Bah.
Okay, it was good to get that out of my system. Now I shall move on to more pressing issues.
You know how yesterday I was talking about sleep-ins? I've finally found a way to stop the sleeping-past-noon.
The past couple of weeks, I've been sleeping far too much. I've been drifting off at midnight and waking up at noon. I've noticed a certain pattern to the cycle. Every night, I go to sleep later because I feel less tired due to the lengthy sleep-in that I had that day, then wake up even later than the day before. So the cycle continues. Due to the end of the holidays beginning to loom, I decided that I needed to snap myself out of this process that's turning me nocturnal. (I know I swapped tenses in the middle of the sentence. That was intended. Editor, you're supposed to be on holiday. You have no life.) Professor as I am, I devised a simple but predictably effective plan to bring me to my senses - at least, bring me to my senses earlier than noon.
I'm really not sure this idea was my best ever.
The general idea was that, seeing as I wasn't doing enough to make myself tired and was sleeping so much to avoid tiredness with a vengeance, I would rid myself of sleep for twenty four hours in an effort to purge myself of the habit. In my journal (yes, I do actually write these things down somewhere - Matt, get no ideas), I duly noted that the predicted side effects of this 'treatment' would be headaches, general ill behavior towards other living creatures and, of course, persisting debilitating tiredness for as long as the experiment was continued for. The predicted outcome was that, after the treatment had been exacted - oh dear, this sounds like an evil torture, which it really isn't - and a recovery window of one to two days, sleeping patterns would resume a normal level.
Again, I'm really not sure this ranks as one of the greatest plans in the history of humanity.
The procedure was simple enough, at least as far as staying awake was concerned. It's really rather amazing what seven hours of playing Professor Layton can do for you. No, that was the easy bit. The side effects are rather bad though.
As I sit here now, I have a headache, drooping eyelids and a machete in my right hand. I was correct when I predicted a sore head, tiredness and possibly antisocial behavior. I am fighting to keep my eyelids open. The headache is making things interesting. The machete is there in case anyone tries to approach me displaying anything but the utmost caution and a flagon of coffee. I'm irritable and generally crabby. The thing is, I need to keep this up until the end of the evening at least for the experiment to stand much chance at working. Of course, the extreme tiredness could backfire and make me sleep in longer, and then I'd be back to square one. Considering I was at square five before the experiment began, that would not be helpful in the slightest. I've generally succeeded in predicting my own misery.
However, there is an old saying: Pain is obligatory. Misery is optional. I am here to tell you that in this case, whoever first quoted this saying was an idiot. They had obviously never deprived themselves of sleep for any length of time.
On a side note, I've managed to completely offset my balance to a point where everything seems slanted. Who knew that the Doctor Who Christmas Special seemed better when viewed at an angle of thirty seven and a half degrees? Not me. Not until today, at least.
I'm off to be crabby elsewhere and to try and cheer myself up with a spot of Terry Pratchett followed by Fawlty Towers and a cup of sugar. Yes, I did say sugar. I need energy. Sugar is energy. Ergo, I need sugar.
Happy New year, folks. See you later.
Oh, and a final note: Please, none of you ever actually try this. It's more trouble than it's worth. Trust me. I'm asleep.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Happy New Year
Hola, como estas, Happy New Year and all that stuff. I'm in a funny mood today. Tee hee.
Anyhow, as I have already said and shall now say again, a happy new year to you all. Yes, I am aware that this is December 31st, not January 1st, but to the cupboard under the stairs with all that. I'm saying it now so I don't have to say it later. I'm sure you won't read this until it's too late anyway.
If you really want to know why I'm acting like this, read the next post. You'll see why soon enough. That's assuming I can both muster the strength to blog a little more and remember what I'm writing while I write it.
I'm away. Good tidings to you for the new year. Make a resolution, hug a tree, eat a keyboard or something. I don't have the strength to care right now. Just remember that the end of the world is approaching. Sure enough, it always is, I suppose, but this one's predicted to occur on the 21st December 2012 or thereabouts. Enjoy the Doomsday Party. Send me a slice of cake.
Anyhow, as I have already said and shall now say again, a happy new year to you all. Yes, I am aware that this is December 31st, not January 1st, but to the cupboard under the stairs with all that. I'm saying it now so I don't have to say it later. I'm sure you won't read this until it's too late anyway.
If you really want to know why I'm acting like this, read the next post. You'll see why soon enough. That's assuming I can both muster the strength to blog a little more and remember what I'm writing while I write it.
I'm away. Good tidings to you for the new year. Make a resolution, hug a tree, eat a keyboard or something. I don't have the strength to care right now. Just remember that the end of the world is approaching. Sure enough, it always is, I suppose, but this one's predicted to occur on the 21st December 2012 or thereabouts. Enjoy the Doomsday Party. Send me a slice of cake.
Friday, 30 December 2011
The Ghost of Christmas Five Days Past
Hey folks! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day... hang a sec, let me check the calendar... Proclamation Day? I have no idea what that is and I have no intention of putting precious time into finding out. Someone leave me a comment explaining it please.
Anyway, I'm sure that at least some of you will have been enjoying the holiday season up to this point. New games to play, electronics to mess around with, books to read, yeah? That's how I've been spending my past five or six days.
Thing is, I like lazing around. I enjoy having a good long sleep-in on every day that I don't absolutely have to get up at a certain time. (Is anyone else afflicted with that weird curse where when you do have to get up early, it's at some ungodly hour, ie five o'clock? I am. Does anyone share my suffering?) I like to spend my days playing casual games of chess, solving mildly challenging puzzles in the pursuit of furthering my investigations and reading hilariously funny books on the Amazon Kindle that was presented to me. I even don't really mind watching all the films that my entire family has accumulated and are desperate to watch. In my eyes, all the above actions are just normal, run-of-the-mill holiday things.
However, things aren't always happy-happy, are they? Let me tell you about my average Christmas. Oh, don't worry, I'm not going into detail. I'm in far too good a mood for that.
So Christmas Day is a blast. Presents, dinner, general merriment. You get what I mean. Christmas Day is just an awesome all-round good time for the whole family. Then the day ends and we all go to bed ridiculously late (or early, if you're Skald).
The next day isn't quite so good.
There's a point where things peak. For example, a mountain. That is the obvious analogy to be used here. The mountain slopes up, peaks, and then slopes back down. Good times are like that. They get better and better, peak, and then get a little bit worse for a while until everything's back to normal. Of course, we could go into how the land on the other side is rarely the same level as the soil on the other side of the mountain, but that's taking it a little too far.
In my household, Christmas is pretty much identical to what we have here. You wake up, the day gets better and better, reaches the ceiling at around six o'clock and winds down after the Doctor Who Christmas Special ends. (Oh, and am I alone in thinking that the Christmas Special this year was really just terrible, with minor peril added and a very predictable soppy ending? I'm not letting this drop. I'll speak of this later, mark my words.) You go to sleep and wake up groggy with a splitting headache because you either a) drank too much in the way of alcohol b) drank too little in the way of water or c) a combination of too much and too little. The day isn't nearly as good as the day before in any possible way, apart from maybe that the electricity bills go down for that one day and there's no possibility of a stray candle setting the whole house on fire.
I call this phenomenon the 'Boxing Day Blues'. I give it a name because I suffer from it almost every single year.
I'm not sure if I'm alone in feeling this way. However, I do know that it's certainly the biggest downside to any exciting time that I've ever experienced. The same happens with the 'End of Holiday Blues'. As you get closer to the end of a two week break or something, you realise that life actualy has to go on as per usual. As a result, I personally don't enjoy those last few days simply because I'm preoccupied with the future. I guess we just have to learn to live with the inevitable, don't we? If we can't do that, then life doesn't progress. Live for the present and to hell with the inevitable. What's going to happen is going to happen. End of. Get on with it, yeah? At least, that's what I tell myself. It works, mostly. Even so, we all come down with the holiday blues sometimes. This is me saying that I'm suffering that just now.
What's the cure? You need to get up and go do something. Travel, write, blog, if you do something then you feel better. To fall back on a recent-but-not-too-recent event, NaNoWriMo really collapsed when I stopped for a break. Contrary to my belief, the break really stunted my work. I couldn't bring myself to do anything simply because I had too much time. Of course, it picked up and I won it eventually, but picking myself back up was the most difficult part.
I think the best cure for this sort of thing is to lose yourself in something that is actually beneficial to you. That doesn't mean reading a book or making progress in a video game. Get up and do something. It helps. I know. Trust me. You probably shouldn't, but do so anyway.
Anyway, here's hoping that those blues will go away as I reboot the blog for 2012. There's work to be done. I'm gonna make this year the best yet!
Ahem.
As a finishing note, happy New Year to you all! Prosper in the New Year. Make a resolution. Send a card. Throw an egg at Matt's house for the fun of it. Just generally enjoy yourselves.
Toiling away to make the wheels of The Kettle turn, this is Professor Pisces signing off. But not for long, mind.
To the rest of the Kettle: Don't think I've forgotten you! Okay folks, break's over. Back to work in the New Year, please. And yes, Matt, this is the general New Year, NOT Chinese New Year that I speak of!
Alrighty, rant over, I shall leave you in relative peace - for now. Muhahahaha...
Anyway, I'm sure that at least some of you will have been enjoying the holiday season up to this point. New games to play, electronics to mess around with, books to read, yeah? That's how I've been spending my past five or six days.
Thing is, I like lazing around. I enjoy having a good long sleep-in on every day that I don't absolutely have to get up at a certain time. (Is anyone else afflicted with that weird curse where when you do have to get up early, it's at some ungodly hour, ie five o'clock? I am. Does anyone share my suffering?) I like to spend my days playing casual games of chess, solving mildly challenging puzzles in the pursuit of furthering my investigations and reading hilariously funny books on the Amazon Kindle that was presented to me. I even don't really mind watching all the films that my entire family has accumulated and are desperate to watch. In my eyes, all the above actions are just normal, run-of-the-mill holiday things.
However, things aren't always happy-happy, are they? Let me tell you about my average Christmas. Oh, don't worry, I'm not going into detail. I'm in far too good a mood for that.
So Christmas Day is a blast. Presents, dinner, general merriment. You get what I mean. Christmas Day is just an awesome all-round good time for the whole family. Then the day ends and we all go to bed ridiculously late (or early, if you're Skald).
The next day isn't quite so good.
There's a point where things peak. For example, a mountain. That is the obvious analogy to be used here. The mountain slopes up, peaks, and then slopes back down. Good times are like that. They get better and better, peak, and then get a little bit worse for a while until everything's back to normal. Of course, we could go into how the land on the other side is rarely the same level as the soil on the other side of the mountain, but that's taking it a little too far.
In my household, Christmas is pretty much identical to what we have here. You wake up, the day gets better and better, reaches the ceiling at around six o'clock and winds down after the Doctor Who Christmas Special ends. (Oh, and am I alone in thinking that the Christmas Special this year was really just terrible, with minor peril added and a very predictable soppy ending? I'm not letting this drop. I'll speak of this later, mark my words.) You go to sleep and wake up groggy with a splitting headache because you either a) drank too much in the way of alcohol b) drank too little in the way of water or c) a combination of too much and too little. The day isn't nearly as good as the day before in any possible way, apart from maybe that the electricity bills go down for that one day and there's no possibility of a stray candle setting the whole house on fire.
I call this phenomenon the 'Boxing Day Blues'. I give it a name because I suffer from it almost every single year.
I'm not sure if I'm alone in feeling this way. However, I do know that it's certainly the biggest downside to any exciting time that I've ever experienced. The same happens with the 'End of Holiday Blues'. As you get closer to the end of a two week break or something, you realise that life actualy has to go on as per usual. As a result, I personally don't enjoy those last few days simply because I'm preoccupied with the future. I guess we just have to learn to live with the inevitable, don't we? If we can't do that, then life doesn't progress. Live for the present and to hell with the inevitable. What's going to happen is going to happen. End of. Get on with it, yeah? At least, that's what I tell myself. It works, mostly. Even so, we all come down with the holiday blues sometimes. This is me saying that I'm suffering that just now.
What's the cure? You need to get up and go do something. Travel, write, blog, if you do something then you feel better. To fall back on a recent-but-not-too-recent event, NaNoWriMo really collapsed when I stopped for a break. Contrary to my belief, the break really stunted my work. I couldn't bring myself to do anything simply because I had too much time. Of course, it picked up and I won it eventually, but picking myself back up was the most difficult part.
I think the best cure for this sort of thing is to lose yourself in something that is actually beneficial to you. That doesn't mean reading a book or making progress in a video game. Get up and do something. It helps. I know. Trust me. You probably shouldn't, but do so anyway.
Anyway, here's hoping that those blues will go away as I reboot the blog for 2012. There's work to be done. I'm gonna make this year the best yet!
Ahem.
As a finishing note, happy New Year to you all! Prosper in the New Year. Make a resolution. Send a card. Throw an egg at Matt's house for the fun of it. Just generally enjoy yourselves.
Toiling away to make the wheels of The Kettle turn, this is Professor Pisces signing off. But not for long, mind.
To the rest of the Kettle: Don't think I've forgotten you! Okay folks, break's over. Back to work in the New Year, please. And yes, Matt, this is the general New Year, NOT Chinese New Year that I speak of!
Alrighty, rant over, I shall leave you in relative peace - for now. Muhahahaha...
Monday, 26 December 2011
Numbers by Rachel Ward - A Book Review
I was browsing the new library stock last week in search of something to keep me entertained up until Christmas. Being a strange person as I am, I picked up 'Numbers' - or, more accurately, 2-on-its-side, U, M, B, backwards-3, R, S. Yes, that was how it was written. Very confusing.
Anyhow, I checked it out and pretty much had it finished yesterday. I noticed rather few posts entering the blog's cyberspace, so I thought 'I have nothing to lose. Let's write a review!'. So here I am, writing a review on the book 'Numbers'.
'Numbers' by Rachel Ward follows a fifteen year-old girl named Jem, who has been granted an amazing but terrible gift - she can see death dates in people's eyes. Their death dates. With her mother long dead, Jem moves between homes, never quite fitting in.
