearly see the differences.

Facebook, for a start, is MASSIVE. Not just in an 'everyone's got it' kind of a way, but also in the sense that there is so much to do on Facebook. You can not only post updates, you can play games, get in touch with long-lost acquaintances and... well, the list goes on. It goes on for a long time. So we'll leave it there.

Twitter, on the other hand, really only has one function: sharing. Whether it be sharing links, gossip, news, personal information (in a 'how has your day been?' kind of way, before you start thinking like that) or a funny joke, Twitter handles it exquisitely well, employing the brilliant 'retweet' and 'hashtag' functions. Sharing such things on Facebook, on the other hand, can result in a few 'wacky' friends commenting underneath with some barely-comprehensible attempt to be funny and no consideration for you, the poster. As the notifications go up, the aura of outward integrity of the thing you posted goes down. Tut, tut, tut. Best tweet it, then.

When you're on Facebook, you feel like you're in a kind of social bubble; no matter how eventful your time on Facebook may be, what happens in the bubble stays in the bubble, and outsiders are likely to never know it ever happened. Of course, with the amount of friends the average Facebooker has, and the amount of other friends those friends have, the closed-endedness of it all isn't as noticeable. But it is there. It's like being in the internet equivalent of a large village in Norfolk. That witty retort you posted, no matter how brilliant, will, if you're very lucky, be read by a friend of someone who 'like'd or commented on it, but ninety-nine percent of the time it will end there, if not much sooner. And your desperate attempt to be noticed grinds, as inevitably as ever, to a halt.

Thanks to the aforementioned 'retweet' function on Twitter, your brilliance can be seen by loads of people, people that neither you nor your friends have ever heard of, and thus the bubble of closed-endedness is popped. I once asked David Mitchell a question on Twitter, and he answered it! That would never have happened on Facebook, because if you're famous and on Facebook, the amount of notifications you are likely to get will probably cause your computer to explode. Well, probably not. I'm not a computer technician.

So in conclusion, I will not let Twitter post my updates on Facebook; I like my ability to post something on one website and not the other. Some things I come up with suit Twitter more than Facebook, and vice versa. There is no grey area, as far as I can see; they're unique and different to each other. And taking two bright splashes of creative and distinctly original brilliance and mixing them up into some sort of muddy, bastardised 'Twitface' seems a little unfair.

An Update: Not all these blog posts are witty essays

I am proud to announce that the first episode of The Milnesy & Wivell Show has been completed. Now all I need to do is finish trimming the soundtrack of episode two, talk nonsense for the soundtrack of episode three, animate episode two, edit the soundtrack of episode three, and animate episode three. No problem.
Episode one will be released on September, so look out for that, then. Actually, I'll prompt you, so never mind.

As you were.

Bog Blog

 ...
 'Ere!

I was on the toilet a moment ago, and noticed that the toilet roll was the really cheap kind. My family are not posh people or anything - far from it - but we usually get slightly softer toilet paper; fairly cheap fare, but still quite soft. This stuff wasn't even trying to be soft. I looked at this abomination, this rough, unholy harbinger of seemingly inevitable arse pain, and sighed audibly. This wasn't going to be fun, I thought.

Well, it turns out that there's nothing to worry about. The difference between the 'quilted' bog rolls and this stuff is simply too minuscule to bother dwelling on. It did the job. I wasn't walking like a sumo wrestler afterwards.

In fact, my whole view of the scenario changed. My chief comfort-based concern permanently extinguished, I began to admire the cheap toilet paper. Here was a roll of processed tree whose purpose was to wipe arses. It wasn't embarrassing itself by exhibiting the delusions of grandeur that the more expensive brands clearly have. It knew its place, and didn't try to big itself up with adjectives like 'luxury', 'absorbent' or 'three pounds fifty'. Good on it, I say.

I appreciate that the past few paragraphs have probably baffled you somewhat; yes, it is an unusual topic for a blog post - it's not just you. It was just something that occurred to me, and if it keeps you blog-gogglers sedated for a few more days (or weeks...), then all is dandy and there be nary a quibble.

CYA L8R

Well. Here I am.

So, what's happened to me recently?
I'm afraid not a lot has happened to me recently. The Summer Holidays are underway, and I have done precisely nothing since I left those school gates on Friday 16th June. This is the main reason for the lengthy space of time between the last blog post and this one, for which I can only apologise. Alas, I am the type of person that, artistic pastimes aside, does very little of any interest until something of interest comes my way; in other words, I don't go out looking for interesting things to do - I don't actively seek them.

Well, it just so happens that something of interest - of considerable interest - came my way last night. Well, the night before last, as it is now seven in the morning (yes, insomnia, you win this time) and so the past few hours now officially take the place of Sunday night as being 'last night', so... I'm sorry, I digress. Sunday night. Something of interest came my way. 'Sherlock' came my way; it's the new BBC series, written by Doctor Who's Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and it's absolutely marvellous. Sherlock Holmes, set in the 21st Century, done magnificently.
Benedict Cumberbatch: a man whose name is only equalled in terms of awesomeness by his acting.
So yes. I'm no television reviewer. Watch it, if you haven't done so already. If you did watch it, watch it again. I did.

Right. Elsewhere in my memory banks...
Oh! I'm currently animating the first series of The Milnesy & Wivell Show, which is the secondary reason for the aforementioned lengthy space of time between the last blog post and this on; I have been working constantly for the past week - more than is healthy for a typically productive person, let alone my good-for-nothing self - making the most of the lack of school to get as much animating done as possible.
The thing is with animation, the better you do it, the longer it takes. This goes for most things in life; a rushed cake may taste unsatisfactory, or a car made in a hurry might shed its wheels at an inopportune moment and unexpectedly introduce its driver to a nearby wall. Slow and steady wins the race. Good things come to those who wait. And so on, and so forth. I've been animating the M&W Show to quite a high standard of quality (if I do say so myself), and it has therefore dominated my life this past week. I have done loads, though! Episode one is nearly complete, which, for animation, is pretty speedy. So well done me.
Here is a little preview picture for you. Please note that the actual series is in colour - I made the photos in the picture sepia because that's how I roll (anyone who has seen my Facebook profile picture can vouch for that). So sorry if it's misleading in that sense.

Okey dokey then. Good day.

The funny blog entries are back!

Hello. I use italics to make my greeting sound dry and edgy. Nyah.

Right, on with the blog thing. I was asleep a moment ago. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking 'I bet he didn't do much if he was unconscious', and you'd be right. Unless I not only had an amazing dream but am also able to recollect it, how could I turn the concept of having a nap into a narrative worth reading? The answer, dear readers, is I can't. But it padded out the blog a bit, didn't it?

