Your Questions Answered! If you happen to be Hannah or Matt...

The number of replies to the 'tell me what to blog' post exceeded expectations, I wasn't even expecting one reply!

So, as I said, I will answer your questions, first is Hannahs list:


- First pet?

Really I had 2 first pets, if that makes sense. When I was 8 or so my aunt's cat Patsy had kittens and Mum and Dad decided we could have two of them, we called them Tom and Tilly. Sadly Tilly died in a car crash :'(. Her brother Tom is still going strong though, he's the bestest cat evar!

- What colours are you wearing now?
I'm wearing navy blue jeans, a blue top with a red/white/slight hint of Union flag even though it isnt a colour. so basically, I am wearing blue.

- Weirdest thing you've eaten?
Liver. Definitely liver. Mum tried to feed it to us one night but didn't tell me and my sister what it was. I worked it out though! I know thats not all that wierd, but when it comes to food I stick to what I know 

- Where've you gone on holiday? (or favourite holiday)
Best holiday is Root Hill camp, by far. It might not be fancy but it feels more like home than anywhere else. The most exotic holiday I've been on? Egypt

- Close your eyes and grab an object near you. What is it?
Xbox controller!

- Closest pink thing?
The closest pink thing to me is the dvd box set of The Simpsons, season 3

- Most awesome thing you own?
That really depends on your own perception of awesome to provide some kind of scale to measure my awesome possesions against. Tis a hard question for that exact reason. Time for a top 5! In no particular order:


1. 11th Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver
2. A scale replica of Master Cheif's MJOLNIR MK. VI Helmet
3. My phone! Theres nothing it can't do!
4. A fully automatic belt-fed Nerf gun
5. My newly aquired Gameboy Colour

- On the pointless scale of 4-12, how pointless is this?
I'd put it somewhere in the vicinity of 'Fish'

- Why?
Because!

- "Well do ya, do ya do ya wanna?"
Yes? It depends if you're actually asking me something or simply quoting Franz Ferdinand

- How many times have you listened to the whole DFTBA playlist now?
I'm about halfway through the second playthrough I believe, its hard to tell exactly.
 
- What's your favourite song on the playlist?
There are too many made of awesome songs to decide on a single favorite! All Caps are shaping up to be my favorite artist though, they do it just right.

- "Do you like me, yes or no? Do you think that I am cute? Would you date me? You can say maybe. I just have to know!"
Again, this is out of context! Is it an actually a slew of questions or are you simply quoting All Caps at me?

I've put in some check boxes for you to mark your answer:
        
Yes: [] or No: []

(This song came on on the playlist as I was writing this! Spooky)

- Where is your phone atm?

Taiwan :(. My lame replacement phone is beside me though, in all its £10 glory

- Is pineapple meant to be on pizzas?
I wouldn't ever say it was meant to be on Pizza and I'd never order it, but if a hawaiian was put in front of me, I'd probably still eat it.

-Chocolate or sweets?
Sweets! Haribo FTW!

- Where is your favourite place to be?
With my friends, I couldn't care less as to physical location so long as they were there with me

- Would you like a hug?
Always :)

- Close your eyes and think of a colour. Did you really close your eyes?
Yes I did! because if I didn't close my eyes I would have to answer no :(. The colour was Teal btw.

- Favourite colour?
Teal! or if you want specifics, 'Hawk Turquoise' from the Games Workshop line of miniature paints

- Favourite animal?
Thats a hard one! I think some kind of bird would be my favorite animal, I'd love to fly! In reality though, it's probably cats

- Favourite youtuber?
Saving the hard ones til last eh? I think the Vlogbrothers hold that title for now but wheezywaiter is a very close second!

- Should I stop asking questions now? :)
 You seem to have answered that question yourself by not asking anymore questions! I will allow this however


As for Matt C's question: which bothers you more, Russell T Davies' destruction of Gallifrey or JJ Abrams' destruction of Vulcan?

