A random string of probably contradictory statements and rants.

Two posts in one week? What is James thinking?!

Here, have a link to a news article that'll destroy your faith in humanity whilst at the same time restoring any lost faith in the internet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7646807.stm

Yep, you read that right. Rick Astley's up for an MTV award. Lets make sure he gets it! (As if /b/ won't be voting in their millions anyway. I can imagine it being a huge landslide.) You can vote at ema.mtv.co.uk

I've voted several times already, probably gonna do more later. Get voting!

Current Location: Bedroom at studentland
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Justice For All Court Suite (from Original Gyakuten Meets Orchestra)

<insert usual stuff about not being dead here>

So I went to see Dragonforce in Oxford today (goddammit, why is Oxford so pretty? Lulie, next time I see you, I want you to bring me one of your many pretty buildings, so I can put it on Reading Uni Campus and live in it, annoying any groundskeepers there may be there). It was SO good - Turisas were supporting them, and all my friends are big Turisas fans, so we were all there in the customary red and black Turisas warpaint (even me. Interestingly, also the first time that I would need to be IDed, where I wasn't. Warpaint makes you older!).

Turisas were brilliant - I've only heard a few of their songs before, only one of which they actually played, but still, they were BRILLIANT. They kept the crowd going the entire time, and were overall amazingly entertaining. For anyone who doesn't know, Turisas are a Viking Metal band.

Then after about a 45 minute wait (same length as Turisas's entire set ¬_¬) Dragonforce came on. In their entire set (lasting from about 8:30 to 11:15) I only knew about 4 of their songs - I really need to listen to more music. However, they were still really good. I could complain about the accoustics, and how they'd set the volume far too high for such a small venue, but still, they were great. However, the lead singer is a bit of a twat. Copied and pasted from an msn conversation describing him:

yelling about how much the back of the crowd suck (a lot), funny at first but gets boring and irritating quickly. also he was taking a swig of a bottle of water, then spitting it out on the crowd. again, maybe funny the first time. maybe.

James says:

Current Location: Bedroom
Current Mood: hyper

I forgot to mention in my last entry, I've now become a huge "Dr Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog" fan. For those of you who've not heard of it, it's a project by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and Firefly), which he explains rather well in his FAQs page:


"Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. "

It's a brilliant musical - it combines Joss Whedon's normal humour with professional composing (done by his brother, a professional composer, rather than by Joss himself, like in the buffy musical). He characterises everyone in it SO quickly - within the first few minutes, you really know Dr Horrible well, and it takes about 10 seconds to see how arrogant his nemesis, the hero Captain Hammer is.

The story basically involves Dr Horrible trying to get into the "Evil League of Evil" which the villain Bad Horse leads with an Iron Hoof. Meanwhile, Dr Horrible is also trying to win the heart of the girl at the laundromat, called Penny. The plot sounds simple, but it gets SO much better than it sounds.

If you want to watch it, it's at www.drhorrible.com and I suggest you watch it sooner rather than later - it was originally only going to be up til the 20th July, then it was taken down, but due to fan demand it was put back up again, but I don't know how long for.

Oh, and also, I'm thinking I might cosplay Dr Horrible sometime soon (don't know when yet, though)

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: "On The Rise" - Dr Horrible

I really need to update this thing more often...

Ok, since the last entry, not too much has happened. I've got hooked on Myst again, bought the prequel and sequel novels, which are BRILLIANT. They're written in a very easy-to-read style, and they have occasional illustrations of things that happen in the book, and they're brilliant, I reccommend the books to anyone who loves the Myst games, and even if you've not played the games you may still enjoy the books, the don't require any prior knowledge of the franchise. 

In other news, my dad, my sister and I went to Cornwall the other week. The weather as we got there was pretty bad, but the next day, and for the rest of the week, it was brilliant weather. All three of us went body-boarding quite a bit, especially me and my dad. In the evenings we went on a few walks, and a couple of times I went with my dad when he went fishing (I myself didn't do any fishing, since all I know of fishing is to wait until you see a splash, then press the A button. Animal Crossing says so). We didn't catch anything, unfortunately, but it was still really enjoyable just sitting there and watching the world go by.

I also managed to totally play through the first Phoenix Wright again. It's funny, there's quite a few references I missed in the later games. Like, in Apollo Justice, Apollo and Trucy have a recurring debate about ladders vs stepladders - it's not until I replayed AA1 that I realised that it was a reference to a similar conversation in the first game.

Also, I ordered my ticket today for the Dragonforce concert in September - it's going to be my first proper concert, and it's going to be rather an epic one, especially with Turisas supporting them too. Can't wait! ^^

Current Location: Student House, Bedroom
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Darkness and Starlight - The Black Mages

Ok, so today I went to the uni house, which we got the keys for on Tuesday. On Tuesday it was pretty scummy, but Sam's worked wonders and it now looks MUCH better. So we went into town, Sam, Katie and I, to get a few things - a mat for the bathroom, a rack for drying dishes etc.