No, the interesting thing, the thing worth blogging about, happened before I was enveloped by the numbing duvet of slumber. I was laying on the bed (so you can see how close this event was to my falling asleep), and I could hear the self-loving strains of some young American band radiating from my sister's laptop in the other room. She doesn't, in my humblest of opinions, have a very good taste in music. She'll listen to music she likes the sound of (usually awful), but most of the time she'll spend every waking hour listening to tunes that are popular with her friends (usually suicidally awful).
You know the sort. The singer is invariably a bratty girl (that Lavigne lass falls under this category, fans of shit music) or a boy that sounds like he's been kicked so hard in the testicles, they have re-entered his body, are bouncing around in between his internal organs like a couple of Super Balls, and he's singing to keep himself from going mad. They sing about 'love' and 'emotions' and 'miscellaneous hormonal misdemeanours' (I made up that last one for comedic effect, by the way - I'd take my hat off to a group that managed to successfully place 'miscellaneous hormonal misdemeanours' into a song), and some occasionally burst into a tirade of shouting, accompanied by squealing electric guitars and whatnot. I suppose this is what constitutes 'music' nowadays, eh? Hm.

Anyhoozle, I was listening to involuntarily overhearing the music, too tired to do something about it but too awake to immediately evacuate myself to the Land of Nod. And then it happened.
There was a part in one of the myriad of endless droning songs that actually sounded good.
It was only brief, mind. Perhaps a line or two. But somehow, the music, the lyrics, and dare I even say it, the voice, seemed to fall into place and fit together into something quite nice. Almost immediately afterwards, naturally, the inanity commenced. But it rattled me somewhat.

TWO REASONS WHY THIS RATTLED ME

1. One of the artists on my sister's play list produced a moment of aural professionalism.
2. I noticed that one of the artists on my sister's play list produced a moment of aural professionalism.

The second point, despite its numerical status as the secondary point here, is actually the key point, and the point that will drive my narrative further.
If I was just hating my sister's music because it was my sister and it was her music, as I have long suspected, I would have shrugged off that fleeting moment of musical mastery, and thought nothing more of it. But I didn't. I sat up (well, almost) and took note.
I can only conclude from this that I am secretly wanting my sister's music to be good. I am subconsciously listening out, in optimistic hope, for some good sounds to emanate from her speakers.

Now, not only does this mean that I'm not the stubborn, curmudgeonly bastard I had secretly suspected I was for so long, but also that her music, overall, is genuinely terrible. It's not just me.

So there!

Cursed to a life of aero-apathy

It's the Waddington Air Show today. I'd go, as I have done most years prior, but... meh. Just meh.
I'm not an aircraft buff. All planes look the same to me, and people who can identify a plane by the shape of its nose cone, or whatever, nearly bore me into unconsciousness.

The only real appeal the Waddington Air Show had, for me, was the challenge of getting in without paying. Every year, my dad and I would devise a brilliant scheme, each one wackier than the last. I don't know why, but it's just lost its novelty now. And I don't give a crap about aircraft, so that was never going to be a redeeming strength of the show to lure me back.

I assume the Red Arrows will be their, doin' their thang. They practise over my village and have done for as long as I can remember, so they're of no interest to me. Seeing a group of professional aerobats creating a heart out of smoke, and then piercing it with a smoke arrow, is an everyday occurrence to me, which is a bit of a curse. I can't ever appreciate the Red Arrows in the same slack-jawed way the rest of the country can.
Ho hum. Might just slob out today. Or animate. Whatever.

So sorry, Waddo. No offense, but I think you're boring. And I suspect I always shall.

A few words on hypocrisy

I was sat in the common room with a group of three other people today, during the uneventful hour I have on Tuesday afternoons prior to catching the school bus. These three were playing Magic: The Gathering, a card game I have never fully understood. I'm sure that if I invested enough time into learning it, I would come to enjoy it as much as any other game, but there are reasons why I opt not to participate in this particular pastime.

Firstly, there is, quite frankly, a social stigma associated with this card game. I'm not the type of person that desperately tries to fit in with the cool - or even socially-acceptable - crowds, as I respect those that do less than the social 'outsiders', as it were. But to risk whatever amount of social acceptability I currently have, in exchange for a card game with no distinct long-term merits, seems a tad foolish to me.

Furthermore, I have heard that it is extremely addictive. Once the rules are clear in your head and the game makes sense to you, it's apparently very hard to escape its allure. My Olympian procrastinating abilities mean that I have very little time as it is without such frivolous distractions, thank you very much!

So I took on the role of barely-conscious spectator, slumped in one of the corners of the square of sofas, glancing optimistically at the seemingly-random collection of cards on the table between fleeting, unavoidable moments of sleep. My mind, being in a perfect situation to do so, started to race.

For example, there was a theory floating around in my head that made perfect sense to me, but I found it impossible to verbalise it and explain it to other people. To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure I've completely managed to explain it all yet, but I managed to extract something from it that made sense, so that's satisfying. It may be the entire theory in a nutshell - it could be, however, just the tip of the iceberg. It's so wibbly-wobbly in my own head that even I can't be sure.

My ponderings concern hypocrites, and our tendency to shrug off criticisms, no matter how correct and valuable, if it transpires that they have been made by a hypocrite. As far as I can see, we are a compassionate species overall - if we see something that's wrong, we get the urge to remedy it for the benefit of other people. Sometimes, our remedial urges can contradict past choices we ourselves have made. If these past choices are known to the person we give the advice to, a response akin to 'what do you know?' is likely to conclude the exchange. But surely such a response is demonstrating a blinkered assumption of our mindset!

The general consensus regarding hypocrites is that they are wrong for offering advice because they can't criticise that which they have done themselves. The only logical conclusion to that consensus is that we think hypocrites are incapable of learning from their mistakes, which is ludicrous. In many situations, I would value the advice of a hypocrite more than that of someone who is basing their advice on secondary information, as opposed to personal experience. A hypocrite knows. They've been there. In many cases, they are there, which may make them an even greater hypocrite but could also give their advice even greater validity.

When we make mistakes, we immediately start thinking about how to shift the blame. This isn't necessarily a bad trait; it's a form of survival instinct. So when someone comes over and offers advice, we immediately target the 'self-righteous goody-goody', if only in our minds at first, and try to find some sort of acceptable motive to vent our frustration out on them. Hypocrisy is a popular excuse, and should the mistake-maker have any such ammunition against the adviser, it is more than likely that they will open fire.
It's a perfectly human thing to do in moments of weakness, but by cutting down the person giving the advice, we may miss out on a valuable nugget of information that could prevent such mistakes from occurring again.