That's when she meets a boy named Spider. (Terry, actually, but he's called Spider as a sort of nickname.) A special bond grows between them, and they become good friends. Then a trip into London turns her world upside down, Jem finds herself on the run with Spider. Meanwhile, a life-changing date grows ever-closer, and Jem must find a way to outsmart the numbers. A life is at stake... and it's Spider's.
The plot of the book is very satisfying in many ways - fast paced and near unputdownable. Just like a real thriller should be. It does credit to its category, though not in the usual sense. It's not a 'Mission Impossible' type plot - not that many explosions, guns etc - but the author finds other means of drawing in the reader. Different fairly realistic situations leave the reader reeling and ready for the next one, though where that shock is going to come from is anyone's guess. The numbers are done really well, though a lot more could have been made of them, especially considering the book as a whole. There were quite a few opportunities to advance this a fair bit, but it just didn't happen.
Characters are also well structured and realistic. The picture painted of a pair of outcasts thrown together by goodness-knows-what-but-it-isn't-fate in a grotty London background is rather shocking at times, especially considering the very real use of explicit language (ie swearing) and talk of drugs. It does bring into perspective what the world is like today. Even so, the characters are rather enjoyable. Charismatic and understandable, to a level. Nice work. The numbers make for an extra added twist. Knowing when your loved ones are going to die can't be nice. It explains why Jem is so withdrawn, and her reluctance to make contact with anyone. She just doesn't want to have to suffer knowing what's going to happen to folk.
The themes in this book are well developed too. Drugs, problems with authority and friendship all play a part. Jem constantly refers to drugs in the first-person narrative, as her own mother died from an overdose. She and Spider both have sever problems with authority, seeing the justice system as prejudiced, unbalanced and generally not to their liking. The friendship bit is obvious. That's between Spider and Jem.
The prose is fairly easy to understand, with no big, complex words really featuring throughout. The book's written from Jem's point of view, and as such uses language that she herself would use. A result of this is that there are several passages using slang-like terms that would be used by teenagers and school kids in Britain today. There are some fairly direct uses of swearwords for effect which can be quite surprising when you aren't on the lookout for them. I got a wake-up call when I was reading certain bits of it to myself. It's not a book I'd recommend reading out publicly.
That brings me smartly on to recommendations. I'd recommend this book to older teens who don't mind a bit of violence, lots of swearing and some romantic scenes. Anyone into the Thriller genre should also enjoy it, with the exception of those chasing after all the guns and nuclear weapons usually found in certain of these books. There are not many guns to be found here, and only one bomb.
So, my review. It's a good book. Understandable prose that really appeals to teens, a fast paced plot and realistic characters make for interesting reading. However, it does get annoying at times when Jem is constantly trying to change the unchangeable. She dwells on the numbers a little too much, but who can blame her?
For all this, I'll give it a seven out of ten (7/10).
If you do happen to read this book, watch out for the end. It's a little confusing to a degree, but just remember this: There's a sequel.
Anyhow, I checked it out and pretty much had it finished yesterday. I noticed rather few posts entering the blog's cyberspace, so I thought 'I have nothing to lose. Let's write a review!'. So here I am, writing a review on the book 'Numbers'.
 |
| The book cover. See? 2, U, M, B, 3, R, S. Most confusing. |
That's when she meets a boy named Spider. (Terry, actually, but he's called Spider as a sort of nickname.) A special bond grows between them, and they become good friends. Then a trip into London turns her world upside down, Jem finds herself on the run with Spider. Meanwhile, a life-changing date grows ever-closer, and Jem must find a way to outsmart the numbers. A life is at stake... and it's Spider's.
The plot of the book is very satisfying in many ways - fast paced and near unputdownable. Just like a real thriller should be. It does credit to its category, though not in the usual sense. It's not a 'Mission Impossible' type plot - not that many explosions, guns etc - but the author finds other means of drawing in the reader. Different fairly realistic situations leave the reader reeling and ready for the next one, though where that shock is going to come from is anyone's guess. The numbers are done really well, though a lot more could have been made of them, especially considering the book as a whole. There were quite a few opportunities to advance this a fair bit, but it just didn't happen.
Characters are also well structured and realistic. The picture painted of a pair of outcasts thrown together by goodness-knows-what-but-it-isn't-fate in a grotty London background is rather shocking at times, especially considering the very real use of explicit language (ie swearing) and talk of drugs. It does bring into perspective what the world is like today. Even so, the characters are rather enjoyable. Charismatic and understandable, to a level. Nice work. The numbers make for an extra added twist. Knowing when your loved ones are going to die can't be nice. It explains why Jem is so withdrawn, and her reluctance to make contact with anyone. She just doesn't want to have to suffer knowing what's going to happen to folk.
The themes in this book are well developed too. Drugs, problems with authority and friendship all play a part. Jem constantly refers to drugs in the first-person narrative, as her own mother died from an overdose. She and Spider both have sever problems with authority, seeing the justice system as prejudiced, unbalanced and generally not to their liking. The friendship bit is obvious. That's between Spider and Jem.
The prose is fairly easy to understand, with no big, complex words really featuring throughout. The book's written from Jem's point of view, and as such uses language that she herself would use. A result of this is that there are several passages using slang-like terms that would be used by teenagers and school kids in Britain today. There are some fairly direct uses of swearwords for effect which can be quite surprising when you aren't on the lookout for them. I got a wake-up call when I was reading certain bits of it to myself. It's not a book I'd recommend reading out publicly.
That brings me smartly on to recommendations. I'd recommend this book to older teens who don't mind a bit of violence, lots of swearing and some romantic scenes. Anyone into the Thriller genre should also enjoy it, with the exception of those chasing after all the guns and nuclear weapons usually found in certain of these books. There are not many guns to be found here, and only one bomb.
So, my review. It's a good book. Understandable prose that really appeals to teens, a fast paced plot and realistic characters make for interesting reading. However, it does get annoying at times when Jem is constantly trying to change the unchangeable. She dwells on the numbers a little too much, but who can blame her?
For all this, I'll give it a seven out of ten (7/10).
If you do happen to read this book, watch out for the end. It's a little confusing to a degree, but just remember this: There's a sequel.
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Merry Christmas From The Kettle
It's Christmas Day again, you may or may not be celebrating Christmas. If you are, then enjoy the day. Open your presents and enjoy them to the full, but remember what you do already have and be grateful for it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth; accept with gratitude. Don't be afraid to pig out on the food. It's there for a reason. Appreciate the work that goes into that food and enjoy it in the usual way. Share that last peice of cake. Pull a cracker with someone. Generally have a good time. But don't forget those who are less fortunate.
Soppy stuff over, this is Professor Pisces saying from all of us Kettlians (Matt, Evil Mistress of Cliffhangers, Rinrei and The Eternal Editor): Merry Christmas!
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalala lalalala...
Soppy stuff over, this is Professor Pisces saying from all of us Kettlians (Matt, Evil Mistress of Cliffhangers, Rinrei and The Eternal Editor): Merry Christmas!
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalala lalalala...
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
My Thoughts On Christmas
I came here to rant yet again but, instead, I will talk about something completely different. IT'S CHRISTMAS IN FOUR DAYS!!!
I love Christmas. I love the giving and receiving of presents. I love going to church and celebrating Christmas (although I only do this at the church near my dad's house in Wales). I even love SAYING the word Christmas. I love every aspect of Christmas that can occur upon this earth.
When I was a wee lass, my brother and I would wake up at three in the morning and charge straight into the living room. We would talk about who would open their presents before my mum woke up, and I was often the one that did this. Every year, a day before Christmas we got to open a present early. I had a habit of opening the smallest while my brother opened the largest.
I remember helping my mum make the Christmas dinner and eating it with my aunts and my sisters. There was this one time when I was seven (the most eventful time of my life and the time I managed to damage myself with recklessness the most) when I was in the kitchen and my mum was bringing out the turkey, gravy and all. She had told me to move but the place was overcrowded so the only thing I could do was move forward. I had walked right into the path of the turkey and smacked my head right off the boiling hot tray, gravy came oozing over the side. So, not only was a terribly burn inflicted upon me, but I almost killed our turkey in the process. (Note from The Editor: despite it being dead already.) My mum seemed more concerned about the turkey than me.
Lately, things have changed. My brother has decided that he will never eat chicken or any other kind of bird again, which kind of ruins our dinner. Everyone tells us what our presents are, so that spoils the surprise of it. A lot of people I know are getting TVs and iPhones for their Christmas. What happened to dolls and games?
As people grow older it seems that Christmas is disappearing. Even I am beginning to feel it. Nowadays, it seems that Christmas is just another day in the year in which you get presents and a big dinner. No one cares to think of its origins and no one thinks of spending time with the family. They would much prefer to talk to people on their phone or hang out with their friends and get drunk.
Christmas is dying and only we can save it. I'm giving you all a challenge. Spend time with your family at Christmas. Don't turn on the computer and don't talk to people on your phone. Be grateful for what you have, even if it is socks. Hell, go to church and sing carols. Do anything possible to avoid getting caught up in the commercial frenzy. And most of all, enjoy it. Enjoy every aspect of Christmas like I do. Don't see giving presents as a nuisance, you're making someone happy.
This will probably be my last post before Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Signing off!
Rinrei
I love Christmas. I love the giving and receiving of presents. I love going to church and celebrating Christmas (although I only do this at the church near my dad's house in Wales). I even love SAYING the word Christmas. I love every aspect of Christmas that can occur upon this earth.
When I was a wee lass, my brother and I would wake up at three in the morning and charge straight into the living room. We would talk about who would open their presents before my mum woke up, and I was often the one that did this. Every year, a day before Christmas we got to open a present early. I had a habit of opening the smallest while my brother opened the largest.
I remember helping my mum make the Christmas dinner and eating it with my aunts and my sisters. There was this one time when I was seven (the most eventful time of my life and the time I managed to damage myself with recklessness the most) when I was in the kitchen and my mum was bringing out the turkey, gravy and all. She had told me to move but the place was overcrowded so the only thing I could do was move forward. I had walked right into the path of the turkey and smacked my head right off the boiling hot tray, gravy came oozing over the side. So, not only was a terribly burn inflicted upon me, but I almost killed our turkey in the process. (Note from The Editor: despite it being dead already.) My mum seemed more concerned about the turkey than me.
Lately, things have changed. My brother has decided that he will never eat chicken or any other kind of bird again, which kind of ruins our dinner. Everyone tells us what our presents are, so that spoils the surprise of it. A lot of people I know are getting TVs and iPhones for their Christmas. What happened to dolls and games?
As people grow older it seems that Christmas is disappearing. Even I am beginning to feel it. Nowadays, it seems that Christmas is just another day in the year in which you get presents and a big dinner. No one cares to think of its origins and no one thinks of spending time with the family. They would much prefer to talk to people on their phone or hang out with their friends and get drunk.
Christmas is dying and only we can save it. I'm giving you all a challenge. Spend time with your family at Christmas. Don't turn on the computer and don't talk to people on your phone. Be grateful for what you have, even if it is socks. Hell, go to church and sing carols. Do anything possible to avoid getting caught up in the commercial frenzy. And most of all, enjoy it. Enjoy every aspect of Christmas like I do. Don't see giving presents as a nuisance, you're making someone happy.
This will probably be my last post before Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Signing off!
Rinrei
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Rinrei's Rants - No. 3
I see myself as someone who has this great ability to keep back their anger in real life (but not online, though). I hold back whatever murderous intentions I have and focus on other things such as prelim results. But even I have my limit. I can sit back and watch people call me names and embarrass me in public for hours so long as I haven't got a pencil or pen nearby.
Anyway, as I said, even I have my limits. Especially when it comes to others ruining our fun. This particular quality came to light during a recent confrontation. This incident happened a few days ago between my friends and I. Now, there is always one person in a group that nobody likes. We all have that person in that group. We keep them there to hate their guts. Our hobby when that person is not around is to cut them down. My group also has that person. We shall call him Beaver, for now.
Everywhere we go, he somehow gets there. We don't tell him where we're going and he's still there. He'll do that OMG-I-just-found-you run thing. I don't like him. My friends don't like him. We just don't like him.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand (whatever that is). We had this awesome ice slide where we were sitting and generally just sliding around on. Hyper, our most active member, was bolting down the ice doing handstands and the such. Anyway, Beaver was annoyed with us because he wanted the slide all for himself so he could show off how it only belonged to him. (He actually hinted at this. His own words were: "I found it first.")
First, he sat right in the middle of this slide. We ignored him and continued to slide down the slide. I finally came up with an idea to remove this nuisance. Evil, Hyper and I ganged up on Beaver and slid into him, forcing him off the slide.
At this he was furious. He got up and claimed he was going to the authorities to say we were bullying him. After watching him disappear into the building, we decided that we would enjoy whatever freedom we had left and slid down the slide doing crazy stunts like back flips.
He came storming back with a cup of hot chocolate. We questioned him on what he would do with said cup, and he answered us rather promptly. He walked up to the slide and poured the hot chocolate down it. Hyper and I tried to get rid of the hot chocolate but it was in vain. He laughed at our attempts and poured the rest of the hot chocolate down the slide.
We eventually shoved this complete spoilsport out of the way and slid down the hot chocolate, so the results weren't too bad. I was more annoyed by his attitude. He waschildish and spoilt. Why does he insist on ruining our fun? He thinks that if it does not belong to him then no one can use it. In his mind, everything he touches belongs to him and therefore no one else can have it. You can have nothing if he gives you no permission and even then he will suddenly decide that you can't have it. He hates you having things. You can not have things; he has to have it all. That peeves me. I have punched him several times because of this attitude. Cocky little creature thinks he can look down on us and expects us to worship him like some kind of god? He thinks that with an attitude like THAT we will like him? He thinks that claiming everything belongs to you and looking down on everyone will get you friends? NO! WE WILL SPEND OUR TIME INSULTING YOU WHEN YOU ARE NOT AROUND! We will hate you. Expect nothing else. We will just hate you. That's the end of it.
Anyway, rant over.
I'm signing off before I kill something!
Rinrei out!
Anyway, as I said, even I have my limits. Especially when it comes to others ruining our fun. This particular quality came to light during a recent confrontation. This incident happened a few days ago between my friends and I. Now, there is always one person in a group that nobody likes. We all have that person in that group. We keep them there to hate their guts. Our hobby when that person is not around is to cut them down. My group also has that person. We shall call him Beaver, for now.