Destroying Vulcan made no sense! yeah Nero was mad, but he didn't need to do that! What I mean to say is that the destruction of Vulcan wasn't really necessary, but then again neither was the destruction of Gallifrey. The difference is that Gallifrey being sealed in the Time War added to the overall narrative of Doctor Who, whereas I dont think that destroying Vulcan really added to anything to Star Trek. That's just my thoughts on it anyway, what's your opinion Matt? Let me know in the comments

So that's the questions I revieved answered, if you have more, feel free to ask more! 

DFTBA

I feel the need...

I think the one thing worse than not knowing how to start a blog is not having an idea for a blog when you really want to blog! Its so frustrating!

Before I go on, I point your attention thus >>>>>>
I set up a poll! The sidebar of my blog was looking a little sparse so I'd foster some blog/audience interaction. If you read this, I command you to state your allegiance to one of the great internet clans! I think I'll be doing a poll every two weeks to give people a chance to respond to it. Hopefully my next poll will be a bit more imaginative! The old internet standby of 'Pirates or Ninjas' is a bit worn, so I thought I'd throw in a DFTBA reference for good measure.

Well, that's wasted some space in this non-blog. I still don't really know what I'm writing here. I want another spark of genius to come like it did for Monday's blog about how much I cant stand pirates, but I think that's this month's creative spark worn out. Fortunately next month is just round the corner!

Seeing as I currently have absolutely no idea what to blog about....

That's right, its participation time! 

If you want, you can leave a comment and I'll try to write a half decent blog about what you suggest. That or ask me questions and I shall answer them to the best of my ability. I don't expect I'll get that many topics, but just one would be awesome!

If you've gotten this far I seem to have successfully made you read a blog post that isn't really about much, so yay me! Also yay you for getting all the way through! This is your reward:

A blog about Doctor who perhaps?

DFTBA

I am a Ninja by association

(I think I'm going to drop the pun idea, I can't seem to think of any anymore!)

Starting blogs is hard! I know exactly what I want to write about, but I always have trouble starting things off. Is it just me that has that problem?

Rather conveniently, my complaining about how I never know how to start off a blog has started off my blog! This weekend I met up with a bunch of my awesome friends from Root Hill in London and it was a barrel of fun. A great time was had by all, or at least I hope so! I might retroactively update this blog to include a link to Hannah's blog (because she was there too) for a more detailed account if she writes one.

Which brings me on to what I wanted to blog about in the first place: Pirates. Not the old fashioned 'yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum' kind, but the technological kind. Seeing as my phone was my mp3 player also, I was left without awesome noise to fill my ears. Having told Hannah this (yes, that's twice in one blog I've mentioned her. You owe me for all this name-dropping Hannah!) she took it upon herself to find one of her old mp3 players and load it up with the awesomest DFTBA music she could find and made an awesome playlist, an act for which I'm super grateful. Whilst I was listening to it, the thought 'I could just copy all of this music to my laptop' crossed my mind. I quickly banished that thought and this is why:

I just can't stand piracy.

Everyone says that piracy doesn't hurt anyone and the artist/developer/software engineers wont miss the money because they are already super-rich. Maybe if you happen to be Lady Gaga you wont actually miss the 99p that someone would have spent on 'Poker Face' instead of downloading it, but when you think of artists like ALL CAPS or Chameleon Circuit, they might miss the money. I don't know for sure as I don't have their exact sales figures, but they might!

Besides, the money isn't why I hate piracy. I hate it because people put so much work into music albums or games or pieces of software, and the general public think that they can just take that work without paying for it. Aside from the fact that it's straight up theft, aren't those artists and programmers entitled to some money for the work they have put into the product you just stole? That's the reason I never pirate CDs or Films or Games, because those people deserve to be paid for what they have made. Paying for things is my way of saying that I appreciate the effort that has gone into that person's work.

I realise now that most of what I wrote wont really make that much sense to people that aren't me. However I leave you with the age old internet argument - Pirates or Ninjas. I stand firmly on the anti-Piracy side of things, so in my eyes that makes me a Ninja. Whose side are you on?