So lay off the hypocrites. But just a little bit, mind. Use a bit of judgement in these matters, because some hypocrisy truly outweighs the value of the advice. In these cases, it is advisable to go with your gut and rip 'em a new one (metaphorically speaking...)!

Tally-ho.

Me and my opinions, eh?

Old kids' shows weren't as patronising as kids' shows today. Nowadays, everything is much more money-driven. We cut corners all over the place to make a bit of a profit, and unfortunately it shows in this flimsy, blinkered era. Kids' shows are a perfect example of this.

Instead of boring you with a long rant about my opinions, I have fashioned them into a rather fetching, but moderately unfunny, sketch. Enjoy.

Darren: There's a slot opening up in the CITV schedule, and it's our job to fill it.
Vic: When's the slot?
Darren: Right in the middle of CITV, Vic. Smack bang in the middle.
Vic: If I can do maths - and I can - that's exactly halfway between the middle and the end!
Sandra: Good! Good! So we need a premise. What do kids like?
Darren: Kids like stupid things, mostly. Do we want to do a show about stupid things? Hyperactive nonsense to render them numb with adrenaline?
Vic: If they like it...
Darren: Yeah, I get that, but maybe our purpose isn't just to give the kids what they want. Maybe our goal is to develop them as people, to ensure that the fundamental mindsets of a functional society are secured in their heads.
Vic: I don't like the sound of that.
Sandra: No. A bit 'brainwashy'.
Darren: What? No, no. How about a show about a milkman?
Vic: What's interesting about a milkman?
Darren: What's not interesting about a milkman?
Vic: He's a milkman.
Darren: So what? He can be a milkman and be interesting. What would you suggest, then?
Vic: I had this idea of a ninja that has the ability to...
Darren: Can I just stop you there, Vic? I appreciate your input, but when do you ever meet a ninja?
Vic: I don't follow.
Darren: Unless the youth of today are going to grow up and become ninjas, I really can't see the merits of a show about ninjas. 'The moral of the story: don't get blood on your balacalava.' A story about a milkman can teach the basics about business, at least.
Sandra: Business is boring, Darren. Kids don't care about business.
Darren: So we should just cater to their every childish whim, and somehow hope that the notion of being good at business will just pop into their heads at some point in the future? 'Mummy, I'm ditching the cartoons and wish to pursue a career in accountancy.' What about social norms? Do ninjas socialise?
Vic: Well, not really. They keep to themselves, as a rule.
Darren: Do we want kids to keep to themselves? I don't think we should promote reclusiveness.
Sandra: This is Mary Whitehouse all over again.
Darren: This isn't Mary Whitehouse! I'm not saying that ninjas are a bad influence. I'm just saying that at such a crucial and formative time in a child's life, ninjas are a pointless influence. We should be making the most of the suggestibility of children to make sure they're fully functioning upstairs! Come on, at least one good show would make the world of difference.
Vic: How about a ninja milkman?
Darren: ... Yeah, that'll do.

END! THIS IS THE END! STOP READING THIS BECAUSE IT HAS ENDED!

Prepare to go 'hmm' in an interested way.

I can't sleep, and by fighting it I usually prolong the insomnia because my brain starts working even faster than usual, almost mockingly so, pursuing the sadistic goal of making sure that I can never shut down. As a result, I'm simply going to wait casually for the drowsiness to kick in. This very blog post is my way of wearing out my hyperactive lump of grey matter. The very eloquence of this blog post is an indicator of the sheer fury with which my brain is churning away, thrashing against the walls of my skull, screaming for stimuli.

I think a fact chain is in order.
Yes. I'm calling them fact chains now.

There have been 24 expeditions to the International Space Station (including the current one).
An idea for a form of escape craft, or 'lifeboat', for the International Space Station, the Crew Return Vehicle, was scrapped when it was decided that the station should just have some emergency docked Soyuz spacecraft.
The Soyuz spacecraft was originally designed in the 60s by the Soviet Union, to help in the race to beat the United States to the moon in a manned expedition.
The word 'Moon' comes from the Latin mensis, meaning 'month'.
The idea of months as units of time was devised by the ancient Egyptians.
The ancient Egyptians prized the blue stone lapis lazuli, and had it imported from Afghanistan.
Afghanistan culture is heavily influenced by Persian poetry.
One of the most famous pieces of persian literature, the epic poem Shahnameh, was written by a chap called Ferdowsi.
Ferdowsi was born in Iran, in a small village of Paj, in the year 940.
The High King of Ireland Brian Boru was born in around 940.
Ireland is the third largest island in Europe.
The word 'Europe' may have originated from two Semitic words: the Akkadian erebu meaning 'to set', or the Phoenican ereb, meaning 'evening' or 'west', as the Sun sets in the west.
An average solar day on earth is approximately 24 hours.

After the Brian Boru bit, by the way, I fell asleep (hurrah!) and so the rest was done a day later, as was this bit of text that I'm writing now. It feels weird for me to refer to writing this text in the past tense, as it is in the present as I'm typing, but it will be in the past when you read it, so I'm referring to the present as the past to correspond with the inevitable future. Phew. Right. Get it? Got it? Doubt it.

Bye bye now!

Peter Samuelson, interviewer. 29 April 2010.

The Milnesy & Wivell Show

The Milnesy & Wivell Show - Coming Soon

In summary: I need to get my act together.

I'm blessed with having a four day weekend. Monday is a May Day bank holiday, and Tuesday is some special teacher assessment thing, I think. So I go back on Wednesday, which is pretty cool. However, my brain can't really cope with this mini-school holiday.

I have two general levels of industriousness - school level, which is the type I have at any time other than school holidays; and school holiday level, which is the type I have during the school holidays. The latter is significantly lesser than the former, but there is little mental plasticity available when I encounter a situation that requires a level of industriousness halfway between school and school holiday.
I encounter an extended weekend, and the lazy side of me overrides the responsible, hard-working side. My brain officially switches to school holiday mode, which means that my mind is preparing for a period of rest much longer than the period allotted.

It is now the small hours of Tuesday morning, so I have just entered the final quarter of the weekend - but God help me! I'm stranded in the mindset of a school holiday-goer, and as a result I haven't got any work done!
I'm just going to have to find some other time to cross off all the things on my to-do list, because I have literally done nothing since last Friday.

So that's my confession. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, etc, etc.

Bye bye, now.

BRIAN BLOODY BLESSED!

I'm going to intersperse this blog with more anecdotes, little stories and musings about my day. It seems more like the kind of thing that should be in a blog; my entries tend to read more like a column in The Guardian or something. Not that I'm complaining about that - I'll still do those on occasion - but I feel that I should make this blog a bit more personal, a bit more up-to-date and relevant to recent occurances in my own life.