Everywhere we go, he somehow gets there. We don't tell him where we're going and he's still there. He'll do that OMG-I-just-found-you run thing. I don't like him. My friends don't like him. We just don't like him.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand (whatever that is). We had this awesome ice slide where we were sitting and generally just sliding around on. Hyper, our most active member, was bolting down the ice doing handstands and the such. Anyway, Beaver was annoyed with us because he wanted the slide all for himself so he could show off how it only belonged to him. (He actually hinted at this. His own words were: "I found it first.")
First, he sat right in the middle of this slide. We ignored him and continued to slide down the slide. I finally came up with an idea to remove this nuisance. Evil, Hyper and I ganged up on Beaver and slid into him, forcing him off the slide.
At this he was furious. He got up and claimed he was going to the authorities to say we were bullying him. After watching him disappear into the building, we decided that we would enjoy whatever freedom we had left and slid down the slide doing crazy stunts like back flips.
He came storming back with a cup of hot chocolate. We questioned him on what he would do with said cup, and he answered us rather promptly. He walked up to the slide and poured the hot chocolate down it. Hyper and I tried to get rid of the hot chocolate but it was in vain. He laughed at our attempts and poured the rest of the hot chocolate down the slide.
We eventually shoved this complete spoilsport out of the way and slid down the hot chocolate, so the results weren't too bad. I was more annoyed by his attitude. He waschildish and spoilt. Why does he insist on ruining our fun? He thinks that if it does not belong to him then no one can use it. In his mind, everything he touches belongs to him and therefore no one else can have it. You can have nothing if he gives you no permission and even then he will suddenly decide that you can't have it. He hates you having things. You can not have things; he has to have it all. That peeves me. I have punched him several times because of this attitude. Cocky little creature thinks he can look down on us and expects us to worship him like some kind of god? He thinks that with an attitude like THAT we will like him? He thinks that claiming everything belongs to you and looking down on everyone will get you friends? NO! WE WILL SPEND OUR TIME INSULTING YOU WHEN YOU ARE NOT AROUND! We will hate you. Expect nothing else. We will just hate you. That's the end of it.
Anyway, rant over.
I'm signing off before I kill something!
Rinrei out!
Sunday, 18 December 2011
What's On My Mind? - Christmas
With a week to go until Christmas, everything is kicking off. The shops are doing a roaring trade as Christmas shoppers search for that last gift to give to their mother-in-law, the weather is taking a turn for the worse in the Northern Hemisphere and Summer is in full swing in the Southern Hemisphere. Yet even in this festive season, there are things littered around to irritate and mislead us.
Ever since the invention of the Christmas Card in Dickens' time, Christmas has become more and more commercialised. Such things as 'Santa's Grotto' did not exist two hundred years ago, when it was but feasting and general merriment that took place, and even then it was on Christmas Day only. Nowadays Christmas has almost become a privately owned affair - companies squabble for the money of the masses, throwing in big fat Santas and badly drawn cartoon reindeer to mark th occasion.
It used to be that Christmas was a religious holiday that marked when the Son of God was born. Unfortunately, today's society has turned the tables and is exploiting this celebration into a time for mass producing useless things such as plastic light-up Santas for out on your lawn, or holly wreaths for your door. The sincere lack of anything remotely connected to the divine has become quite the point to make during sermons. Allow me to demonstrate.
Take a look at Christmas Carols. It used to be that songs such as 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' and 'Silent Night' were all the rage, but they have slowly but surely been pushed away by increasingly unrelated songs such as 'Frosty the Snowman', 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' and 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree'. The latter set of songs mentions nothing to do with religion of any sort. 'Frosty the Snowman' doesn't even mention Christmas itself. Lovely as these songs are, they help the masses to forget about what the original message of Christmas was and should still be.
The lack of religion-related carols being sung at this very moment just marks how much society has changed since the Middle Ages. Back in the days when the monarchy actually ruled the land, nearly everyone treated Christmas as a religious festivity and took time to reflect upon its meaning. In the twenty-first century, most of the population of the Western world chooses to ignore the true meaning and instead turn it into a hectic time for present-giving and adding a little bit of extra weight to their already not inconsiderable masses. The baby Jesus has been replaced with a fat man in a jolly red suit who goes by the name of Santa. The stable animals have been replaced by reindeer. Gold, frankincense and myrrh have transformed into bottles of wine, expensive toys and jewellery. In truth, this holiday that we now call Christmas is but a ghost of what it once was.
This is possibly brought on by an over-awareness of what other people think. In the world of today, we are all too aware that atheism marks a large portion of the population of Britain alone. It is not impossible that in an effort to appease the critics who would no doubt pounce on a religion-centred Christmas like a cat upon a cat-sized mouse, we have removed all but the faintest traces of religion from the festivities.However, this raises a question: do atheists celebrate Christmas? It would certainly be an interesting paradox if they did. It would be like being a vegetarian who ate steak but no other meat. It would be a contradiction of the faith. And let's face it: atheism is a faith of sorts. It's just one without a leader; a figurehead; a God. It's like Buddhism in that respect. However, that argument's for another day.
But the point still stands: Is society deliberately skirting around the religious outlook on Christmas? You know what I think? If people aren't interested in religion as such, they shouldn't be celebrating a religios holiday. Why go to a party you haven't been invited to join?
What do you think of Christmas? Do you celebrate it? In what way? I would like to hear your opinions. If you have anything you would like to say or ask that does pertain to this post, contact me at theeternaleditor@gmail.com.
Ever since the invention of the Christmas Card in Dickens' time, Christmas has become more and more commercialised. Such things as 'Santa's Grotto' did not exist two hundred years ago, when it was but feasting and general merriment that took place, and even then it was on Christmas Day only. Nowadays Christmas has almost become a privately owned affair - companies squabble for the money of the masses, throwing in big fat Santas and badly drawn cartoon reindeer to mark th occasion.
It used to be that Christmas was a religious holiday that marked when the Son of God was born. Unfortunately, today's society has turned the tables and is exploiting this celebration into a time for mass producing useless things such as plastic light-up Santas for out on your lawn, or holly wreaths for your door. The sincere lack of anything remotely connected to the divine has become quite the point to make during sermons. Allow me to demonstrate.
Take a look at Christmas Carols. It used to be that songs such as 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' and 'Silent Night' were all the rage, but they have slowly but surely been pushed away by increasingly unrelated songs such as 'Frosty the Snowman', 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' and 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree'. The latter set of songs mentions nothing to do with religion of any sort. 'Frosty the Snowman' doesn't even mention Christmas itself. Lovely as these songs are, they help the masses to forget about what the original message of Christmas was and should still be.
The lack of religion-related carols being sung at this very moment just marks how much society has changed since the Middle Ages. Back in the days when the monarchy actually ruled the land, nearly everyone treated Christmas as a religious festivity and took time to reflect upon its meaning. In the twenty-first century, most of the population of the Western world chooses to ignore the true meaning and instead turn it into a hectic time for present-giving and adding a little bit of extra weight to their already not inconsiderable masses. The baby Jesus has been replaced with a fat man in a jolly red suit who goes by the name of Santa. The stable animals have been replaced by reindeer. Gold, frankincense and myrrh have transformed into bottles of wine, expensive toys and jewellery. In truth, this holiday that we now call Christmas is but a ghost of what it once was.
This is possibly brought on by an over-awareness of what other people think. In the world of today, we are all too aware that atheism marks a large portion of the population of Britain alone. It is not impossible that in an effort to appease the critics who would no doubt pounce on a religion-centred Christmas like a cat upon a cat-sized mouse, we have removed all but the faintest traces of religion from the festivities.However, this raises a question: do atheists celebrate Christmas? It would certainly be an interesting paradox if they did. It would be like being a vegetarian who ate steak but no other meat. It would be a contradiction of the faith. And let's face it: atheism is a faith of sorts. It's just one without a leader; a figurehead; a God. It's like Buddhism in that respect. However, that argument's for another day.
But the point still stands: Is society deliberately skirting around the religious outlook on Christmas? You know what I think? If people aren't interested in religion as such, they shouldn't be celebrating a religios holiday. Why go to a party you haven't been invited to join?
What do you think of Christmas? Do you celebrate it? In what way? I would like to hear your opinions. If you have anything you would like to say or ask that does pertain to this post, contact me at theeternaleditor@gmail.com.
Death in Paradise, Episode Eight - An Episode Review
Tis a sad and solemn day. The brilliant crime drama 'Death in Paradise' has aired its last episode. Fortunately for you, me and the rest of us blog authors though, this series of reviews hasn't. There's still the final review to write, and I dare say that there may be a final encore after this.
For the final, eighth episode of the Carribean Crime Drama, we see Dwayne being pulled into the murder investigation, but this time he's not just a police officer investigating the crime: he is a murder suspect.
For the final, eighth episode of the Carribean Crime Drama, we see Dwayne being pulled into the murder investigation, but this time he's not just a police officer investigating the crime: he is a murder suspect.
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| The DI and Fidel in Camille's mother's cafe come bar - the Mos Eisley Cantina of the 'Death in Paradise' series. |
A murder has occurred, and it's not looking good. Nadia Miles, an employee of PIT Shipping, was murdered around midnight by an unknown killer. (Well, duh. If he or she were already known, then where would the mystery be?) A bizarre array of puzzle-like clues left at the scene of the crime make DI Richard Poole all but certain that the murder was premeditated as well as being connected to organised crime. How? Twenty-six local coins stuffed into the mouth of the corpse point towards money laundering as the source of the original motive. Joined by an extra body, the Inspector and his colleagues attempt to track down the murderer.
There are complications. The night of the murder, Dwayne walked Nadia home. Now a suspect in a murder case, can Richard find the evidence to clear Dwayne of suspicion?
This episode is almost certainly the best that has aired throughout the past eight weeks. A good murder, a distinct lack of credible suspects and a large amount of evidence which connects only organised criminals to the killing makes for a good case. Richard's up to his usual tricks: he remains uptight and professional throughout, also making some very useful observations every now and then. And, of course, he solves the case. That's always a good thing.
The murder's elaborate and just generally brilliant. Obviously premeditated, the body has been set up to have coins lodged in her mouth. Grisly, but the cause of death was only asphyxiation. (I say only, by which I mean there are more gruesome ways to have your corpse displayed, I guess. I shall refrain from describing them to you.) This suggests that the killer was in with the wrong crowd, and DI Poole picks up on that rather quickly.
However, the case isn't what the whole thing is about. Remember, this is a Crime Drama, therefore implying some drama to spice up the crime. The producers deliver. With Dwayne as a suspect, tensions rise between the team members, in particular Richard and Camille.
Besides this rather obvious problem, we have the Commissioner of Saint Marie poking his nose into their business with a message for Richard, as well as an opportunity. An opportunity that, if taken, shall change the Saint Marie Police Force and Richard's life.
This episode is either the best or the second-best episode in 'Death in Paradise', the contender for this position being episode three. A great mix of crime, low suspect-count and some drama-y undertones blend to make a lovely smooth episode that isn't without it's flaws but stands as a rather good episode on its own. Your enjoyment of it is increased immensely by seeing the others in order of their release, but it could probably be enjoyed on its own. It does have links to prior episodes, but they aren't fantastically strong or anything.
I'll rate this episode an eight out of ten (8/10). A good blend of crime, clues and drama makes for enjoyable viewing. Extra conflicts caused by little side-stories that are introduced as the episode progresses make it rather interesting in more ways than one. Some humourous scenes add a lot to it, but what do you expect from Ben Miller?
Altogether, a brilliant episode with little to quibble over.
This may have been the end of this series, but the journey doesn't end here. I have an extra final-encore type review of the whole series coming up, so stay tuned.
However, the case isn't what the whole thing is about. Remember, this is a Crime Drama, therefore implying some drama to spice up the crime. The producers deliver. With Dwayne as a suspect, tensions rise between the team members, in particular Richard and Camille.
Besides this rather obvious problem, we have the Commissioner of Saint Marie poking his nose into their business with a message for Richard, as well as an opportunity. An opportunity that, if taken, shall change the Saint Marie Police Force and Richard's life.
This episode is either the best or the second-best episode in 'Death in Paradise', the contender for this position being episode three. A great mix of crime, low suspect-count and some drama-y undertones blend to make a lovely smooth episode that isn't without it's flaws but stands as a rather good episode on its own. Your enjoyment of it is increased immensely by seeing the others in order of their release, but it could probably be enjoyed on its own. It does have links to prior episodes, but they aren't fantastically strong or anything.
I'll rate this episode an eight out of ten (8/10). A good blend of crime, clues and drama makes for enjoyable viewing. Extra conflicts caused by little side-stories that are introduced as the episode progresses make it rather interesting in more ways than one. Some humourous scenes add a lot to it, but what do you expect from Ben Miller?
Altogether, a brilliant episode with little to quibble over.
This may have been the end of this series, but the journey doesn't end here. I have an extra final-encore type review of the whole series coming up, so stay tuned.
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Giant Spiders
Okay. Spiders are brilliant, if a little creepy. But what if we had giant spiders? I'm not talking chihuahua-sized, I mean big. For a reference, imagine a car. Now imagine this car being ripped into multiple pieces by a spider. Then imagine that spider being consumed by a colossal monstrosity of an arachnid. I'm talking BIG.
I'm not even going to mention the problems with the thing actually existing (it couldn't, which I assumed would be fairly obvious, but hey, I always overestimate the intelligence of peasants), but rather I shall talk about the implications of such a gargantuan beast.
Let's start with a slightly smaller spider, say the size of a cat. This thing seems like a good idea (I'm lying), but think about it. Normal spiders eat flies, so the logical follow up to that is that cat-sized spiders would eat roast dinners. And they would stop at nothing to get at them; imagine the scene, a nice roast dinner, then all of a sudden your window doesn't exist anymore. You go to check out the remaining mess of what was previously your window and hear a scratching sound. You swivel round at about a billion miles per hour and spot a black splodge, which is making off with your lovely snack.