We came back with 1,100 ball pit balls.

I kid you not, 1,100 ball pit balls. We've been saying for ages that we wanted to get a ball pit once we'd got our house. We were always intending to. But now that we've actually done it, I feel SO much more excited about it. At about 3:45 I had to head back home (til the landlord sorts out my bed, which currently doesn't fit in my room, I'm staying at home, but going back and forth between there and the house), but once I got home, Sam sent me a text message to say that he's now set everything up. We're using a sofa and a bit of netting to cordon off a small area of the living room, and I imagine right now Sam and Katie are probably sitting in it playing Super Smash Bros Brawl - I know I would be, if I wasn't at home right now. I can't wait to get back there and see it all set up. Pics coming soon!

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: an Abba documentary (don't judge me!)

Sorry for the lack of postage recently - I've been really busy with exams and stuff. But my results were released yesterday! Ok, that's a lie. They were released two days ago. But in their infinite wisdom, the university posted them online, on a server that couldn't hold even a quarter of the amount of people trying to connect to it. So it was about 9am yesterday that I finally got my results.

And I passed, woo! I got a First in Codes and Codebreaking (how the heck I got that, I don't know), in Computer and Internet Technologies, Software Engineering, Programming and Computer Science Roadmap, I got 2.1s and 2.2s, and in Engineering Maths I got a 3rd. I'm a little bit disappointed with maths, but a pass is a pass - the slate gets wiped clean for next year anyway, so I'm not too fussed. Yay for passage!

Only 2 days of uni left now though, then the holidays start - I don't want this year to end!

Current Location: Uni room
Current Mood: cheerful

I JUST PLAYED SUPER SMASH BROS BRAWL! AND. IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. PROJECTORS FTW!

Current Location: Uni Room
Current Mood: hyper

1) Grab the nearest book. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest (unless it's too troublesome to reach and is really heavy).
2) Open the book to page 123.
3) Find the fifth sentence.
4) Post the text of the next 4-7 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5) Tag five people.

---

Ok, the only book I have to hand which isn't a manga or comic or something is Tricks of the Mind, by Derren Brown. TO PAGE 123!

"My realisation, after the session, that this was the first time I had hypnotized him was very confusing: how could he have responded to the suggestion if I had not given it to him? I realized that day that hypnosis works not because of a carefully worded magical scrpit from a self-help book, but because the subject believes the process is effective. Over time, I have refined this understanding, but the revelation was an important one."

I've not yet actually got that far in the book, but now I sure as hell want to. God, I love this book!

I tag...Lizzie, Nat...ok, that's just about everyone on my friend list who sophie hasn't already tagged.

Current Location: Uni room
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Dan Dan Dan by San and Lunar (Seto no Hanayome)

Ok, I really need to get into the habit of updating more frequently.

Today brought an awesome revelation. At the start of term, we were split into two groups in our programming class, one for the more experienced programmers, to do project-based learning, and have more of a challenge, and the less-experienced programmers doing simple exercises. I went in the more experienced group, because so far I've not really felt challenged. My group decided to do a cryptography system - basically, it'd have functions for loads of different cyphers, and would be able to encrypt or decrypt blocks of text. 

So today, we went into our programming lecture, and got given the end-of-term project that everyone doing programming has to do. There's one of two projects which we could choose from. The first one is basically a game called "griddler" which is basically those Tsunami puzzles, the ones in Picross. You could do a puzzle-giver, or a program that solved the puzzles, or both. Alternatively, we can choose...a cryptography system. That's right, James only has to do one project instead of two! WOOHOO!

In other news, me, Judy, Guy, Sam and Emma have been house-hunting for a place to live for the next couple of years. We've found a place, too ^^ it's a three-storey building, with six bedrooms (we're looking for a 6th housemate at the moment), two bathrooms, a living area, a kitchen and a small garden. We've put down the reservation deposit, so they've taken it off the market, and we'll be paying the full deposit sometime in the next two weeks. Then, we have the house starting when university ends for the summer. I can't wait to start living with everyone, it's going to be chaos of the very best sort!

Random thought of the day: is it just me, or does the expo seem a lot closer than it did 4 months before the October expo?

Current Location: Uni bedroom
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Black Mages: Battle Scene (FF1)

Capcom have just released a Flash demo of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney/Gyakuten Saiban 4. I've not actually played it yet, because my copy of the third game hasn't arrived yet and I'd hate spoilers. But for anyone who can't wait for the fourth game, they can play the first case right there. Enjoy!

http://www.ace-attorney.com/aj/

Ok, back to work for me now :(

Current Location: Uni room
Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Age, Regret, Reward (Cadenza Version)