For example, today I was at school, and there was a two-hour period where I didn't have any lessons. I was sat in the common room, getting slightly bored. So I got the old laptop out, and mow me down and call me a haystack if I didn't find what I believe the youngsters today call an 'internet gem' on the BBC website.

Five words, people, five words. Well, four words and a number. Well, four words and a Roman numeral.

BRIAN BLESSED AS HENRY VIII.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes fucking yes. Yes.
Yes.
Just... yes.
And then I played the video, and my excitement was magnified further. It is just marvellous. It is essentially an excuse to film BRIAN BLESSED hamming it up, shouting and acting like a bearded child, and because it's BRIAN BLESSED, of course it's the epitome of magnificence.

Oh, just go and watch it. Now. Bye.

This Is A Poem

I’m going to write a poem

I’m going to make it snappy

It’s going to be a jolly jape

That makes its readers happy.

I always start with short lines

They’re better – it’s been tested,

And an ABCB rhyme scheme

To keep them interested.

And then I make lines longer

And the rhyming becomes stronger

And they hunger for a pause

Of course I’ll punctuate the verse

But first, the verse idea has got to go

For this, dear reader, is harder and deeper

And verses are needed no more.

Furthermore, the lack of a split

Is a handy addition; it helps me to fit

More of it on the page, which is really

Really good.

Especially if you’re going to print it out.

In fact, you could say that I’ve done you a favour

I’ve given you one more spare piece of printer paper

Than I would have done had I continued

With the stanza break

But those are minor logistical technicalities

That don’t really require elaboration

In fact, it doesn’t really have any place

In this poem

But I thought it looked quirky

And professional

To include enjambment

At random

Intervals. And the illusion

Of a train of thought

That this poem resembles

Works better when the text

Isn’t broken up by stanzas

But it could be argued

That I’m just not trying any more

And I’m just typing words

Which poses

The question

At what point does intelligent

Esperimental poetry

Become structureless

Pointless

Drivel?

Ramblin'

Now, I'm not a raving, chemical-toilet kicking environmentalist or anything, but I do think that those who say that the Earth is 'part of us' have a point. A good one, at that; in this incredibly technology-dependent age, everything boils down to the effective transferral of information. In this sense, we rely quite heavily on the Earth. Right down to the words we use.

Right, let's imagine the unimaginable. We knacker the planet. I mean, properly bugger up. And not only do we have to evacuate (if we can), but the actual planet itself is destroyed somehow (I'm no scientist, but I'm sure you can find some crazed boffin with a theory so complicated and intelligent-sounding that it's completely watertight against the moronic, uninformed arguments we dribble in cynicism, about how our blatant disregard for our planet could indirectly make it explode). The planet Earth, third planet from the Sun, sixth from Pluto, ninety-seven thousandth from The Almighty Lord Our Capitalised Creator, is gone. Completely and utterly. And the thought of our lost home sends us into spirals of depression.

Say we manage to restore the internet, wherever we end up - after all, it has become the backbone of modern society. What do we replace 'www' with? The first 'w' doesn't  quite seem right. Sure, 'world' doesn't specifically mean 'Earth', but that's what you think of when you hear the word, isn't it? We won't want to hear the word 'world' all the time, because it will remind us of the incident. So that will have to go. I expect they would replace it with another word that has been known to have the suffix '-wide'.
All I can think of is 'nationwide'. The Nation Wide Web. I'll be honest, that sounds crap. Besides the point that it only refers to one group of people at any given time, it needs three identical letters; hence, 'www' worked. It was almost catchy. Well, as catchy as an acronym can be without spelling out BOLLOCKS (how about 'the Battalion Of the Loving and Listening Omnipresent, Creationist Killing Supermen', which certainly lives up to its acronym).
Furthermore, whatever word replaces 'net' in order to make the acronym consist of the same three letters should be roughly synonymous with the meaning of the original word. 'Net' was used to describe the mass of signals, criss-crossing all over, from lots and lots of different computers, like a web (hence 'web' - duh). So it should be some sort of complicated, intricate construction, preferably from the natural world.
So the template is:

1. A word to represent humanity as a whole, possibly in the possessive if we're going to be intergalactically social in the future
2. A word to demonstrate the sheer scale of the internet. The internet wasn't that big when the terminology was coined, so 'wide' initially sufficed. The destruction of the planet Earth would be a good chance to update the term to suit the massiveness of the modern internet (which, by the way, will be even bigger in the future).
3. A word to replace 'web' (see above paragraph).

Here's my idea.
'Humanity's Humongous Hive'.

There you go. Food for thought there.
Bye bye.

Late Night Blogging

Mister Ross Milnes and I have started work on a new project. It's basically like a podcast, but animated, and it's a blatant rip-off of the Ricky Gervais Show.

On an unrelated note, here is a picture of a thinly-disguised plug.

I honestly think this project will go somewhere. I have so many other projects that I have shelved over the years, because my dedication to an idea rarely exceeds past a weekend.

There's my homage to Dr Seuss: 'Who's the Greatest Pie-Eater?' Asks Poom-Pa-Nom Peter, a story I finished writing, but stopped illustrating six months ago, five percent of the way through; a portrait commissioned by two friends (on the rare chance that at least one of the two people reads this and knows that this deliberately-vague mention is directed at them, I am so sorry for not getting it done - I'll try to get myself to continue it) and countless other animations that I simply don't have the drive to continue. I think there must be this constant, underlying depression, droning on in the very back of my mind about how pointless these projects are but frustratingly capable of controlling my motivations.

However, I'm really enjoying making this cartoon, so I'm optimistic (I'm currently at my mum's, away from my home computer and my animating software, and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms).

On a similar vein, I'm terribly sorry about the tent, Sam. One parent is a dithering idiot (it seems to be hereditary) and the other is constantly busy, so I haven't had the chance to rein one in and force them to take me to your place of residence for retrieval.
If you're not Sam, you won't understand that last bit. Well sucks to be you, and not Sam, then, doesn't it?

Anyway, I must go now because my back hurts. The only place I can currently get an internet connection is on my mother's kitchen window-sill, so I'm currently sat on the draining board, my back twisted ninety degrees to the left. I think my ribcage is squishing one of my kidneys. And I like my kidney. So bye.

A JibJab Video

I found this a couple of hours ago. You can customise the videos with your own photos, and it's brilliant.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

A downright pedantic little whinge

Right.
I was perusing Google Maps, gettin' my Street View on, when I noticed something about the KFC sign on Nettleham Road, in Lincoln.

As you can see from this picture, the face of Colonel Sanders is obscured. Now, this seems reasonable - there is clearly a piece of software used by Google to identify faces (and car number plates) and obscure them to retain the anonymity of whoever happened to get snapped by the Street View camera. This software recognised the KFC sign as a face and blurred it. Fine. I totally get that.