You pack your bags to embark on a stupidly pointless quest on a journey to discover how and why your delicious supplement was dragged away. After many days on this quest you realise it was a stupid idea and turn to go home. As you swivel round you are pounced upon and eaten by a spider the size of a house. As you are slowly digested you realise it was a stupid idea to imagine this scene, as you are now dead and you knew that you would die from the start and you are just a bit silly for thinking that thinking about giant spiders was a good idea.
Now that we have gone over the problems with cat sized spiders, let's go over the problems with spiders the size of galaxies. A spider this size would be rather messy and rather than hunting flies, it would probably go around hunting spaceworms and that doesn't benefit anyone.
So giant spiders.
Prolonged contact with peasants is dangerous and could bring up previous heart conditions that have previously gone unnoticed. So goodbye.
I'm not even going to mention the problems with the thing actually existing (it couldn't, which I assumed would be fairly obvious, but hey, I always overestimate the intelligence of peasants), but rather I shall talk about the implications of such a gargantuan beast.
Let's start with a slightly smaller spider, say the size of a cat. This thing seems like a good idea (I'm lying), but think about it. Normal spiders eat flies, so the logical follow up to that is that cat-sized spiders would eat roast dinners. And they would stop at nothing to get at them; imagine the scene, a nice roast dinner, then all of a sudden your window doesn't exist anymore. You go to check out the remaining mess of what was previously your window and hear a scratching sound. You swivel round at about a billion miles per hour and spot a black splodge, which is making off with your lovely snack.
You pack your bags to embark on a stupidly pointless quest on a journey to discover how and why your delicious supplement was dragged away. After many days on this quest you realise it was a stupid idea and turn to go home. As you swivel round you are pounced upon and eaten by a spider the size of a house. As you are slowly digested you realise it was a stupid idea to imagine this scene, as you are now dead and you knew that you would die from the start and you are just a bit silly for thinking that thinking about giant spiders was a good idea.
Now that we have gone over the problems with cat sized spiders, let's go over the problems with spiders the size of galaxies. A spider this size would be rather messy and rather than hunting flies, it would probably go around hunting spaceworms and that doesn't benefit anyone.
So giant spiders.
Prolonged contact with peasants is dangerous and could bring up previous heart conditions that have previously gone unnoticed. So goodbye.
What's On My Mind? - A New Series of Posts
Hello, viewers. It's The Eternal Editor again, just back to lay out the situation for you lot out there.
I am assuming that you, the ever-observant readers, have already clocked the title of this post. As you have done so, you are no doubt inclined to ask the question: "What the heck's he talking about?"
This is a good question to ask, so I'm glad you asked it. Allow me to indulge you by giving you the answer to said question.
In an effort to spite His Eminence the Mighty Professor Pisces as well as raising minimum complaint from him by bringing in extra views and hopefully new subscribers too, I am starting my own sequence of posts. This series is marked down as 'What's On My Mind?'. This particular configuration of words shall appear in the title of each and every one of the posts that follow this theme and shall be tagged in the same fashion (see the bottom if you don't know what I'm on about). I'm putting claim to this, so if any of you other authors (Pisces, Matt, Evil, Rinrei) want to try your fingers at this, then you'll have to go through me. Otherwise I'll edit your post until it's unrecognisable, then repost it under a different name and with different tags. Just a friendly warning.
Anyway, to start the trend and therefore the series, I shall be writing and posting the first in this series of posts very soon indeed. Be on the lookout for the series as it appears: often a post shall be themed upon a certain event that shall soon or has recently occurred. In short, they're arriving soon and may or may not be themed.
Keep your eyes peeled. My first post may well be all about tangerines. At the same time, it may not. You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?
Until next time,
The Eternal Editor
I am assuming that you, the ever-observant readers, have already clocked the title of this post. As you have done so, you are no doubt inclined to ask the question: "What the heck's he talking about?"
This is a good question to ask, so I'm glad you asked it. Allow me to indulge you by giving you the answer to said question.
In an effort to spite His Eminence the Mighty Professor Pisces as well as raising minimum complaint from him by bringing in extra views and hopefully new subscribers too, I am starting my own sequence of posts. This series is marked down as 'What's On My Mind?'. This particular configuration of words shall appear in the title of each and every one of the posts that follow this theme and shall be tagged in the same fashion (see the bottom if you don't know what I'm on about). I'm putting claim to this, so if any of you other authors (Pisces, Matt, Evil, Rinrei) want to try your fingers at this, then you'll have to go through me. Otherwise I'll edit your post until it's unrecognisable, then repost it under a different name and with different tags. Just a friendly warning.
Anyway, to start the trend and therefore the series, I shall be writing and posting the first in this series of posts very soon indeed. Be on the lookout for the series as it appears: often a post shall be themed upon a certain event that shall soon or has recently occurred. In short, they're arriving soon and may or may not be themed.
Keep your eyes peeled. My first post may well be all about tangerines. At the same time, it may not. You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?
Until next time,
The Eternal Editor
Rinrei's Rants - No. 2
I originally came here to rant about life in general, but after listening to some Limbo OST's I have relaxed a little. One of my friends (I have been given permission to call 'Bear') wrote an amazing beginning for some story or another which she has, tragically, discontinued. After reading this story and editing out some parts, I realised that this story would make an amazing game. I asked her whether or not she would allow me to do the graphics for this game if she would do the plot. She agreed to do this, and now I have the task of drawing the graphics for this amazing, if not disturbing, game. I will probably stick a few pictures and comments up on here to satisfy Professor Pisces and his need to have me post SOME stuff up on the blog.
Just finished noting down all the obvious grammar errors that are in this. I have decided that I don't care; my hands are too busy shaking for me to do anything about it.
Signing off!
Rinrei
Just finished noting down all the obvious grammar errors that are in this. I have decided that I don't care; my hands are too busy shaking for me to do anything about it.
Signing off!
Rinrei
Does Travelling Fowards in Time Affect the Present?
If you read this post, then I assume that you will already have read my previous post 'Time Travel - What You Can And Cannot Do'. If you haven't, then please do so now. If you enjoy headaches and being confused, then by all means just carry one reading. Just a friendly warning.
Time travel is a tricky business. For it to work without causing the universe to implode at every point in the space-time latticework that is our rather tangled reality, you need to assume one of two things, one of which is a completely contradictory statement in the nature that it actually disproves the idea that a time machine could work.
The complex assumption that must be made in order to get rid of the complications that could arise from meddling with temporal affairs and therefore avoid the falling axehead of Health and Safety is this: The Universe is smart and will make everything work out in the end.
The other assumption one can make is fairly simple by comparison. It says that I'm talking complete nonsense and that time travel is completely impossible on every level, apart from the usual fixed-acceleration forwards direction.
If you wish to continue further, I suggest that you accept the former as the truth. If you see the latter as the better explanation of the state of semi-fluid temporal muck you find yourself wallowing in then keep reading anyway, if only for entertainment.
Time travel is, as previously stated, a very tricky business.
Time is not strictly linear. It's not necessarily a progression from cause to effect. From a rather non-linear, outside-looking-in perspective, it's more like a big, wiggly line. At points, bits loop in on themselves, cross themselves and even seem to bulge extra little loops that lead nowhere but back to the source. The basic reality of time means that, assuming all these ideas are valid and actually work in the four dimensional universe (length, breadth, depth and time) that time travel and its subsequent effects would make things generally rather difficult to follow. It's like East Enders gone temporal instead of temperamental. It's not linear; it's non-linear instead.
First, to the linear side of things. Normal Time is a straight line. Let us identify six points in time, that we shall assume are fixed. I label these points A through F. (See Fig. 1, and I'm terrible sorry for the quality.)
Fig. 1 - A moves through B onwards in a logical progression until it reaches F.
A------B------C------D------E------F
In the above linear diagram, A leads through each point in a sequence all the way through to F. According to my model of time, this is what happens in what you would call 'Normal Time', ie cause and effect.
Okey dokey. Every thing's fine and dandy up to this point. Now we move deeper into the realm of what I like to call 'Personal Time' (or non-linear time). Personal Time is how a person, eg a time traveller, would view a chain of events that would otherwise be linear in Normal Time. In the case of one who hops about the space-time continuum, this causes some interesting effects.
Let us look a cause and effect. The idea of cause and effect is that an event (a cause) has a consequence to it (an effect). In Normal Time, this is lovely and works perfectly (though there are exceptions; they shall be explained at a later date). In Personal Time, this isn't exactly the case. It is and it isn't at the same time. It's a matter of perspective. (For the next section, use Fig. 2 as a reference.)
Fig. 2 - Non-linear Personal Time against Linear Normal Time in a simple diagram.
A------B------C------D
A------D------B------C------D
Say you have a time machine. You travel into the future and, from your point of view, this happens first, as you don't experience the time in between the original and destination temporal points. For the rest of the world, this happens later. (The time traveller has gone from point A straight to point D. Refer to Fig. 2 for guidance.)
There, in the future, you learn that your favourite cat got run over by a car just hours after you departed for the future. (This has happened in real time already. In the eyes of the world, all that is past.) You rush back in time to save your cat, only to scare it by your arrival so that it runs into the road and gets squashed by a truck. Cause and effect have just gotten muddled up.
Do you see what just happened? From your perspective, the effect comes before the cause, and in fact the effect caused the cause. Here, the cat had already died and was then caused to die. Yet outside your own little mind, things worked out as per normal, albeit for some strange, inexplicable reasons. You scared the cat, and it ran into the road and died, and you learnt of it later on. Therefore, in the outside world cause and effect workejust like that. In your head, it progressed as effect and cause. Look carefully at that subtle difference. It makes a world of difference.
The complication of this is that you can suddenly swap around cause and effect. At the same time, this seals what happens. Let me explain.
Back to the story. There are several mistakes you have made. Firstly, building the time machine, which is the root cause of what happens. Let's leave that one for now.
Secondly, learning of your cat's fate. You manage to not identify the root cause of your feline friend's untimely death and therefore manage to become the root cause. The problem here is not that you try to stop the cat's death. The fact is that the moment you began your trip forwards, it could never be averted.
Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the phenomenally successful and brilliantly written 'Discworld' series, once wrote in his book 'The Last Hero' of a thing that he called the 'Uncertainty Principle'. (This is just where I first heard about it - it probably exists elsewhere in another format and he pinched it. If not, good on you, Sir Pratchett!) Please bear in mind that this is NOT the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. That relates to Quantum Mechanics, which I can't be bothered explaining at this present moment.
To put it basically, it states that there are a near infinite number of futures, and that if you were to look through, say, a time window into just one randomly selected future, it would become the actual future that would occur. Does that make sense? I'll put it another way. Simply having the knowledge of what will happen alters the structure of space-time, effectively straightening it out a little.
To put it basically, it states that there are a near infinite number of futures, and that if you were to look through, say, a time window into just one randomly selected future, it would become the actual future that would occur. Does that make sense? I'll put it another way. Simply having the knowledge of what will happen alters the structure of space-time, effectively straightening it out a little.
In the analogy of the flattened cat, simply having the knowledge that the cat did get killed led to its death. By looking at the future, you set in concrete what the past is. This is a rather roundabout way of applying the Schrödinger's Cat theory to time. In essence, you change reality by observing it.
So we can now ask the question that is the title of this article: can you change the present by travelling to the future? The simple answer is 'yes, you can'. If you want an explanation of how all this works, then just scroll up and reread the article.
Of course, there are more complex questions that are raised by the answering of this query. What would happen if two time travellers, setting of at exactly the same time, were to head into the future? Would the randomly selected future be the same for them both? If not, them how does that work? Unfortunately for you, I'm not at liberty to explore these avenues.
(Note from The Editor: In other words, he doesn't know.)
However, what I can do for you is move on to a new question that is very much connected to the one that I have just answered for you. That question is this.
Can you change history?
I'm afraid you'll have to wait until next time on 'Science of a Sort' (yes, that's what this series of articles is called) to find out. Meanwhile, ponder the problem at hand. Who knows, you may even arrive at the same conclusion that I did.
Until next time... or is it to be last time? Muhahahaha...
So we can now ask the question that is the title of this article: can you change the present by travelling to the future? The simple answer is 'yes, you can'. If you want an explanation of how all this works, then just scroll up and reread the article.
Of course, there are more complex questions that are raised by the answering of this query. What would happen if two time travellers, setting of at exactly the same time, were to head into the future? Would the randomly selected future be the same for them both? If not, them how does that work? Unfortunately for you, I'm not at liberty to explore these avenues.
(Note from The Editor: In other words, he doesn't know.)
However, what I can do for you is move on to a new question that is very much connected to the one that I have just answered for you. That question is this.
Can you change history?
I'm afraid you'll have to wait until next time on 'Science of a Sort' (yes, that's what this series of articles is called) to find out. Meanwhile, ponder the problem at hand. Who knows, you may even arrive at the same conclusion that I did.
Until next time... or is it to be last time? Muhahahaha...
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Time Travel - What You Can And Cannot Do -
It's a very interesting thing, as a writer, to talk about time travel. It's a very broad subject. It's also full of cliches. Most people simply write about going forwards or backwards in time, changing time and creating paradoxes in the process. The fact is that most authors and columnists, etcetera, etcetera, don't actually think about the general rules of time.
There are certain things to do with time travel that are assumed to be true among the general public and the theoretical scientific community, who I shall cunningly refer to as 'the boffins'. Here they are, laid out in full. (Not actually in full, you understand. That would take too long. This is really just a list that I took off the top of my head.)
Yes, you're thinking I'm mad. Truth is, I am. However, the mad and the crazy often have insights that others miss. (This is just one of those things.) However, I really do have a good idea of how these concepts should not, will not and cannot work. Over the next few weeks (if not less), I will attempt to explain to you exactly why these concepts are indeed incorrect, as well as laying out some more exotic ideas, in a series of posts labelled 'Time Travel'. Be on the lookout for them.
I leave you briefly to tell you all that I shall be back very soon, if not before then. Puzzle over these ideas on your own: let them fill your time, your thoughts, your life. May they bleed through into those droll hours in the lecture hall at university or college. Let them permeate your dreams. Generally, get distracted. But a word of warning: don't think about time too hard. It'll give you a headache.
Anyways, I'll be seeing you all soon in my next time travelling post, where I shall be discussing the Uncertainty Principle and Terry Pratchett's part in bringing it to my attention.