Josh and the case of the mysterious crack

On Friday my phone broke. Again!

This happens far more than I would like, and following that theme I thought I would regale you with tales of my broken phones past and present

Exhibit A: Nokia 70-something 

I got this phone for Christmas or a birthday or something a while back, I was still at school at the time; year 9 I think. I distinctly remember when it broke, I was in a drama lesson and I'd just sat down to listen to the teacher and I heard a 'crack'. My phone was in my back pocket - you do the maths! I took it in for repairs but sadly, it was not possible. I had to go back to my old phone, turns out it wasn't the first time I'd have to either.

Exhibit B: Sony Ericsson 80-something-i

This is the most epic fail of phone breakages ever I think, or at least I hope it will be for me! This phone broke not once, not twice but three times! The first break wasn't even that bad....I sat on it again! Fortunately only the keypad broke, which could be repaired! I sent it off (I say that, my dad did) and it got fixed...except it didn't! I went to turn the volume up and the button caved in! Now I had no volume button, this wouldn't do! So I (read dad) sent it off again to get fixed, which took an age! I finally got it back shortly before a family holiday. When we got to Egypt I thought 'I should take my phone with me to take pictures, I never do that.' I went and put the phone in the pocket of my swimming trunks and went to go and see my parents down at the beach. Dad said we should go snorkelling. I should point out that the red sea in Egypt is the second saltiest sea in the world or something. I went swimming in it..with my phone. That didn't end well for me at all, it was totally fried!

Exhibit C: HTC Desire

Most people reading this will know this one! Seems like my phones have a predisposition to getting drowned! On camp this year we all went to Littlehampton for the day, a nice seaside place with a funfair and a beach and...a boating lake. We all went out on pedalos for a laugh had a great time on the boats, then the time came to go back in for the next lot. As I went to get off the boat something fell out of my pocket... surprise surprise, its my new phone! Was completely wrecked by the time I got it out of the water, but this time it was insured! (Learning from my past mistakes you might say) I sent it off for repairs and it came back all shiny and new looking..but then.....

Exhibit D: HTC Desire...again

This was the break that happened on Friday. There I was, minding my own business on the Internets, when I went to go and pick up my phone from next to me. It had a massive crack in the screen! No-one knows how it got there either, its just a big crack in the screen. It's a total mystery...that's cost me another 50 quid in excess charges! Hopefully I'll learn and start keeping it locked in a tiny box so it cant break again! Unless I drop said box in a lake, which I wouldn't put past myself

'Til next time when I blog about something that might actually be interesting for a change

DFTBA All

It's Blogger-ing time!

Puns are a bit thin on the ground at the moment, so I take what I'm given when it comes to ideas

Things are ramping up a bit in my world at the moment. Third year is officially in swing for me, and that means work! So far me and my group have had countless meetings and gatherings and things to sort out the design of out game and associated paraphernalia for this year's big projects - Making a game in the 8-bit style, then making a trailer and stuff for it in another different module that ties in with the game-making one. The group has had awesome ideas all round and I'm really looking forward to putting it together!

In other news..AAAAHHHHHH!!!!! That scream was brought to you courtesy of my Computing Project. The computing project is like a dissertation except it has a practical element as well as a written element! After a long hard time trying to think of what to do, I have come up with the following (rough) title: Creating a Crowd Simuation using Swarm Intelligence. Doesn't that sound super-clever! Basically I'm trying to create a semi-realistic crowd simulation for use in sandbox games like Crackdown of Just Cause. It will be complicated, but I think I can pull it off. I'm having a brief meeting with my supervisor tomorrow to see if it is adequate and if it is, I get to start work proper.