But then I took a look from the other side, the north-facing side of the sign. For some reason, the software decided not to blur the good colonel this time.
Taking this, and the similar signs in the background, into account, one can only assume that the software opts not to blur your face if you're a posterised southern colonel who is facing north.

So cover your face in talcum powder, put on a pair of glasses and a fake moustache, face Scotland and say 'cheese'!

An Insight into the Inner Workings of my Brain

Hello.

Yes, the title is the same as the blog's name. This is because, for once, I am genuinely providing an insight into the inner workings of my brain. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Anyway, I have been feeling a little low lately. I won't go into detail about the ins and outs. The thing is, this down period has been really very fruitful in terms of creativity. Annoyingly, my brain is usually far too active for a single train of thought to develop into something more focused (this is why I have countless unfinished animations on my hard drive). The plasticity of my mindset means that I rarely return to a project without regarding it as old hat and somewhat pitiful, which, in the long run, is infuriating for me.
But it's interesting; when something gets me down, my rapid-fire mind becomes blinkered. It shuns any superfluous postulations and becomes rational and linear, without losing its flair for eccentricity. As a result, most of my best creative work happens during these moments. And this moment, this low moment, has been especially creative.

One of the problems I have as a result of my creative hyperactivity is that I struggle with plots. I find dedicating my brain power to developing a stoyline for one set of characters in a given scenario extremely difficult; I will suddenly think of another plot idea involving completely different characters, and the whole beastly thing starts all over again (again, hence the unfinished animations). This is a slight problem as an animator, and a major problem for an aspiring independent filmmaker. Being an aspiring independent filmmaker who specialises in animation and is also considering a career in writing, this is a developmental hiccup of galactic proportions.
You see, animation is like the flesh and the muscle of an animated film, and the storyline is like the skeleton. The animation can be beautiful and fully-formed and pleasing to the eye, but without a storyline, it collapses under its own unsupported weight into an inintelligible mess. My animations are mostly beautiful, unintelligible messes.

But every now and again, when my idiosyncratic sunny demeanour is dented by something or someone, everything focuses on a single idea - in this case, a story - and I am given the rare opportunity to run with it, distraction-free. I have thought of a wonderful, thought-provoking storyline (I'll keep it secret for now, just in case it doesn't amount to anything), and this is great because it serves as creative 'scaffolding' for an animation to build up around.

If I was near my home computer, I would start animating right away. But I'm not, so I can't. Typical, that is.
Anyway, never mind. I felt like reporting this on my blog as much as to have a personal record of this moment for myself as to provide you lot with some reading material over Easter.

Don't eat too much chocolate.

Will

A Posthumous Apology to Baird and Farnsworth on Behalf of this Televisual Atrocity

This is depressing.
I don't expect that the makers of Deal or No Deal are ever going to apologise for what they have done. As a result, I have decided to take on the responsibility of apologising to the late John Logie Baird and the late Philo T. Farnsworth, inventors of the television as we know it.
It has nothing to do with me, but somebody's got to do it, for all our sakes. Nobody in Britain is getting into Heaven unless we are forgiven for Deal or No Deal: Easter Madness.

To Mister John Logie Baird [deceased] and Mister Philo Taylor Farnsworth [deceased],
I am so sorry. On behalf of Noel Edmonds, Deal or No Deal, Channel 4, modern television and the viewers of Great Britain, I apologise solemnly and resolutely for the frankly baffling spectacle of Noel Edmonds and a handful of unfortunate people, dressed up as characters from Alice in Wonderland, negotiating, through sheer luck, life-changing amounts of money. The revolutionary work you did was worth more than this.

The very least I can ask is that you pull some strings with the Big Man up there (if he exists, but that's besides the point) and ensure that Noel Edmonds, and Noel Edmonds only, gets judged for this in the afterlife.

Again, I am so very very sorry.

Yours sincerely,
William Wivell, Loyal Television Watcher

Talk to the Handbook, because the Facebook ain't listening. The Handbook of Common Sense, that is!

If a drunk driver slams his car into a tree and is killed, would the authorities criticise the car manufacturer for not making the vehicle safer for drunk drivers?
No, of course they wouldn't. It's not the fault of the car; it's the fault of the driver. And yet it seems this type of hunting for easy solutions is all too common in today's society.

Now, I mention this because I was just reading a report about Facebook, slamming it for not keeping people, particularly young people, safe from dangerous strangers online.
When something terrible happens to a person, they, and their friends and relatives, are bound to harbour resentment towards the cause of the terrible happening. This is perfectly understandable - there always needs to be people who are on the side of the victim, it's only right - but sometimes it should stop with the close associates. Sometimes, whatever caused the terrible incident only did so through a lack of judgement on the victim's part. In these cases, less pressure should be put onto the cause. Especially if the pressure can negatively impact other people, people who are smart enough to cope anyway.

Facebook is merely a tool, a means by which people can communicate with other people at the click of a button. It is not an online community; the online community exists through Facebook. The site didn't come into being with already existing communities, because it needs people to do that. People make communities.
So it seems a little unfair to me that people read about other people being lured to their deaths through meeting people on Facebook, and go all Mary Whitehouse on the poor site (look her up if you didn't get that last bit).
Those who fall foul of Facebook only do so through a lack of necessary caution. One should exhibit apprehension when accepting friend requests from strangers. Make sure they are who they say they are, and that you don't put yourself in potential danger through associating with them.

Of course, the younger people may not have this developed awareness, but to blame Facebook for that is also ludicrous. If a child wanders onto a dual carriageway and is hit by a car, it is not the fault of the road for being too busy; either the child was not sufficiently tutored in the ways of road safety, or there was a lack of necessary signs or constraints in that area. Facebook is, in my humble opinion, excellent at warning you about potential threats to your online safety whenever possible. So these youngsters, innocently oblivious to the dangers of online strangers, are only being put in danger by those responsible for them. Those responsible should warn their children, imbue them with a deep-rooted sense of online awareness, and keep an eye on them when Facebooking.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't work like that. The rational people, those who understand the workings of Facebook, see the human errors of others and accept them as human errors, are often the ones who keep to themselves. To be rational is to step back and put everything into perspective, but you can't step back if you're smack in the middle of it all. The parents and close friends of the victims are bound to have this blinkered, blood-tinted opinion of Facebook, because it's either that or accept that poor little Timmy was being an idiot. These people, people with significantly more emotional damage than peripheral vision, are the ones who appear on the news and in the papers, ranting and raving about how 'the evil of social networking destroyed/took the life of my poor little under-experienced, unsupervised child!'