To The Editor from Pisces: You shouldn't read these posts. I wouldn't want you to think too hard. You'll hurt yourself.
From The Editor to Pisces: Ha ha. Hilarious, I'm sure.
There are certain things to do with time travel that are assumed to be true among the general public and the theoretical scientific community, who I shall cunningly refer to as 'the boffins'. Here they are, laid out in full. (Not actually in full, you understand. That would take too long. This is really just a list that I took off the top of my head.)
- Travelling forwards in time does not affect the present.
- Back-tracking in time means you can change some stuff around. Basically, you can mess with history.
- Paradoxes are created when the impossible happens, eg you kill your grandfather. Oops.
Yes, you're thinking I'm mad. Truth is, I am. However, the mad and the crazy often have insights that others miss. (This is just one of those things.) However, I really do have a good idea of how these concepts should not, will not and cannot work. Over the next few weeks (if not less), I will attempt to explain to you exactly why these concepts are indeed incorrect, as well as laying out some more exotic ideas, in a series of posts labelled 'Time Travel'. Be on the lookout for them.
I leave you briefly to tell you all that I shall be back very soon, if not before then. Puzzle over these ideas on your own: let them fill your time, your thoughts, your life. May they bleed through into those droll hours in the lecture hall at university or college. Let them permeate your dreams. Generally, get distracted. But a word of warning: don't think about time too hard. It'll give you a headache.
Anyways, I'll be seeing you all soon in my next time travelling post, where I shall be discussing the Uncertainty Principle and Terry Pratchett's part in bringing it to my attention.
To The Editor from Pisces: You shouldn't read these posts. I wouldn't want you to think too hard. You'll hurt yourself.
From The Editor to Pisces: Ha ha. Hilarious, I'm sure.
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Death in Paradise, Episode Seven - An Episode Review
Wow. Another week has flown by, and I almost forgot to write this review. We wouldn't want our beloved Death in Paradise reviews going down the drain like the poor Merlin reviews. (Sniff. I miss Merlin, but not enough to make an effort to bring him back in our reviews. Maybe.)
This time round, a singer in a local group has been murdered just as he chooses to make a dramatic return to the stage. Ironically, he's murdered while lying in a coffin. Supposedly he committed suicide, but Richard's not convinced. Camille just thinks he wants the case to be more complicated than it is. Then evidence comes to light that reveals that he was, in fact, murdered.
Of course, not much is as it seems. Soon, Richard must face the music (terrible pun, sorry 'bout that) and listen to what he might describe as bad beats if he had that sort of sense. Now he has a distraught daughter (not his, you daft folk), a rather annoyed load of band members and a snake on his hands...
This episode is a rather funny one in several respects. First of all, we find that Richard has a certain phobia, which is made use of throughout the episode to a comic effect. There's a raucously funny scene in which Camille is a little bit mean in order to get some laughs. I particularly enjoyed that part. It's the first time I've ever seen Richard look truly scared.
The plot is an interesting one. A murdered singer revealed as a corpse onstage in a rather bad moment that is an error of judgement on the part of the killer is an interesting idea and certainly undeniably murder, or in this case, supposed suicide. Premature death, let's say. Anyway, his entrance is rather the thing to talk about, and makes for an interesting investigation. It's an alright plot, but not as good as previous ones I have seen and heard of.
Actually, that's pretty much all there is to say. I can't find much more.
All in all, not brillinat, but interesting all the same. The plot was cool, but there wasn't enough evidence available for a viewer to draw his/her own conclusion via accepting particular evidence samples. There was very little of that. This sort of thing annoys me most greatly.
So it is that i shall rate this episode 6.5 on the right scale of awesome-omity. Don't argue; my word is final. That is, if The Editor doesn't disagree. Heheheh. Better not annoy him, huh?
The last episode is on TONIGHT (Tuesday 13/12/2011), so watch it after this one.
 |
| You should know who these guys are by now, but I'll tell you anyway. From left to right: DI Richard Poole and Camille. And tree in the background. |
This time round, a singer in a local group has been murdered just as he chooses to make a dramatic return to the stage. Ironically, he's murdered while lying in a coffin. Supposedly he committed suicide, but Richard's not convinced. Camille just thinks he wants the case to be more complicated than it is. Then evidence comes to light that reveals that he was, in fact, murdered.
Of course, not much is as it seems. Soon, Richard must face the music (terrible pun, sorry 'bout that) and listen to what he might describe as bad beats if he had that sort of sense. Now he has a distraught daughter (not his, you daft folk), a rather annoyed load of band members and a snake on his hands...
This episode is a rather funny one in several respects. First of all, we find that Richard has a certain phobia, which is made use of throughout the episode to a comic effect. There's a raucously funny scene in which Camille is a little bit mean in order to get some laughs. I particularly enjoyed that part. It's the first time I've ever seen Richard look truly scared.
The plot is an interesting one. A murdered singer revealed as a corpse onstage in a rather bad moment that is an error of judgement on the part of the killer is an interesting idea and certainly undeniably murder, or in this case, supposed suicide. Premature death, let's say. Anyway, his entrance is rather the thing to talk about, and makes for an interesting investigation. It's an alright plot, but not as good as previous ones I have seen and heard of.
Actually, that's pretty much all there is to say. I can't find much more.
All in all, not brillinat, but interesting all the same. The plot was cool, but there wasn't enough evidence available for a viewer to draw his/her own conclusion via accepting particular evidence samples. There was very little of that. This sort of thing annoys me most greatly.
So it is that i shall rate this episode 6.5 on the right scale of awesome-omity. Don't argue; my word is final. That is, if The Editor doesn't disagree. Heheheh. Better not annoy him, huh?
The last episode is on TONIGHT (Tuesday 13/12/2011), so watch it after this one.
Monday, 12 December 2011
Phlegmon and Eldercows
Yo peasantries.
I'd like to begin by saying that lemon and elderflower sparkling juice is the worst thing to come into contact with my tongue since raw quail eggs.
I'd also like to begin by saying gargantua.
This is still the beginning, and I would like to continue on it with green paint and a spatula. If you have not tried toast with green paint, then you are probably fine. If you have, I suggest stripping to your skin (or further, if at all possible), running into the street and beginning to sing various songs as loud as your lungs will accept. Or louder. If you are silly enough to eat green paint you should probably go louder. I doubt that anyone would miss you.
That aside, I'd like to begin by apologising for the lack of content. I'd like to say I have a reasonable excuse, because I do. Though that depends on your definition of reasonable. I am lazy. Can't get more reasonable than that.
Anyway, I'd like to begin by telling you a short story. Read carefully, there will be questions afterwards. And you aren't allowed to cheat, although, to be quite honest, the only punishment for cheating is guilt. And it's a well established fact that guilt causes globabl warming. So, if the penguins all spontaneously combust, you know who to blame. Unless they travel to your house before combusting. Then you can only blame yourself.
Okay, so I'd like to begin with this story, which I mentioned in the beginning. Pixies* and I were walking. It was not a very interesting walk. It could have been interesting. But it wasn't. Nor was it so boring that I ripped my eye sockets out through my eyeballs. If it was that boring then it would have been interesting. Anywhale shark, as we walked this uninteresting walk, a thought struck me like a cat pounces on a charging bull. This thought was not elaborate, but nonetheless one of the most important questions that has ever manifested itself into my brain.
What would happen if I just turned to Pixies and inhaled him with my eyeballs?
I thought about this for no seconds before turning to the flan himself and asking him. He looked at me quizzically, as if he was giving it some thought, then in a puzzled tone said: "What!?"
He then went on to say how he couldn't do much if he had been inhaled. I waited a moment before delivering my response, because it is a well established fact that the more irrelevant an answer is to the current situation, the more mysterious and deep you appear. After I had waited through three whole seconds, I turned back to flanman and said, "I think my eyes would hurt."
Anysponge, I'd like to begin by saying the cows make for good sponges, if you can get them into your sink and avoid electrocuting them.
To begin with, I'd like to say that cheese and chocolate is very rich.
As this is the beginning, I would like to begin by saying goodbye.
P.S. I have an experiment. Very few people will understand.
Q: What do you call Captain Heave Ho?
A: Ugly!
Highlight that to learn the truth. Buhbye now.
I'd like to begin by saying that lemon and elderflower sparkling juice is the worst thing to come into contact with my tongue since raw quail eggs.
I'd also like to begin by saying gargantua.
This is still the beginning, and I would like to continue on it with green paint and a spatula. If you have not tried toast with green paint, then you are probably fine. If you have, I suggest stripping to your skin (or further, if at all possible), running into the street and beginning to sing various songs as loud as your lungs will accept. Or louder. If you are silly enough to eat green paint you should probably go louder. I doubt that anyone would miss you.
That aside, I'd like to begin by apologising for the lack of content. I'd like to say I have a reasonable excuse, because I do. Though that depends on your definition of reasonable. I am lazy. Can't get more reasonable than that.
Anyway, I'd like to begin by telling you a short story. Read carefully, there will be questions afterwards. And you aren't allowed to cheat, although, to be quite honest, the only punishment for cheating is guilt. And it's a well established fact that guilt causes globabl warming. So, if the penguins all spontaneously combust, you know who to blame. Unless they travel to your house before combusting. Then you can only blame yourself.
Okay, so I'd like to begin with this story, which I mentioned in the beginning. Pixies* and I were walking. It was not a very interesting walk. It could have been interesting. But it wasn't. Nor was it so boring that I ripped my eye sockets out through my eyeballs. If it was that boring then it would have been interesting. Anywhale shark, as we walked this uninteresting walk, a thought struck me like a cat pounces on a charging bull. This thought was not elaborate, but nonetheless one of the most important questions that has ever manifested itself into my brain.
What would happen if I just turned to Pixies and inhaled him with my eyeballs?
I thought about this for no seconds before turning to the flan himself and asking him. He looked at me quizzically, as if he was giving it some thought, then in a puzzled tone said: "What!?"
He then went on to say how he couldn't do much if he had been inhaled. I waited a moment before delivering my response, because it is a well established fact that the more irrelevant an answer is to the current situation, the more mysterious and deep you appear. After I had waited through three whole seconds, I turned back to flanman and said, "I think my eyes would hurt."
Anysponge, I'd like to begin by saying the cows make for good sponges, if you can get them into your sink and avoid electrocuting them.
To begin with, I'd like to say that cheese and chocolate is very rich.
As this is the beginning, I would like to begin by saying goodbye.
P.S. I have an experiment. Very few people will understand.
Q: What do you call Captain Heave Ho?
A: Ugly!
Highlight that to learn the truth. Buhbye now.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - A Game Review From The Professor
Okay, so this is the Kettle's first ever game review to air, unless somebody else has beaten me to it. Before I start, I just want to lay some ground rules. In my (emphasis on the 'my' here - I'm not going to edit the layout of other people's reviews) game reviews, I'm setting it out in an orderly fashion with a logical basis. I've split it into parts: General information ('What's it all about'?), how the game feels to play ('Gamplay'), extra bits and bobs to do with the game ('Extras') and the ratings ('Rating'). Hoping you enjoy it, I'll pass you over to myself.
I've had an idea and I'm hoping it will work. Rinrei and I both love the Professor Layton Nintendo DS games, so I decided that a pair of reviews with both of our opinions in them would be nice. This is my side of the review. Enjoy the fireworks as the possible clash of opinions takes place!
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the first of a possible load of game reviews. For this one, I shall be reviewing the Nintendo DS game 'Professor Layton and the Curious Village'.
What's it all about?
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the first in a series of games manufactured for the Nintendo DS in which the player must guide the characters, Professor Hershel Layton and Luke Triton, through the story in the hope of solving a mystery. The mystery is solved by exploring different areas and solving puzles, of which there are many varieties and types. Players gain special points from solving these puzzles, known as 'Picarats'. These go towards bonuses at the end.
The plot is not as simple as is made out to be on the box; rather the gameplay beats about the bush at times. The underlying idea beneath it all is that Layton and Luke are summoned by a certain Lady Dahlia to the quaint little town of St Mystere to help solve an inheritance dispute. The late Baron, a very rich man, has died, and certain people want their fair share of the loot. Unfortunately for them, the Baron was not a man who liked things to be easy: in his will, he left a clue that, if solved, would grant the solver the Baron's fortune. This clue refers to a 'Golden Apple' that no-one has ever seen or heard of before. Layton is charged with the task of finding the Golden Apple.
So begins brilliant journey along a path fraught with puzzles, danger and cats.
Gameplay
When I played the game, I found that the beginning was rather abrupt. It didn't really tell us who the characters were - it sort of left that to be explained and built upon later on. Instead of a nice, simple cutscene of moderate length, it gives the player a rather long conversation between Layton and Luke. The lack of cutscene in this bit of the game makes it a slightly tedious, though most informative, part of the game. However, it leaves out some of the most essential info of all: who the heck are these guys? This is possibly an effort on the part of the producers to create what we writers call a 'hook' - something that 'hook's you in. Still, if this is so then it's an annoying and simply unnecessary one. If I've bought/rented the game, I'm playing it all the way through, if only to get my full money's worth of product. Anyway, all of this is before the credits have even rolled, so I'll not dwell.
The rest of game is brilliant. The beginning of the actual story and therefore the adventure is rather slow, taking you around the village in search of a certain animal of feline sort. I do believe this is more an attempt to help the gamer to get to grips with the environment and explore some more of the village than anything else. This rather back and forth sort of gameplay makes up a good part of the first half of the game, before certain clues are found that advance the case and make life a whole lot more interesting.
So how is the game played? Well, because it is a game designed solely for use upon the Nintendo DS, the creators have obviously decided to make everything touch screen oriented. Clues are found by either tapping promising objects or areas with the stylus or solving puzzles, again using the stylus. All the main action takes place on the touch screen, whereas the top screen is used mostly to alert you as to where you are on the map, display puzzle information or show you a nice picture during a conversation with, say, the butler. This excessive use of the touch screen works very well with the format of the game. Lettering and number recognition tech integrated into the programming translates written answers into numbers and/or letters, depending on the puzzle and how good or bad your writing is. I am ashamed to say that this accidental misinterpretation of a letter 'Y' as a very strangely written 'X' has in fact resulted in the loss of several dozen Picarats of puzzle points. This is a rather annoying feature, but there is really no way around it other than to check very carefully that your answer has been correctly written into the system.