In yet more news, I have been playing a game a lot recently called Minecraft, which is an AMAZING indie title that really warrants peoples attention if you have some spare time. The URL is www.minecraft.net. The game is so simple in premise you'd never think it would work, but if you are even the slightest bit creative, the game is your oyster. The idea is that you (the player) goes around mining blocks, breaking them up and collecting them. Each block takes up a 1x1x1 space in the world. After you have collected blocks, you can then place them wherever and however you wish, basically like bricks in a house. Eventually you start digging down (MINING!) to reach precious ores like iron, gold and diamonds! You can craft these, as well as other materials in to useful items like pickaxes, weapons and armour. Some of the more ambitious minecraft projects include:

-A 1:1 scale replica of the USS Enterprise-D
-A scale model of the whole world!
-A WORKING COMPUTER! It actually works - Minecraft Computer!

The possibilities are endless! I really haven't done the game justice in my description, so I really do urge you to go and give it a try!

I'll draw this to a close, because there's some mining that I desperately need to do!

DFTBA readers

No, get your own dirt!

I've just started my third year at university and as such I've had a load of new textbooks to read. YAWN!

However, I came across this brilliant little dialogue at the beginning of the section about genetic algorithms:

One day a group of eminent scientists got together and decided that Man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said "God, we've decided that we no longer need You. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't You just retire?"
God listened very patiently and then said "Very well, but first, how about this, let's have a Man-making contest."
To which the scientist replied, "Okay, great!"
But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said "No no no, you go get your own dirt!"

Despite a few theological inaccuracies, I thought this was golden :). Yeah, we understand the universe more than we did 100 years ago, but we still didn't create the universe did we!

Quote-Tacular!

Begin the Quoting!

Firefly + Serenity:

'My food is problematic' - River Tam, The Funeral

'I swallowed a bug' - River Tam, Serenity

'This is the captain. We have a...little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode.' - Malcom Reynolds, Serenity

'Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing? - Zoe Washburn, War Stories

'Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.' - Shepard Book, War Stories

'I swear by my pretty floral bonnet: I will end you.' - Mal Reynolds - Our Mrs. Reynolds

Star Wars:

'Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.' - Leia, A New Hope

'Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?' - Leia, A New Hope 

'Use the Force, Luke' - Obi-Wan Kenobi, A New Hope

'Luke, I am your Father' - Darth Vader, Empire Strikes Back ( SPOILERS! :p )

'Impressive, most impressive' - Darth Vader

'I love you!(Princess Leia)'  'I know (Han Solo)' - Empire Strikes Back (Two Parter)

Star Trek:

'Space. The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilisations. To boldly go where no-one has gone before' - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

'Engage' - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

'Make it so' - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

'It is a good day to die!' - Lieutenant Worf

'What would Captain Picard do?' Commander Will Riker

'KHHHAAAANNNNNNN' - Captain James T. Kirk - Wrath of Khan

Monty Python:

'What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?' - The Bridgekeeper, Holy Grail

'Is that a European or African swallow?' - King Arthur, Holy Grail

'We are the Knights who say "Ni"! ' - Knights who say Ni, Holy Grail

'Bring Forth the Holy Hand Grenade!' - King Arthur, Holy Grail

'Your Mother was a Hamster, and your Father smelt of Elderberries!' - French Taunter, Holy Grail

'There are some who call me....Tim' - Tim the Enchanter, Holy Grail

'He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!' - Brian's Mum, Life of Brian

'And now for something completely different' - John Cleese, film of same name

DFTBA:

"Pokemon, what happened to you?" - Alex Day, song of the same title

"Yes it's true that I once went through life as a guy who always had to rhyme life with strife

 Yes I've been burned and I've been spurned and through all this I have learned that love is not

 about whether you get stabbed but how slow the knife gets turned" - Hank Green, A song about an Anglerfish

Other:

'88 Miles per Hour!' - Doc Brown, Back to the Future

'I'll be Back!' - T-1000/Arnie - Terminator 

'If I were a Megalomaniac, and I'm not, THAT's where I would be' - Cortana, Halo 2

'This city is afraid of me. I have seen it's true face' - Rorschach, Watchmen

'Transform, and Roll Out!' - Optimus Prime, Transformers

'If you guys are us guys, what number are we thinking?....69 Dudes!' - Bill and Ted + future Bill and Ted,  Bill and Ted's most excellent adventure