The media is far from rational itself. It all boils down to money. The news companies get money from ratings and purchases, and the ratings and purchases positively correlate with the amount of bad news there is. After all, good news happens all the time. Has your area been hit by an earthquake? No? Then bugger off with your good news, because neither have most places. Bad news is, from a global perspective, more interesting than no news at all, and good news is rarely any more interesting than anything you could discover by going for a walk.

The news loves sob stories. One of the only things it loves more than sob stories is the resultant support the sobbers receive. This invariably provides the news with even more money; they get to prolong the news story and they receive thousands of calls from easily-swayed people with a lot of time on their hands and higher blood pressure than IQ.
Meanwhile, the rational majority sit back with a justifiable apathy. But nobody with any power wants to hear from them. No matter how solid and sane their views are, they're just not very interesting.

Our growing ability to adapt to our consequently shrinking boredom threshold will inevitably be our downfall as a species.

Will

As is but one of the captivating series of outlandish adventures that constitute my life

I just got a high-ish score on a game called Drop3. It's essentially tetris, but with a physics engine and different shapes. If a circular piece drops onto a triangular piece, for example, it will roll down its slope until it finds somewhere solid to stop. you have to get three or more colours to touch for them to disappear, and it's all really rather brilliant.
I got the rather splendid score of 169,800, which is the best score this week, the second best this month and the nineteenth best score of all time. Which is rather pleasing when you consider how many people play these games.

But what have I earned from this?
What have I been working towards? Why am I so pleased to have my name on the leaderboard? What have I actually acheived? I haven't really acheived anything, but I'm dizzy with adrenaline and euphoria. What's that all about?
I suppose games are tricking the body. The excitement of a simulated challenge is sending signals to the brain, which must interpret it all as genuine, because games of this sort have not been around long enough for our bodies to evolve to instinctively recognise them as games.
My brain probably thinks I'm tackling a mammoth or something. It thinks 'Bloody hell! If I don't do something, we're fucked!' and desperately tries to save its human host by increasing adrenaline levels and so on and so forth. Hence the dizzying glee that comes from getting a high score. To the brain, that's like not only avoiding the mammoth, but killing two of them, providing enough food for the whole tribe and earning respect from the elders... or something like that. I don't know.

Have I earned anything? Well, apart from the mild respect of anyone who glances at the leaderboard (which isn't anyone who gives a crap anyway), not really, no. But I think it helps to play these games. I think it helps to keep the brain exercised and on its toes, a brain that hasn't completely evolved out of the Stone Age.

But I'm still really rather pleased with the high score. Get in!

Will

New Background

Yes, I've managed to crack the system and alter my background. It took long enough for me to figure out! It's not an option that's readily-available at the click of a button. There's a lot of copying-and-pasting image files into HTML scripts that goes on, and it's incredibly boring.

In fact, the only reason I've posted this is so that I have an online version of the image that I am about to paste into the HTML to become the background. By the time you read this, it will have all been sorted.

Ominously optimistic last words, methinks.

Will

UPDATE: This background, tiled repeatedly as the background of my blog, looks somewhat... hideous. So I decided not to use it. I'll find another background at some point. But not this one! Blech.

The Revenge of the Silly Titles

 'Sup?
While I was just reading some blogs, it occurred to me that I haven't updated mine recently. I think this is due, in part, to the fact that I have been on Blogger a lot lately, but only in a blog-reading capacity. Any absence of Blogger.com in my memory banks is an indication of a lack of blogging activity, but that means of identifying negligence doesn't work if you've been on the site doing things other than contributing. Silly brain.

Anyway, I'm back, and ready to rock! Well, type, at any rate. Type some awesomeness! Yeah!

Right. I have done another vlog recently; you might want to have a gander at that at some point.
Also, my black book of comic strips is nearing completion. By this, I mean that the unpublishable scrawlings in the back of the book are about to collide with the comic strips in the front of the book.
I may redraw the final collection of comic strips for the sake of neatness and continuity, but they will remain fundamentally the same as they are now, just more presentable for a published book. John Mahon and I have been pondering over possible names for the book, as the comics do not yet have a collective name. We were thinking about going down the Monty Python route of giving it a completely random and unrelated name, just for the sake of it.
I did a doodle a while back of a man with a completely deadpan expression, and a pipe. I then proceeded to draw his legs, at which point I decided to be silly and had him dancing wildly. The image of a man, seemingly stationary and calm from the waist up but dancing furiously from the waist down, tickled me immensely, so I gave the doodle its own title. That title might become the title of this book: 'The Nonchalant Prancings of Horatio McNargle'.
The only thing is, I wonder if it's a bit... too random. A bit too left-field for a first-time publication. I may just play it safe and call it something more relevant. It'll still be humorous. Just relevant at the same time. It can be two things! Why can't it be two things?

And on that slightly whining and exasperated note, I'll stop typing, post this, and get on with whatever it is that I do.

Au revoir for jetzt.

All Hail Our Glorious And Benevolent Leader

A Message about Blogs

I feel quite alone in the Blogiverse.
                                    ...wait, 'Blogiverse' is crap. How about...
         The Blogger System? No.
         The Land of the Bloggers? Maybe.
         The Land of Blogs? No.
         The Isle of Blogs? Good Lord, no!
                 I'll go with the Land of the Bloggers.

Right. Take two.

I feel quite alone in the Land of the Bloggers. I go onto Blogger, and it feels like a bit of a desolate wasteland. This is a shame, because I think it's a darned good website, and I think more people should blog. It really exercises your writing ability - I can honestly say that Blogger has made me a better writer. It develops your mindset, sets mental templates that help with other written pieces (that is, written pieces that actually have some sort of purpose), and lets you get your opinions out there, on the Internet.
True, there are about four hundred and fifty trillion people who do blogs, and it's very unlikely that the average person will stumble upon my blog (if my completely made up statistic from earlier is anything to go by, they have a four hundred and fifty trillion to one chance of finding it), but I like the notion that they could find it. There's a slim chance.

'But Will!' I hear you scream at your computer screen, 'If so many people have blogs, how come you find the Land of the Bloggers an oh so desolate place, as you mentioned earlier in your frankly marvellous blog?'
 Well, I'm glad you asked, because the answer will pad this blog post out even more. Thanks, hypothetical screen-screaming blog-goggler!
I find it a wasteland because of the four hundred and fifty trillion people that have blogs (that joke statistic's getting a bit old now), there are only a handful of people I actually know who have them. I don't like to follow celebrities, because their blogs are all about promoting their new tour, or advertising their new book, or something equally as mundane and soul-destroying. Call me a 'something-a-bit-more-personal-reader' is you wish, but I like to read something a bit more personal that adverts. An anecdote. A confession. Anything that has been written by the person in question, (and I use the following cliché cautiously) 'straight from the heart'. None of this copy-and-paste business from their promotional website or anything. And certainly none of those blogs that are added to by the celeb's 'personal blog updater' or whatever dumb-ass job title they have. None of that. Just the odd story. Or a nice rant. As demonstrated here. [PAUSE FOR BREATH]

But I digressed slightly there. Of all the bloggers in the world, only about four of them are people I know personally. And though that would surely be enough to render this world, this Land of the Bloggers, a more engaging and interesting place, those four people seem to have stopped blogging.