The sheer variety of puzzles available means that there is a puzzle here for everyone, no matter what sort of intelligence you may or may not be in possession of. Shifting block, logic, mental imaging and by process of elimination type puzzles are all around, if you know where to look. Not much mathematical know-how is needed at all, and potential gamers should bear this in mind when looking at a puzzle that looks like it needs Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity to solve it. The answer's often in plain sight, and much simpler than you would think. Puzzlers, bear this in mind. It's probably listed as cheating to bear this fact in mind whilst playing such a game, but even so, it's good to know. (I'm using an interesting new thing called common sense here. That's another thing that comes in useful when playing this game.) Despite this, there are puzzles that do need at least a little mathematical knowledge to pass through them.
When you're finished the game, the fun doesn't end. Through either a) scouring every single scene in the whole of the game or b) using Granny Riddleton's Shack (don't even ask) you can set yourself the challenge of finding and completing every single puzzle in the game. Doing so means finishing several extra challenges, which present themselves in the form of minigames, which unlock special puzzle sets that can be accessed outside the actual game. (I'll explain that later.) Even so, it's not an easy task. It gets really rather frustrating when you're scanning a scene for the ten millionth time trying to find that one last puzzle. However, I think the sheer satisfaction you gain from having completed every single puzzle more than covers the potential hardships you may find yourself in the midst of.
Extras
There are a number of other things in this game that merit a mention. Firstly, let's look at the music. Throughout the game, one tune or another is constantly playing, unless there is a suspiciously quiet cutscene or possibly a large amount of background silence during a remarkably short or important conversation. This could be viewed by many people to be a good thing, but there are downsides to having the same track looping constantly while you're attempting to solve a particularly difficult puzzle. With French influences evident throughout the music, you know that you're never going to listen to some proper accordian music again without thinking of a top hat and a small child dressed in blue. In short, the music annoys you after the tenth run through and stays with you forever after.
Secondly, let's have a look at the graphics and the art involved. Beautiful hand-drawn characters fill your screen no matter where you are: the town square, the sewers, in the middle of a conversation and, of course, throughout the various cutscenes insinuated throughout the game. Being drawn in a Japanese style that I think could be refered to as manga (in a way; it has subtle influences but doesn't have the massive eyes and pin-sharp chins). Each character appears to have some sort of exagerated feature. For example, the Professor has an oversized hat, Luke is small and a little bit dense at the best of times and Duke is exceedingly tall with a very square chin. The charming characters really do make the game half of what it is. Of course, at least a quarter of this can be attributed to the quality of the background images and the scenery. Very fine work has gone into every scene so that each one contains some sort of hidden thing to look for. Then there's the cutscenes. Lovely animation has been made good use of here: smooth transitions, tailor-made music for each and voicing that actually matches the movements made by the character's mouths all add up to make a wonderful little collection of films. No wonder they went on to make themselves a movie of the fourth adventure released ('The Eternal Diva'). So the graphics are good, and the art is admirably excellent.
Rating
This game is truly fantastic. Combining elements of complete surrealness with an element of charm, wit and good old-fashioned detective work (despite the only official detective in the story not really doing his job), this game makes for an all-round brilliant experience. I would reccommend this game to any DS owner with a love of puzzles, general mystery or good taste.
Despite this being one of the best games I've ever played in my life so far, it doesn't quite reach the 10/10 mark for a simple reason that lies in the following word: replayability. (Editor, I'm pretty sure that's a word. Get over it.)
The game has limited replayability due to the fact that the human brain retains a lot of a) simple b) useless or c) simply useless, ie trivial information. The answers to many of the puzzles involved in this game are retained by simple humanity, especially when you start telling your friends puzzles and betting that they can't solve them all on their own. There are certain puzzles that contain an element of luck in them (eg. the one where you swap balls around on a marble solitaire board in order to end up with one ball left), but most are ones in which you can remember the answer just by looking at them. (For me, these are usually multiple choice or one-word answers.) However, if this is the only downside to this game, then the creators have done exceedingly well indeed.
I'm giving this an 8.9 on my scale. As the esteemed Professor would say, in a rather nonplussed sort of way, "Indeed."
I've had an idea and I'm hoping it will work. Rinrei and I both love the Professor Layton Nintendo DS games, so I decided that a pair of reviews with both of our opinions in them would be nice. This is my side of the review. Enjoy the fireworks as the possible clash of opinions takes place!
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the first of a possible load of game reviews. For this one, I shall be reviewing the Nintendo DS game 'Professor Layton and the Curious Village'.
 |
| Shown above is the box in which the games arrives. A fairly sombre cover, but I assure you, delight lies within. Spot the Layton. |
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the first in a series of games manufactured for the Nintendo DS in which the player must guide the characters, Professor Hershel Layton and Luke Triton, through the story in the hope of solving a mystery. The mystery is solved by exploring different areas and solving puzles, of which there are many varieties and types. Players gain special points from solving these puzzles, known as 'Picarats'. These go towards bonuses at the end.
The plot is not as simple as is made out to be on the box; rather the gameplay beats about the bush at times. The underlying idea beneath it all is that Layton and Luke are summoned by a certain Lady Dahlia to the quaint little town of St Mystere to help solve an inheritance dispute. The late Baron, a very rich man, has died, and certain people want their fair share of the loot. Unfortunately for them, the Baron was not a man who liked things to be easy: in his will, he left a clue that, if solved, would grant the solver the Baron's fortune. This clue refers to a 'Golden Apple' that no-one has ever seen or heard of before. Layton is charged with the task of finding the Golden Apple.
So begins brilliant journey along a path fraught with puzzles, danger and cats.
Gameplay
When I played the game, I found that the beginning was rather abrupt. It didn't really tell us who the characters were - it sort of left that to be explained and built upon later on. Instead of a nice, simple cutscene of moderate length, it gives the player a rather long conversation between Layton and Luke. The lack of cutscene in this bit of the game makes it a slightly tedious, though most informative, part of the game. However, it leaves out some of the most essential info of all: who the heck are these guys? This is possibly an effort on the part of the producers to create what we writers call a 'hook' - something that 'hook's you in. Still, if this is so then it's an annoying and simply unnecessary one. If I've bought/rented the game, I'm playing it all the way through, if only to get my full money's worth of product. Anyway, all of this is before the credits have even rolled, so I'll not dwell.
The rest of game is brilliant. The beginning of the actual story and therefore the adventure is rather slow, taking you around the village in search of a certain animal of feline sort. I do believe this is more an attempt to help the gamer to get to grips with the environment and explore some more of the village than anything else. This rather back and forth sort of gameplay makes up a good part of the first half of the game, before certain clues are found that advance the case and make life a whole lot more interesting.
So how is the game played? Well, because it is a game designed solely for use upon the Nintendo DS, the creators have obviously decided to make everything touch screen oriented. Clues are found by either tapping promising objects or areas with the stylus or solving puzzles, again using the stylus. All the main action takes place on the touch screen, whereas the top screen is used mostly to alert you as to where you are on the map, display puzzle information or show you a nice picture during a conversation with, say, the butler. This excessive use of the touch screen works very well with the format of the game. Lettering and number recognition tech integrated into the programming translates written answers into numbers and/or letters, depending on the puzzle and how good or bad your writing is. I am ashamed to say that this accidental misinterpretation of a letter 'Y' as a very strangely written 'X' has in fact resulted in the loss of several dozen Picarats of puzzle points. This is a rather annoying feature, but there is really no way around it other than to check very carefully that your answer has been correctly written into the system.
The sheer variety of puzzles available means that there is a puzzle here for everyone, no matter what sort of intelligence you may or may not be in possession of. Shifting block, logic, mental imaging and by process of elimination type puzzles are all around, if you know where to look. Not much mathematical know-how is needed at all, and potential gamers should bear this in mind when looking at a puzzle that looks like it needs Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity to solve it. The answer's often in plain sight, and much simpler than you would think. Puzzlers, bear this in mind. It's probably listed as cheating to bear this fact in mind whilst playing such a game, but even so, it's good to know. (I'm using an interesting new thing called common sense here. That's another thing that comes in useful when playing this game.) Despite this, there are puzzles that do need at least a little mathematical knowledge to pass through them.
When you're finished the game, the fun doesn't end. Through either a) scouring every single scene in the whole of the game or b) using Granny Riddleton's Shack (don't even ask) you can set yourself the challenge of finding and completing every single puzzle in the game. Doing so means finishing several extra challenges, which present themselves in the form of minigames, which unlock special puzzle sets that can be accessed outside the actual game. (I'll explain that later.) Even so, it's not an easy task. It gets really rather frustrating when you're scanning a scene for the ten millionth time trying to find that one last puzzle. However, I think the sheer satisfaction you gain from having completed every single puzzle more than covers the potential hardships you may find yourself in the midst of.
Extras
There are a number of other things in this game that merit a mention. Firstly, let's look at the music. Throughout the game, one tune or another is constantly playing, unless there is a suspiciously quiet cutscene or possibly a large amount of background silence during a remarkably short or important conversation. This could be viewed by many people to be a good thing, but there are downsides to having the same track looping constantly while you're attempting to solve a particularly difficult puzzle. With French influences evident throughout the music, you know that you're never going to listen to some proper accordian music again without thinking of a top hat and a small child dressed in blue. In short, the music annoys you after the tenth run through and stays with you forever after.
Secondly, let's have a look at the graphics and the art involved. Beautiful hand-drawn characters fill your screen no matter where you are: the town square, the sewers, in the middle of a conversation and, of course, throughout the various cutscenes insinuated throughout the game. Being drawn in a Japanese style that I think could be refered to as manga (in a way; it has subtle influences but doesn't have the massive eyes and pin-sharp chins). Each character appears to have some sort of exagerated feature. For example, the Professor has an oversized hat, Luke is small and a little bit dense at the best of times and Duke is exceedingly tall with a very square chin. The charming characters really do make the game half of what it is. Of course, at least a quarter of this can be attributed to the quality of the background images and the scenery. Very fine work has gone into every scene so that each one contains some sort of hidden thing to look for. Then there's the cutscenes. Lovely animation has been made good use of here: smooth transitions, tailor-made music for each and voicing that actually matches the movements made by the character's mouths all add up to make a wonderful little collection of films. No wonder they went on to make themselves a movie of the fourth adventure released ('The Eternal Diva'). So the graphics are good, and the art is admirably excellent.
Rating
This game is truly fantastic. Combining elements of complete surrealness with an element of charm, wit and good old-fashioned detective work (despite the only official detective in the story not really doing his job), this game makes for an all-round brilliant experience. I would reccommend this game to any DS owner with a love of puzzles, general mystery or good taste.
Despite this being one of the best games I've ever played in my life so far, it doesn't quite reach the 10/10 mark for a simple reason that lies in the following word: replayability. (Editor, I'm pretty sure that's a word. Get over it.)
The game has limited replayability due to the fact that the human brain retains a lot of a) simple b) useless or c) simply useless, ie trivial information. The answers to many of the puzzles involved in this game are retained by simple humanity, especially when you start telling your friends puzzles and betting that they can't solve them all on their own. There are certain puzzles that contain an element of luck in them (eg. the one where you swap balls around on a marble solitaire board in order to end up with one ball left), but most are ones in which you can remember the answer just by looking at them. (For me, these are usually multiple choice or one-word answers.) However, if this is the only downside to this game, then the creators have done exceedingly well indeed.
I'm giving this an 8.9 on my scale. As the esteemed Professor would say, in a rather nonplussed sort of way, "Indeed."
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Rinrei's Rants - No. 1
I don't take myself seriously. I really should, but I don't.
That is what makes life fun. I can break as many rules as I please and not feel any guilt or remorse. This is shown throughout my art and my writing. Even as you read this, you are seeing the many errors of my writing skill. I don't mind though... in fact, I enjoy it.
If I want to draw a space cowboy with hot pants and a machine gun then, sure as heck, I will draw a space cowboy with hot pants and a machine gun. Some people frown upon my randomness and take time to make sure it's dulled down. This is good for the audience and good for me as I need to keep up a good reputation.
However, I have also been known for being a critic. If you had read my post to do with a certain 'story', you would see my skills for being a critic. I could care less about the grammar, though. I'm no gifted writer. I just write for the sake of writing.
Lately, I have been given the orders to review certain stories and review them I do. No names shall be mentioned and no fingers shall be pointed, but some stories are bad. Just bad. I cling onto my mouse for dear life as I am forced to read chapter after chapter of badly written stories with only four sentences throughout ten pages.
To those of you that are in the Writer's Group (you all know who you are), you will know what I am talking about. I am fine with gay marriages and relationships; I always have been. But this story was so bad that it made me what to massacre every gay couple within a ten mile radius of me!
Not only was the grammar so bad that it made me want to strangle myself with a skipping rope, oh no, the main characterswas a Mary-Sue. Mary-Sue (for those of you who don't know) is a character that is so unbelievably perfect and fake that it would make Chuck Norris cry. Usually they are given a whole lot of useless description about how perfect and beautiful they are. They are given no faults and they have everyone dropping at their feet. They also end up sleeping with every character in the story. All the characters love them and if their lover ends up more interested in someone else, then that person is brutally killed. They are what all beginner writers start with. More experienced writers are forced to tell them of the horrors of having a Mary-Sue in their story and what it will do to their story.
Anyway, this horror had both a Mary-Sue and grammar so bad that not even The Eternal Editor would be able to make it good. There was no sense of time and one paragraph took an entire page. While my dear friend, Skald, proceeded to torture me with this horror, I was stabbing a pen furiously into my paper pad; destroying my amazing story in the process.
Professor Pisces is a better person to speak to about this story, because after the second page I had run out of the room screaming about how much I hated that story.
So, please, if you are ever going to write anything please fix the obvious errors so people are not forced to endure bad grammar and endless paragraphs.