'Most Excellent!' - Bill and Ted, Bill and Ted's most excellent adventure

'Snakes, why did it have to be snakes' - Indiana Jones, The Raiders of the Lost Ark

'Go Go Gadget Rollerskates!' - Inspector Gadget

'You smeghead!' - Lister, Red Dwarf

'The story so far: In the beginning, the Universe was created. This made a lot of people angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move' - Narrator, Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

'So long, and thanks for all the fish' - Dolphins, Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy

'I wouldn't want to go anywhere without my wonderful towel' - Arthur Dent, Hitch-hikers

'D'oh!' - Homer Simpson

'You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.'-  Morpheus, The Matrix 

'Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?'

'It's...OVER 9000!'

'What?! 9000!' - Nappa and Vegeta, Dragonball Z

This is as many as I could get down between yesterday and now, Apologies for the late post, stuff happened to slow me down. Im fairly convinced that Hannah will win, but its up to you commenters! Do me proud :)

Pun?

The title is a question. The answer is no. Curse my lack of Pun oriented titles!

This is an announcement in a way, me and Hannah (read her blog, its better!) are having a nerd-off!

We are having a competition on how many nerdy quotes we can remember and write down between 8am Wednesday and 10pm Thursday. The blogs will be up here by 10! Its up to you lot to comment and decide who wins!

May the Nerdiest nerd win!

And now for something completely different

I am aware the title is again not a pun, but is in fact a super-awesome nerd reference. Super-TRIPLE-Title-Spectacular next time!


So, Cutlery! Cutlery comes in many forms, Spoons, Knives, Forks etc. And every type of cutlery has a number of subtypes and then there's hybrids and everything! Cutlery is a lot less boring than it initially seems!(no really, it is!) In this post I want to describe the epitome of cutlery, the spork!

Sporks are clearly the best item of cutlery ever, due to being a spoon and a fork AT THE SAME TIME! The only thing that would be better than a Spork is a Sporfe... A combination-spoon-fork-knife! Sporks are also the only item of cutlery that you can both eat soup AND chicken with. (seriously, soup and chicken are the only things I could think of :/). Sporks are so awesome, sometimes they are made out of Titanium. I think you can still buy them from selected internet stores, I have sadly never purchased one though, so Im off to search for an indestructible spork!

So, internet, what do you think of sporks?



I will return to my regular, less random blog format shortly :)

Decisions, Decisions

A week is far too long a time to not blog, so its bloggering time! When I was thinking about what to write, I considered decisions and what makes us choose the things we do over other things we don't do, which took me down an interesting thought path, and this is what I came up with:

After a length of thought, I discovered that my decision making process seems to be oriented around 3 initial-isms. Cue the subheadings!


Criteria 1: W.W.J.D
This is a pretty obvious one to be honest, as a Christian, all my decisions should focus on bringing God glory and the best example we as humans have of this being done well is the account of Jesus' life in the Bible. Jesus lived a perfect life on Earth, so as a Christian I need to do my best to emulate that, impossible as it is. This is the first criteria for decision making - What would Jesus do?

Criteria 2: W.W.C.P.D
This is not so obvious I think, I'm really flying my nerd colours here when I say it stands for...

What would Captain Picard do?

In all seriousness, Captain Picard, despite being fictional, is one of my heroes (and is clearly better than Kirk). Picard always made the right choice for his crew and his ship and in every episode he always sorted everything out. Master diplomat, master tactician and generally master of everything he put his mind to (including Ocarina playing and awesome dancing). Some of you, (and by some I mean Hannah, who is woefully uneducated in all things Star Trek) might say, 'Why not someone else? Like the Doctor maybe' And to this I say this: Captain Picard is just a man (like Flash). Yes the Doctor is awesome and always sacrifices his own well-being for those around him, but he's an alien. Plus he has the unfair advantage of a)Time Travel, B)Regenerating and C)Having scores of girls falling at his feet. Emulating Captain Picard is a lot easier than emulating a Time Lord because he may be larger than life, but hes still just a man. He didn't get bitten by a radioactive captain to become captain Picard, he worked for it. You get out what you put in I suppose