Look at these.
Ross Milnes last posted something in January.

Now, that's not too bad, admittedly, but the blog is relatively new, and I'd hate for the novelty of having a blog to be lost on him already. Persevere, Mister Milnes! Your blog posts are wonderfully scathing and frank!

Miss Hayley Pardoe hasn't posted anything up in 2010 at all, her last post added at the start of December.

Hayley, your passion for music is infectious, and it's a pleasure to read your blog. Don't neglect your duties as a blogger too much - you're very good at it. Even I can't be arsed to sign out my blog posts with an official little sign - the fact that you go to the effort of putting 'Hayley xx' at the end of your posts is really rather nice. It shows you've put a bit of effort in there.

Next on this slightly cruel list (in retrospect, what on earth am I doing?) is the charmingly eloquent Emma Bowles.

It's been a while since Emma posted anything, and I miss those wonderfully structured and pitch-perfect blog posts she does. The last post was late in coming, and I'd hate for the whole blogging malarkey to cease. Come back, Emma! It's not worth... wait, it is worth it!

And last, by no means least, but definitely not the most, is Mister Josh Shaw.

July? Really, Josh, have you petered out already? There was a whole new fledgling authorial side to you that was demonstrated in this blog! I was so looking forward to reading your blog - don't stop adding to it.

After a while, these blogs become massive and intricate. You will refer back to old blog posts frequently; it's like a backup drive for all those ideas, theories and opinions that you come up with in life that would otherwise be lost.

Here are a couple of tips:

Don't feel pressured into adding to your blog.

I realise that I sound like a bit of a hypocrite after making that list, but hear me out. Don't get into the habit of writing for the sake of it, of typing bland rubbish, just so that you can say you've added to your blog. That's not the point of a blog. Try to get into the much more constructive habit of blogging whenever something worth recording pops into your mind, or into your line of sight. These things happen more often than most of us take credit for - a funny road sign, an invention idea, even a moment of anger or despair. These things are valuable sources of material - it's getting into the habit of remembering to record them that's the trick. It took me many months to develop the 'blogger's knack' - a slightly rude-sounding term that I've just made up and will probably never use again. Oh, who am I kidding. Of course I will.

Don't feel disheartened by the high quality of the blogs of other people.

Every blog was crap at one point. Well, every first blog was crap at one point. It takes time to polish a blog, to learn the tricks of the trade and to build up an impressive catalogue of entries. These things take time; don't feel rushed or intimidated by the superior blogs of people who have clearly been blogging for much longer than you. I still see blogs with all sorts of clever effects and gadgets that I've never seen before and haven't the foggiest how to recreate. They used to make me look at my blog, a 'paltry affair' by comparison, with its inanimate title and lack of visitors' book, and feel a bit stupid for even trying to compete. It's worth remembering, therefore, that your blog is an extension of your personality and your soul. Each blog is as individual as the author. I look at my blog now with a mild sense of paternal satisfaction; I cultivated it, and am proud of how it has grown and how it represents me. It doesn't need all the bells and whistles. It's unique, as are everyone else's.

Ross has decorated his blog with a few cartoons, and has a knack for using funny pictures to emphasise the points he brings up in his posts. Josh has opted for the black look, which adds character to his blog, and adorns his title with a photograph of himself, which is a nice personal touch. Hayley cuts to the chase, and relies, successfully, on her writing ability to make her blog appealing. Emma has the whole 'Bridget Jones' thing going on, with the introductory list of things like weight and the amount of tea she has drunk that day (or, as I like to call it, a 'Tea Total' - you can have that one, Emma, free of charge), which makes every post engaging and unique to those of other blogs.

Well, I have exhausted my brain for one night, brainpower that could have been spent doing some last-minute homework. But then I look at my homework. A couple of pieces of work that I have been forced to do (see first tip). I think about how how much I would value these documents in, say, forty years time. Not much at all, I'd wager. I then look at my blog, at all the posts I have made -  including this one - and think about how much 2050 Will would value those.

And I must say, the blog trumps the homework. Completely and deservedly.

Will xx

Wednesday already.

I can't believe it's Wednesday already. Christ, this half-term break has flown by. And up to now, I have totally wasted it.
But at the same time, I can't find the motivation to do anything, nor can I see myself getting up off my arse to do anything for the remainder of the holiday. And that realisation knocks the wind out of a person. I can see myself wasting the rest of the holiday. I can clearly picture myself doing all my homework at the very last minute and getting incredibly stressed out in the process. I've still got loads of time to get everything done, but I know I won't do it. It's like being able to see a train wreck before it happens, but not being able to do anything.
And surely that is maddening.
I bet someone claimed to predict the Belgium train collision. There are always a handful of crackpots who claim to be able to see the future. They never do anything about it, though, do they? They seem to sit back, full of knowledge, and when a train crashes, or a plane slams into a building, they just say 'I knew that was going to happen.'
Call me cynical, but I just don't believe all that psychic nonsense. And that's coming from someone whose mother claimed to have psychic powers at one point.
By 'at one point', I mean 'she had powers at one point', and not 'she claimed this at one point'. She still tells me of how she knew about the Lockerbie bombing before it happened. Well, she remembers watching it on the news, and thinking 'I've seen this before...' and getting frightened by the whole thing.
Personally, I don't think she predicted anything. Before witnessing the news report, I don't think she would have been able to predict anything. Just because she felt like she knew it all along doesn't mean that she did. The brain can make you think anything - it seems reasonable that it can make you 'remember the past' when the memories have just been made up. I have often woken up from a dream to believe what I've dreamt, simply because I have past memories of the same thing which intertwine with my history in real life. The brain can mess with you in ways you cannot imagine. Because imagination is all part of the brain, as well. Your brain has complete power over your thoughts, and can become your worst enemy if you don't treat it right.
So don't do drugs.

How the f**k did I get onto that topic?

Anyway. I'm done. Goodbye.

This was all made online, believe it or not

What scandalous jests we fellows play

I was being rather childish and writing on the school bus window today. There is a chap on the bus (who I will call Franklin for anonymity) with whom I often have good-natured but intense ridiculing sessions.
Today, I wrote on the window:

YES!

Franklin is

a fool!