I might appear to be useless when it comes to observing stories as I have little talent in creating such things without doing something stupid to the story, but I can sense when something is amiss. Don't go saying how your character isn't perfect because she's something on the outside but something else on the inside. No. Just no. No one likes a 'physically strong, mentally weak, long-haired beauty'; none of us need all that detail again and again. If you want your character to be good, make her physically weak (ie. she has a club foot) and mentally strong. Also, don't make every character in the story fall in love with them! Another hint to those who still think their character is perfectly fine, having rainbow-coloured hair and pink eyes is neither natural nor pretty.
Having a natural hair and eye colour is fine, and just saying the colour is fine too, but don't push it. Just because they have green eyes, doesn't give you a right to call them 'emeralds'. Hate to stick it to you painfully, but no one needs to hear your poetic skills in a book. If they wanted poetic terms then they would have picked up a book of poems. Your story does not revolve around how perfect or gifted your character is. Think about it. Pick up a good book and see how it's really done!
Anyway, that's my rant over.
Signing off,
Rinrei
That is what makes life fun. I can break as many rules as I please and not feel any guilt or remorse. This is shown throughout my art and my writing. Even as you read this, you are seeing the many errors of my writing skill. I don't mind though... in fact, I enjoy it.
If I want to draw a space cowboy with hot pants and a machine gun then, sure as heck, I will draw a space cowboy with hot pants and a machine gun. Some people frown upon my randomness and take time to make sure it's dulled down. This is good for the audience and good for me as I need to keep up a good reputation.
However, I have also been known for being a critic. If you had read my post to do with a certain 'story', you would see my skills for being a critic. I could care less about the grammar, though. I'm no gifted writer. I just write for the sake of writing.
Lately, I have been given the orders to review certain stories and review them I do. No names shall be mentioned and no fingers shall be pointed, but some stories are bad. Just bad. I cling onto my mouse for dear life as I am forced to read chapter after chapter of badly written stories with only four sentences throughout ten pages.
To those of you that are in the Writer's Group (you all know who you are), you will know what I am talking about. I am fine with gay marriages and relationships; I always have been. But this story was so bad that it made me what to massacre every gay couple within a ten mile radius of me!
Not only was the grammar so bad that it made me want to strangle myself with a skipping rope, oh no, the main characterswas a Mary-Sue. Mary-Sue (for those of you who don't know) is a character that is so unbelievably perfect and fake that it would make Chuck Norris cry. Usually they are given a whole lot of useless description about how perfect and beautiful they are. They are given no faults and they have everyone dropping at their feet. They also end up sleeping with every character in the story. All the characters love them and if their lover ends up more interested in someone else, then that person is brutally killed. They are what all beginner writers start with. More experienced writers are forced to tell them of the horrors of having a Mary-Sue in their story and what it will do to their story.
Anyway, this horror had both a Mary-Sue and grammar so bad that not even The Eternal Editor would be able to make it good. There was no sense of time and one paragraph took an entire page. While my dear friend, Skald, proceeded to torture me with this horror, I was stabbing a pen furiously into my paper pad; destroying my amazing story in the process.
Professor Pisces is a better person to speak to about this story, because after the second page I had run out of the room screaming about how much I hated that story.
So, please, if you are ever going to write anything please fix the obvious errors so people are not forced to endure bad grammar and endless paragraphs.
I might appear to be useless when it comes to observing stories as I have little talent in creating such things without doing something stupid to the story, but I can sense when something is amiss. Don't go saying how your character isn't perfect because she's something on the outside but something else on the inside. No. Just no. No one likes a 'physically strong, mentally weak, long-haired beauty'; none of us need all that detail again and again. If you want your character to be good, make her physically weak (ie. she has a club foot) and mentally strong. Also, don't make every character in the story fall in love with them! Another hint to those who still think their character is perfectly fine, having rainbow-coloured hair and pink eyes is neither natural nor pretty.
Having a natural hair and eye colour is fine, and just saying the colour is fine too, but don't push it. Just because they have green eyes, doesn't give you a right to call them 'emeralds'. Hate to stick it to you painfully, but no one needs to hear your poetic skills in a book. If they wanted poetic terms then they would have picked up a book of poems. Your story does not revolve around how perfect or gifted your character is. Think about it. Pick up a good book and see how it's really done!
Anyway, that's my rant over.
Signing off,
Rinrei
On Editing, Effervescence and Egrets
You know, editing isn't as easy as it sounds, seems or looks. When you look at a piece of writing like I do, you spot mistakes like a prospector does flecks of gold. You overlook some, but then you find the nugget that starts off the rush, and soon enough you have yourself a fortune in mistakes. You clear them up, bag them and send them off to never be seen again.
Of course, I don't make my fortune fixing mistakes, and it is logically impossible to contain something that isn't actually tangible, material, substantial. Errors are my field. I deal with the immaterial, the intangible, the insubstantial and quasi-nonexistent universe that forms up the dreaded faults that surface in your writings like bubbles from a strip of magnesium dropped in acid (that's called effervescence, for those of you who want to know). They may take a minute to form as you continue to write, but nevertheless, they are there, in a sort of to-be-or-not-to-be sort of way. Mistakes always lurk around the corners; the trick is to work out whether they are going to jump you or not.
Some people find it easy to avoid gross errors and such, but others find it a real problem. Who hasn't been up against some sort of essay with a sentence that gets flagged up time and time again on Microsoft Word's irritating (not to mention incorrect, in most cases) spelling and grammar checker? Let us return to the analogy that I began not two minutes ago. A robber lurks behind the door to the building that you must enter. You know he will rob you of possessive apostrophes and full stops. What must you do? You must take up arms against the enemy. If you know that you can't do this in an effective manner, then hire someone who can. In the case of the Kettle, that someone is me.
I, The Eternal Editor, do not claim to rid posts, stories and dialogues of all their flaws. My job is but to minimise the number of them. Take the egret, for instance. Anyone who has seen an egret up close will know that they are lovely, elegant white birds. (At least, that's the sort I've been looking at.) They appear flawless: their perfect feathers folded back, their beaks long and straight, tapering to a lovely point. Then they take flight, and they look completely unsuited to the air, their thin necks unbalancing them and their legs flailing like things that flail. Such are novels and the like. They may appear flawless, but they still don't always work as they should. That's why editors exist: so that errors otherwise unseen while the story's on the ground can be taken care of.
This is The Eternal Editor, saying never fear. Never fear, for help is near, your friends can help if you choose to yelp, and this little ditty is really quite sh... bad.
Expect more from me in the future, and remember as you read past and future posts that I have had a hand in the creation of all of them.
Bidding you happy editing, great writings, bubbly plots and birds of all shapes, sizes and colours, this is The Eternal Editor signing off... for now. Muhahahaha...
Of course, I don't make my fortune fixing mistakes, and it is logically impossible to contain something that isn't actually tangible, material, substantial. Errors are my field. I deal with the immaterial, the intangible, the insubstantial and quasi-nonexistent universe that forms up the dreaded faults that surface in your writings like bubbles from a strip of magnesium dropped in acid (that's called effervescence, for those of you who want to know). They may take a minute to form as you continue to write, but nevertheless, they are there, in a sort of to-be-or-not-to-be sort of way. Mistakes always lurk around the corners; the trick is to work out whether they are going to jump you or not.
Some people find it easy to avoid gross errors and such, but others find it a real problem. Who hasn't been up against some sort of essay with a sentence that gets flagged up time and time again on Microsoft Word's irritating (not to mention incorrect, in most cases) spelling and grammar checker? Let us return to the analogy that I began not two minutes ago. A robber lurks behind the door to the building that you must enter. You know he will rob you of possessive apostrophes and full stops. What must you do? You must take up arms against the enemy. If you know that you can't do this in an effective manner, then hire someone who can. In the case of the Kettle, that someone is me.
I, The Eternal Editor, do not claim to rid posts, stories and dialogues of all their flaws. My job is but to minimise the number of them. Take the egret, for instance. Anyone who has seen an egret up close will know that they are lovely, elegant white birds. (At least, that's the sort I've been looking at.) They appear flawless: their perfect feathers folded back, their beaks long and straight, tapering to a lovely point. Then they take flight, and they look completely unsuited to the air, their thin necks unbalancing them and their legs flailing like things that flail. Such are novels and the like. They may appear flawless, but they still don't always work as they should. That's why editors exist: so that errors otherwise unseen while the story's on the ground can be taken care of.
This is The Eternal Editor, saying never fear. Never fear, for help is near, your friends can help if you choose to yelp, and this little ditty is really quite sh... bad.
Expect more from me in the future, and remember as you read past and future posts that I have had a hand in the creation of all of them.
Bidding you happy editing, great writings, bubbly plots and birds of all shapes, sizes and colours, this is The Eternal Editor signing off... for now. Muhahahaha...
Twilight - The Review
Ha ha. Yes. I have now decided to become a masochist and review something which has been reviewed maybe too many times by too many peole before: The Twilight Saga.
You may or may not want to read this, but I will warn you now that there are some brilliant reviews on this book already floating around the Internet. For instance there is Nerimon's hilarious youtube videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L253VLwH3w) or the magnificent Uncensored Twilight Reviews by "Doitforthelulz" on Deviantart (http://doitforthelulz.deviantart.com/gallery/29983641).
So I doubt my review will be as wonderful as those but I'm going to try. But I'm trying later as today is the day when I shall dress up as an elf and make a fool of myself.
See you.
You may or may not want to read this, but I will warn you now that there are some brilliant reviews on this book already floating around the Internet. For instance there is Nerimon's hilarious youtube videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L253VLwH3w) or the magnificent Uncensored Twilight Reviews by "Doitforthelulz" on Deviantart (http://doitforthelulz.deviantart.com/gallery/29983641).
So I doubt my review will be as wonderful as those but I'm going to try. But I'm trying later as today is the day when I shall dress up as an elf and make a fool of myself.
See you.
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Editing Eternal - The Eternal Editor
There's been a lot of stuff flying across the blog recently talking about the new member that I've been thinking about hiring. Well, I say hire. I actually mean force into the madness that is 'A Whole Different Kettle of Fish'.
Yep, you all know what's coming next. We have yet another new member.
The Eternal Editor has joined myself, Matt, Evil Mistress of Cliffhangers and Rinrei as authors of the blog, although you shouldn't really expect many posts from him. This is due to the fact that he's just here to edit out the majority of errors that occur in everyone else's posts. However, providing he does his job properly, I may just allow him to have his very own column.
I'm sure that The Editor shall keep this blog running as well as is humanly possible. I've handed The Editor administration priveleges, which basically means he can do whatever he wants on the site. I'm trusting him to only do what's necessary and to stick to his duties most strictly.
Let's give our newest member a big, warm welcome! Ladies and gentlemen, The Eternal Editor!
The Eternal Editor's profile will be appearing on the 'About the Kettle' page very soon indeed. If I don't write it, he will instead. Alas, The Editor isn't the most creative soul. He just cleans up the mess that is the residue of creativity.
Anyway, that's The Eternal Editor. Best of luck to you, Editor, because I'm pretty sure that Rinrei already doesn't like you and is going to make a point of putting the maximum number of mistakes in all her posts. I do not envy your appointed task.
Regards, Professor Pisces
Yep, you all know what's coming next. We have yet another new member.
The Eternal Editor has joined myself, Matt, Evil Mistress of Cliffhangers and Rinrei as authors of the blog, although you shouldn't really expect many posts from him. This is due to the fact that he's just here to edit out the majority of errors that occur in everyone else's posts. However, providing he does his job properly, I may just allow him to have his very own column.
I'm sure that The Editor shall keep this blog running as well as is humanly possible. I've handed The Editor administration priveleges, which basically means he can do whatever he wants on the site. I'm trusting him to only do what's necessary and to stick to his duties most strictly.
Let's give our newest member a big, warm welcome! Ladies and gentlemen, The Eternal Editor!
The Eternal Editor's profile will be appearing on the 'About the Kettle' page very soon indeed. If I don't write it, he will instead. Alas, The Editor isn't the most creative soul. He just cleans up the mess that is the residue of creativity.
Anyway, that's The Eternal Editor. Best of luck to you, Editor, because I'm pretty sure that Rinrei already doesn't like you and is going to make a point of putting the maximum number of mistakes in all her posts. I do not envy your appointed task.
Regards, Professor Pisces
A Day in the Life of... Rinrei
I'm just going to do this so I have more than three posts in a row. Leave this one in the state it is in so that all may see what Pisces and The Eternal Editor have to work with. I personally don't think my grammar is that bad. I have seen worse (check out one of my reviews to see my comments on a story with REALLY bad grammar). Anyway... this is just to show what my partners have to deal with and to show you what my daily life consists of (on a Saturday):-
0930 - Greet the day by punching the sun.
1000 - Close all the curtains in the house to avoid the light.
1030 - Go online and laugh at the Nostalgia Critic's reviews. Prepare reviews for the Kettle before
deleting them just to spite Pisces.
deleting them just to spite Pisces.
1100 - Greet brother with a fist to the face. Proceed to have a battle to the death with him.
1200 - Make new friends from the pieces of the old ones.
1300 - Eat lunch made from the souls of the idiots who entered my house. Fools.
1400 - Attempt to write a story and fail miserably. Sometimes the right answer is Napalm. What the original
question was, no-one can be sure.
question was, no-one can be sure.
1430 - Take a nap. If someone wakes you up, put them to sleep and make sure they won't wake up.
1440 - Go to the good guy's lair. Is the grass greener on the other side? If yes, burn the other side's grass.
1500 - Return to house and get sugary treats. Then go online again.
1700 - Animals? Unprocessed meat.
1800 - Another nap.
1900 - Prepare more possible reviews, then kill them with fire.
2100 - End the day by snap-kicking the moon.
That's basically my dull and ordinary Saturday. Anyway, this should show you what my friends have to deal with.
The WriMo Journals - Part Three
It's morning, so I have plenty of time to do this. (So Professor, stop sending messages to my Inbox which already has a hundred messages in it.) Anyway... from where we last left off.
Pisces takes a moment to turn into a Buddhist monk as I investigate the reason for the birds silence.