Criteria 3: DFTBA
This isn't so much a criteria as it is an order after reaching a decision, like saying 'Right, now you've decided, Don't Forget To Be Awesome about it' As a junior Nerdfighter and all round nerdy guy, awesome factors into my life in a lot of ways, so I need to output a lot of awesome to maintain the awesome quota. Whatever I decide, it need to be done Awesomely


So, my decision process laid out for all to read! Hope that wasn't completely uninteresting

DFTBA readership, thats an order!


P.S. I am aware of the lack of pun in the title, its hard to think of puns about decisions! Next post will be a double-pun-title-spectacular!

Reach for the stars

I've decided that all of the titles in my blog are going to be ridiculous puns, deal with it :)

This blog comes in two parts, the first about Halo: Reach (see title), the second about a book I've just read called 'Looking for Alaska' by John Green.

So Halo: Reach, or Reach, or the game I've been anticipating for like TWO years came out this Tuesday and I've played it end to end and I have to say, its amazingly good. I thought Halo 3 was fantastic but this really blows it out of the water. Reach has so many improvements its impossible to cover them all, but I will say one thing: JETPACKS! Anyone who understands the gamer psyche will get that jetpacks are akin to the Holy Grail of computer games, at least in Halo. The single player is great, the multiplayer is great and its just generally fantastic! Anyone reading this who a)likes FPS' and b)has an Xbox, should go and get Reach now!

Now for the more sensible part of the post where I go all A-level English student on Looking for Alaska. I haven't really read anything like Looking for Alaska before, so it was a completely new experience for me. I usually read sci-fi stuff or 'graphic novels'(read 'comic books') so Alaska was a big change with regards to my reading habits. By the way, I'll try to keep this spoiler free, which is harder than normal considering the books main event! Alaska is a really good book, hands-down. I enjoyed reading it and will no doubt enjoy reading it again. Looking for Alaska is about a boy named Miles Halter who leaves home to attend a boarding school in Alabama. Here he meets the titular Alaska (the book isn't about looking for the state of Alaska, rather a girl names Alaska, fyi) and other students like his room-mate the Colonel and the rest of the supporting characters. The way the book is physically written and laid out leads up to the pivotal moment in the storyline and then subsequently away from it, which really adds a sense of loss to Pudge's experiences at Culver Creek. The way Pudge and the Colonel deal with the 'event' really shows an insight into how we, as people, deal with the unknown. The characters were all well rounded, the setting was very believable and generally the book was a very good read, I'd reccomend it to anyone in the market for a good book :

I get that this probably wasn't a very cohesive blog, but bear with me. I'm new at this :)

Recursive post!

blog within a blog :D

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

New Blog-ginnings

I apologise for the pun in the title, I know its ghastly but I actually had an idea for once so I went with it. In retrospect, not such a great idea.

I've decided to start up a blog, evidently, and now have no ideas for what to write! Ideas are fleeting things, especially when it comes to writing stuff! I suppose an introduction is in order for those who do not know me. My name is Josh, I'm a 20 year old Christian, gamer and student; in that order. I study Games Technology at the University of the West of England in Bristol, I'm shortly going into my third and final year. That's about all there is to know right now. Odds are the posts on this blog will be disjointed and random, but potentially awesome.

This blog is here as much for me as it is for you, the reader. Blogging has this attractive cathartic quality which partly what drew me to the idea, but really it was the influence of a friend that made me start up proper. This friend is Hannah, who I met on camp this year, and is a most awesome friend to have made. She too blogs, her blog is hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com. I urge you to go and read it because it is invariably better than my own attempt at blogging :)

That's the end of my first post on the blog. Maybe the title should have been "FIRST!!!!!111!!1 lolz"? No matter, both titles are terrible :).

Until next time, DFTBA readers :)