I put the 'YES!' in just to make my window insult extra noticeable. There were explosion lines coming off the 'YES!' and everything.

From where he was sitting, Franklin could only reach the word 'fool' and so rubbed it out. I then added this:

YES!

Franklin is 

                             a   PRODUCTIVE MEMBER OF SOCIETY

It all turned into 'find the fault with the back-handed compliment'. Franklin noted that it looked as though I was replying to someone, as if they had said that he wasn't a productive member of society. So I rubbed of the 'YES!'

The best thing was the fact that he was still paranoid. The window now read

Franklin is 

                             a   PRODUCTIVE MEMBER OF SOCIETY

but he wanted me to rub it out more than before I edited it for him.

Oh, how wide and interesting this psychological battlefield is.

A good ol' fashioned movie review. Jus' like mama used to make

I went to see Avatar in 3D on Saturday. It was good.
And yes, that is an understatement. To make any attempt to successfully put into words the awesomeness of that film would be ultimately futile, so I'm simply not bothering.
Impressed? Yes, now you mention it. I was, rather, yes. Not disappointing at all. No, sirree.

Not only was the three-dimensionality of it all just magnificent, the CGI itself was beyond belief and the story, despite mild slatings from obsessive critics, really wasn't bad at all. I tended to get carried away with watching how things in the foreground really seemed nearer than things in the background to really scrutinise the effects and the story (at one point, I took off the glasses just so that I wasn't being distracted by the 3D - the CGI suddenly struck me as stupendously brilliant), but I suppose that's more my fault than the movie's.
The ideas and the imagination of the film is on a scale few films can ever hope to match. I particularly liked how every species of creature on Pandora was compatible with each other. They all had these neural tentacle things that could connect with those of another, regardless of species, so that they could 'merge' minds. They were essentially inter-species organic USB plugs, and it's a brilliant idea.
Oh, and there are some amazing scenes with some mechas (massive robot suits that the pilot controls from a cockpit - think The Matrix trilogy, or Aliens), which were brilliant enough without appreciating the link between them and Sigourney Weaver. Which I did. Why? Because I'm passionate about movies.

Really, just see Avatar if you haven't already. Where - and when - else are you going to get to see it in 3D? Those polarised glasses only work with the special projection system at the cinema - you can't get a 3D DVD, unless you want to suffer the indignity of using the dated blue-and-red headache-tastic technique of the Neanderthals (there's an inadvertent and hilarious image - a Neanderthal with old 3D specs).

I'll leave you with that thought.

Food for thought

Listen up, world.
Take life. Weigh up its pros and its cons. Then cheer the f**k up!

That's all I have to say on that matter.

Would you like chips with that? (giggle)

Hello there, people with little else better to do. I am the cure!

I just saw an advert promoting an online casino. Now, the way I see it, advertising your online casino with a combination of 'potential' winnings and slick special effects is a bit paradoxical. Their main selling point is that you, the viewer, could possibly, if you were really lucky, win some money. But they gloss over the statistics because they don't really do much to promote the website. So roll up! Roll up! Over 2,000 people won money last year! Now, that sounds like a lot, but when you consider how many people must have played in that year, and that anything from 1p upwards counts as 'winning money', you realise that the statement is vague and misleading. Or it could be that I'm horrifically wrong - you are very likely to win money, and those 2,000 winners are a large fraction of the overall yearly players. But hold on - if the website's so good, why so few players? That makes no sense, now, does it? Must be a bit of a scam. Shock! Horror!

Anyroad, I'm drifting slightly from my initial point. They make these claims, claims that sound optimistic and encouraging if you're an idiot (or a gambler - oh, I see now), but spend inordinate amounts of moolah on the advert itself. They are pretty much waving money in your face.

"Look at all this cash! Where did all this come from, I wonder? It can't be yours, because we're literally giving away cash here at SuperTiltCasinoJackpot.com!"

I would put more faith in my potential success rate when playing on their site if they made the advert with National Accident Helpline actors, the roulette wheel from the 'Go For Broke' board game and edited it together on Windows Movie Maker.

Telly and Toilet

It's a Sunday, there's nothing on the telly, I have my laptop on my lap (rather appropriately) and so the time has come for me to add another contribution to my pointless, yet perpetually expanding, blog.

Well, I say there's nothing on the telly. I haven't checked. Let's see.
Guide...
EastEnders... God, no.
Masters Snooker... I'm already within swiping distance of going comatose, thank you very much.
Columbo: An Exercise in Fatality... mmmmm, nahhh. Maybe as a last resort. Wait, this is the last resort. Scratch that, then.
T4: The Simpsons... bingo! Ooh, and a classic! That'll do! I can enjoy its wit whilst continuing this blog!

Right, onwards!
Have you ever noticed how moments of inspiration seem to mostly happen in the bathroom? I can be on the loo, or brushing my teeth, or having a shower, and I'll inevitably start to daydream furiously. I couldn't even start to come up with the notions I do in the bathroom right now, because my brain simply isn't working as quickly. I think it's the solitary sense of security and peace, the sense that as long as you're in there, you are entitled to be completely alone, and the bathroom is the only room in the house that has that sense.

...

Erm... I can't think of anything else to say on that matter.
Well, point proven.

Bye, then.

Edwin Numblehaye's Buoyant Trouser Press

Happy New Year!

I decided not to put 'Happy New Year' as the title, because that would have been the obvious thing to do, as would a rant about Christmas (I got mine out of the way already), and far be it from me to conform to your petty little unwritten guidelines and expectations. 'Edwin Numblehaye's Buoyant Trouser Press' sounds like a better title for my first blog post of 2010. Even if it doesn't make any sense.

My friend Ross Milnes has gorn and gotten himself in the blogging game. See it.

Right. Next on the agenda, laptops. Those foldy things that beep and light up and you can do spreadsheets on them. Yes. Well. I have one of those things now. A Dell Something-Or-Other Superfandango 4002.6 Autowotsit-Deluxe or something. It's about the size and thickness of a science textbook, but without the equations and chemical reactions and whatnot and I like it very much and I can do vlogs on them. The problem that I had in the past was that I had to wait for a convenient time to film a vlog when there was nobody around, and I could be sure that I wouldn't be interrupted or listened to. Now, I can gallivant off to wherever I see fit and vlog till my nose starts bleeding if I want to. However, I'm not a dedicated vlogger, not one of those fellows who religiously posts a new video up every day, so there will still be long pauses between some videos where I just can't find the time to vlog. At least now I have ruled out a lack of privacy as a deterrent. So yeah.

I logged on to Blogger with nothing, and have left with a blog containing... essentially nothing. Sorry.

I'll put more effort into the next post. I promise.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a kitten.