After having an interesting conversation with the silent bird, I return to my seat and claim two sweets from Pisces' bag. This is frowned upon by Pisces and this is shown by the removal of the precious bag of sweets. As a result, I take my revenge by stealing a cookie he was planning on eating. Skald's Godsister comes in and begins to question our purposes. We give her roughly five options to choose from; all of which are correct. She takes a seat on the sofa as she watches Skald and Pisces' arguing about Skald's ability to catch up to Pisces' word count so quickly. I know very well why he is catching up so quickly, as not only is he listening to inspiring music but he is using all of his fingers to type instead of two. I join Skald's Godsister in watching this argument.
Skald's Godsister leaves, just as Pisces stands up and attempts to suck in dust particles in the distance. In order to get him to settle down we decide to say we have slowed time for him to be able to write faster than Skald. With this thought in mind, Pisces decides that he shall send back his future self in the future and enter Skald's home with an army of people who are also him, and then give Skald a black eye. This conversation never ends but, in fact, gets mixed up with all of our other conversations.
I pause to crawl on the ground as Skald and Pisces begin to talk about their unusual hair styles. As a result of me humming 'I Wave My Hair Back and Forth' we all get into a competition of shaking our hair commenting on how Skald looks like a girl without his glasses on before being forced to write, yet again. Only half an hour has passed since I last checked the time.
I get bored of my chair and decide the floor is much more comfortable to sit and read on. Skald and Pisces question my location. I quickly direct them into a conversation about aeroplane seats and leather sofas then proceed to watch the conversation develop.
A few minutes pass of this unusual conversation before I silence them and make them write yet again. I do this by taking my old seat again and glaring at them with my visible eye. Pisces briefly rolls his head against the keyboard before writing again. I comment on his writing as his official editor (although I could never do the grammar), knowing that my skills will leave him with fewer words and leave even less space between the amount of words Skald and he had written. I relish seeing his reaction. I lean over his shoulder and check the time; it's 3.40 PM.
As Writer's Block kicks in again I start a conversation about the appearance of The Fifth Day (you would have to have read earlier posts to understand this). So far, Pisces and I have decided it is a clown with a revolver gun, a Viking hat and long hair (reference to Skald, who has been the main individual forcing us to write), which shall comment on how Pisces has not got enough words and how Skald could change regions so he could do less work. Pisces comments on how I would be standing next to this clown laughing at their suffering. In a desperate attempt to defend himself from the madness that is Writer's Block, Pisces steals the Viking hat to reveal my sleep deprived eyes and grudge hair. I quickly take the hat back.
We talk about brilliant endings for our stories, which brings us into giggling fits of true madness. Then, we talk about words that are not real which we could place in our NaNoWriMo stories. The WriMo Dragons give us accusing looks as they frowns upon these thoughts. I take a sweet just to spite it.
As my partners proceed to do a word count again, we think about our reasons for distracting Skald from his writing. The Viking hat completely covers the upper part of my face as Skald's Godsister comes in and spots me out of the corner of her eye. I am official claimed the most mentally disturbed of the group due to my wearing Pisces' Viking hat.
Pisces asks my opinion on a particularly gruesome moment in the story, but since I am used to gore and horror, I fail to notice what could possible be wrong with the story. With my opinion being useless, he tries to talk to Skald. Skald ignores him completely. Due to his lack of comments, Pisces writes gibberish on the computer instead. I come to realize that all communication between Skald and Pisces has been severed as they reach their final hour. This leaves me chuckling in the corner, adding to Pisces' presumption that I may, in fact, be The Final Day in physical form.
Pisces blows the sweet wrappers across the table as Skald's Godsister comes in again, this time going to the door to collect two of her clones. Skald is disappointed as he presumed it was Pisces' future self come to punch him. I laugh some more. As the clones come in they locate us. We become their targets. It's even more frightening when they all look at you to make you feel the the terror contained within their soulless eyes of doom.
Pisces begins to type his own morbid thoughts onto the computer. These thoughts involve shoving the WriMo Dragon down his throat. Skald takes a moment to enter the kitchen. Apparently, he is less welcome in his house than I. While he is away Pisces and I begin to talk about Star Wars, again.
We then begin to talk about the horror of an enemy's story, whom we shall call 'President' for now. We begin to make snarky and cruel comments about the story; I have claimed the reward for having the most evil comments. After this, my companions begin to write again. I take my spot on the floor and begin to read.
After reading, I take my seat and crack some bones. Pisces' hat is stolen and moved around the table. Penguins are mentioned often as I attempt to steal another sweet and fail miserably. We give the evil children of doom nightmares with our talks on the truth about Viking hats and what the WriMo Dragons would do if we stopped writing. This is my revenge against the evil children, for I am the only one that can be truly evil.
Pisces talks about one of his dreams in which he was battling an enemy of incredibly short stature with a scalpel; another sign of what NaNoWriMo has done to his state of mind. Bats comes downstairs and give me a brief nod of understanding before going into the kitchen.
With a comment about plastic being tasty from Pisces, I shove a penguin down his throat. Bats and the evil children of doom come back into the dining room and target Skald with their soul-devouring questions of death. According to information released by Bats, he has less time than Pisces because he has to press a button at the Church soon. He is very stressed about this and yells a lot. He later reveals that he plans to type his story onto the Church computer. This is enough to frighten the evil children of doom. They walk out of the room.
Pisces and I go into the living room to teach the bird how to sing. In fact, he sings worse now. That would be my fault. As we come back, Skald shows Pisces a YouTube video. I sit down and write of the current events.
Soon enough, nuclear wars come into discussion. I claim that I have nothing to fear as I have already created a nuclear war bunker. There are only two penguins left on the plate and only forty minutes until our time is up.
Skald goes upstairs. While he is upstairs we type on his computer:
Hi Skald, I have possessed your computer. Love Erebus. (This is the very same Erebus as runs the 'Ides of February' website.)
The results were interesting.
The results were interesting.
Pisces' hat is stolen yet again as he scrapes the upside down horn against the table then puts it back on my head. The evil children of doom are making an evil gingerbread house in the kitchen, plotting to steal our souls with its enchanting smell. I break the spell by pointing out that it smells like it's been burnt and therefore,save our souls, although I doubt I shall be able to protect us next time they cast an evil spell of death.
We talk about books again. The conversation does not last long, as Writer's Block proceeds to attack Pisces again and he takes the hat back. I am immune to the relentless beating of Writer's Block and proceed to beat him up instead.
As the results of the failed experiment enter the room, we begin to talk about food and women's names. I take the hat and the Writer's Block regains all its previous strength and beats Pisces until he is bashing his head against the computer. I force the hat back onto his head then have another mental battle with the Writer's Block. It attempts to claim Skald as its new target, but Skald has blocked it out with music. The Writer's Block goes out the window to prevent us from having the snow we so desperately need. I pick up my cup as a weapon in case the Writer's Block is foolish enough to come back again.
As the results of the failed experiment enter the room, we begin to talk about food and women's names. I take the hat and the Writer's Block regains all its previous strength and beats Pisces until he is bashing his head against the computer. I force the hat back onto his head then have another mental battle with the Writer's Block. It attempts to claim Skald as its new target, but Skald has blocked it out with music. The Writer's Block goes out the window to prevent us from having the snow we so desperately need. I pick up my cup as a weapon in case the Writer's Block is foolish enough to come back again.
The evil children of doom come in again, this time with a new plan in mind. They attempt to steal our WriMo Dragons in order to possess them with evil spirits, but Skald battles them with interesting comments before sneaking them out of their hands without them realising. With a final look at me, they leave. I know they will be after me next.
Pisces slips his head onto the desk, so I do him a favour and force the helmet painfully onto his head before he experiences the delusions of the WriMo Dragon talking to him. The Writer's Block stands behind him talking in a high pitched voice. I punch the Writer's Block in the face and force Pisces back to work. We only have twenty minutes left before we are freed.
Leaving Pisces to battle the Writer's Block on his own, I call my Mum. I claim a penguin and begin to pack my bag. I show the Writer's Block the inside, then snap the bag shut. It attempts to fight it's way out, but I keep the bag shut. This bag already has a demon inside it. They should be happy together.
With Pisces not knowing what I have done for him, I bid him adieu and leave. I talk about the day's events with my mother as we leave the caution zone. I spend the rest of the night wondering about the fate of my companions. I keep the lid shut on the Writer's Block.
With Pisces not knowing what I have done for him, I bid him adieu and leave. I talk about the day's events with my mother as we leave the caution zone. I spend the rest of the night wondering about the fate of my companions. I keep the lid shut on the Writer's Block.
The next day I find out that both of my friends have finished their NaNoWriMo novels. As I return home, I open the lid on the Writer's Block to allow it to bring its chaos back to the world. It seems it has taken to me, as every time I write it battles against me. Even as I write this I am in the middle of a battle with the Writer's Block, which has reverted to a tiny form. I can never be beaten by Writer's Block; he shall have to wait until next year before he is capable of causing any damage.
Barbie Dolls and Hurricanes
It is indeed a weird title, but those are what I have been fighting with the past week. Not only that but deadlines. DEADLINES! Deadlines for chapters in stories on my online profiles on different websites and comics I have been forced into doing (I tell a lie. I chose to do them. I thought I could do it). Anyway, along with the Christmas shopping (which I will probably do on Christmas eve), I have to play the entire of the 'Curious Village' and 'Emily Strange- Strangerous' in order to get a nice long review on the blog. For now I leave it up to Matt and the Evil Mistress of Cliffhangers to fill my space. Did I mention the Eternal Editor? No? WELL DON'T DELETE THIS, OR I SHALL HAVE TO TELL PISCES ABOUT WHAT YOU DID AND WHAT I WROTE! Anyway. Signing off.
FOOLS! See you later.
Rinrei
Rinrei
Friday, 9 December 2011
Christmas Time
Hello my friends. I know it has been a long time unless you count that rather short message I posted a while ago. Maybe you have all completely forgotten who I am but do not despair. The operation is still moving forward as planned.
Myservants friends, I have decided that today I shall be reviewing the lovely month of December in all its glory: the good and the bad. I plan to make this extra long so that the Professor will behave and stop telling me to be more active because let's face it, during the operation I will be in a room miles away pushing little models with a stick.
And on that subject there is the music.Who has not wanted to tear out their eardrums with burning hot wires whenever they hear the absolute torture that is 'Sleigh Ride'? One of my rather tall friends at school is in danger of having his throat ripped out as he has managed to find one hundred different Christmas songs, and we don't like Christmas songs. I'm not saying that I do not occasionally like to hear a little 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', but to all shops out there: WE DO NOT NEED TO HEAR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN WHILE WE SHOP FOR OUR CHRISTMAS DINNERS!!!
Yes. I call Christmas Christmas. Deal with it.
I do love the food though. Turkey leaves much to be desired, but the rest of the food is delicious. Pigs-in-Blankets, Roast Potatoes, that weird cauliflower and cheese thing my dad makes every year, etc, etc. Christmas is a natural way of storing the much-needed stuff that will keep us going through winter, ie it's a way of making ourselves fat with Mince Pies. Christmas, like many other traditional holidays, is a full-on 'I'm going to stuff my face with food' holiday.
But we all know the reason why Christmas is too stressful for us humans. That reason is buying presents for people. Every year since I was thirteen I have placed it upon myself to buy all the Christmas presents for my friends. Also, since I was thirteen I haven't had a decent night's sleep in December. The choice of what to get people is endless: should you get something practical for your friends that they'll use over and over again (in my case, pens)? Or should you get them something full of novelty which only they shall see the humour (in my case, a mushroom)? Maybe something home-made will suffice (I don't have a case for this). Or you could just get them chocolate to add to the extra weight that they will collect at Christmas Dinner? Those are the main things you can get for your friends. There is also the case of picking something of the right value. You don't want to give someone some chocolate that cost you £3 and then they give you an expensive ornament that they found in Harrods that they knew was for you. It's like trying to fish for tuna with your bare hands in shark infested waters. Pick the wrong one and suddenly you've lost something important. Wait too long and you will still lose.
I know I have been complaining quite a bit here, but the truth is I actually love Christmas. I love seeing the general Christmas films that end up on TV and I do get a nice feeling out of giving people presents. And also it's nice seeing that people do in fact care for you enough to send you a card or a present.Also, the Professor complains all the time in his so-called 'insights', so why can't I?
Christmas rules, peeps!
My
And on that subject there is the music.Who has not wanted to tear out their eardrums with burning hot wires whenever they hear the absolute torture that is 'Sleigh Ride'? One of my rather tall friends at school is in danger of having his throat ripped out as he has managed to find one hundred different Christmas songs, and we don't like Christmas songs. I'm not saying that I do not occasionally like to hear a little 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', but to all shops out there: WE DO NOT NEED TO HEAR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN WHILE WE SHOP FOR OUR CHRISTMAS DINNERS!!!
Yes. I call Christmas Christmas. Deal with it.
I do love the food though. Turkey leaves much to be desired, but the rest of the food is delicious. Pigs-in-Blankets, Roast Potatoes, that weird cauliflower and cheese thing my dad makes every year, etc, etc. Christmas is a natural way of storing the much-needed stuff that will keep us going through winter, ie it's a way of making ourselves fat with Mince Pies. Christmas, like many other traditional holidays, is a full-on 'I'm going to stuff my face with food' holiday.
But we all know the reason why Christmas is too stressful for us humans. That reason is buying presents for people. Every year since I was thirteen I have placed it upon myself to buy all the Christmas presents for my friends. Also, since I was thirteen I haven't had a decent night's sleep in December. The choice of what to get people is endless: should you get something practical for your friends that they'll use over and over again (in my case, pens)? Or should you get them something full of novelty which only they shall see the humour (in my case, a mushroom)? Maybe something home-made will suffice (I don't have a case for this). Or you could just get them chocolate to add to the extra weight that they will collect at Christmas Dinner? Those are the main things you can get for your friends. There is also the case of picking something of the right value. You don't want to give someone some chocolate that cost you £3 and then they give you an expensive ornament that they found in Harrods that they knew was for you. It's like trying to fish for tuna with your bare hands in shark infested waters. Pick the wrong one and suddenly you've lost something important. Wait too long and you will still lose.
I know I have been complaining quite a bit here, but the truth is I actually love Christmas. I love seeing the general Christmas films that end up on TV and I do get a nice feeling out of giving people presents. And also it's nice seeing that people do in fact care for you enough to send you a card or a present.
Christmas rules, peeps!
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