Strange Tangents

Research takes time!

2011-12-08T11:56:00.001Z

I had started writing a blog post showing how I had started to take an interest in the current events in the UK. It was a post on the strikes in november by various unions about proposed changes to their pensions.

I wanted to not assume any knowledge and just make sure of facts that media outlets do not necessarily explain fully.

Turns out I didn't have as much free time as I would like to find ask the official references for backing up what I found out and do the post remains half finished. Also, anyone reading it probably knew it all already and I'm just slow on the uptake! If I ever do finish it however,I will of course still post it.

This post is the first I've attempted to write on my phoneand as such I've attached my android version of myself I created.

T.t.f.n.
-the captain

Mumm-Ra: Halloween 2011

2011-11-07T17:52:00.003Z

I like dressing up for Halloween. My friends and I also try and have a good party for it too.

Normally the party has been a house party, but this year I suggested we hire a venue. This is because the first house parties were whilst we all lived together, but now we have moved on and live in different places. I have never hired a venue, so had no idea what I was getting myself into. We chose a venue in the City of London, as on the weekend, it's normally quiet and I thought I had a good chance of hiring somewhere. All the venue required was a minimum spend of £1000.

The venue could hold 200 so we thought that minimum spend was achievable, but it turned out to be a bit trickier than we thought. As it came to 12:30, the manager informed us we were short (not in height) and not likely to make the amount. He was kind enough to say if we finish a bit early (we had planned to go til 2am), then we could still get our deposit back despite not reaching the target. The lesson that we don't drink like first year university students anymore was learnt.

Apart from this, the party was a success, with nearly everyone wearing costumes. My rule when trying to get a costume together for Halloween, is that it should be evil orientated. Previous years, I have dressed as theWitch-King of Angmar, and Hades from Disney's Hercules (rather than a generic Hades, or the one from the Clash of the Titans).

This year, I went as Mumm-Ra from the 80's cartoon, Thundercats. To do this, I made a mask using paper mache, then wrapped myself in bandages and finally putting on a red clock and hood made from bed sheets. I also painted my hands grey with face paint and had black nail polish.

Wearing a cloak and a mask made me very warm at the party, and at about 11 in the evening, I had shed them so that I could function normally again. For next year, I will have to take the heat into account!

I would put some of the pictures of how others dressed up here, but I don't want to put them up without their permission.

-the Captain

I don't just try and do cartoon drawings

2011-09-02T19:59:00.002+01:00

I have a lot of work on at the minute, with it all due on Monday. Because of this, I have not thought of a new post.

I am tying now though, as a way of procrastinating for a moment!

Below is drawing from last month. It was a combination of various photos I have got from rss feeds I subscribe to. I wanted to create a drawing of a girl, in a world that is both claustrophobic and vast. The high walls with nothing for a ceiling help achieve this and I will explore this again outside of the small sketch book so I can have the girl smaller, and the environment bigger, whilst keeping the detail.

The sketch book this is in is almost finished now. I should have finished using it a long time ago, but hopefully now my pace of sitting down to draw has increased, and the next one won't last as long. Most of the highlights from it have already appeared here but maybe I'll post some of the others from there here too.

-the Captain

p.s. feel free to leave comments here - it will (hopefully) encourage me!

Story Drawing Contest - The beginning

2011-08-09T22:55:00.007+01:00

One of my friends is a really good creative writer. Problem is he works for a bank in their IT department. Between us we devised a challenge to give him a chance to put his skills to practice.

Once a week (or month) I give him a list of 5 words. From this list he must chose 3 and create a story that incorporates them. He must write the story within half an hour of starting and within a week of being given the words (we may change the time frame too).

Once complete, I then have a challenge under the same time constraints, but to create an illustration, that includes the words, and is relevant to the story he has written.

He has promised that he will start a blog himself to post the stories to. When he does, I will link to it.

I sent him 5 words for the first time today:

1. Monkey

2. Musician

3. Hospital

4. Horse-back

5. Ginger-Beer

Within 10 minutes he sent me back the following:

The monkey strummed his guitar while riding his horse into the bar. He said “I’ll have a ginger beer” and the man responded “I’m sorry sir, this is a hospital.”

Done. Where’s the pic?

Pure Genius.

He will do a more serious attempt at some point (I think!). I tried to be as quick in my response for an illustration:

As a quick sketch it was OK, but not as good as I would like. After sending him this, I then did another sketch focusing on the horse-monkey-guitar part:

I was much happier with this.

Anyway, this is just the beginning if all goes to plan and there will be more posts spawned from this challenge.

-the Captain

I Missed July! So here's an Easter Island drawing

2011-08-03T14:57:00.003+01:00

My aim of posting a new blog post at least once a month was going so well. Unfortunately this July has been very busy for me and I hadn't had much time for considering a decent post. I have been working hard at my university work, and at the time of writing, have an 85 page report that will be reviewed at the end of the month. This has been the drain on my time.

So now I have to think of something to put here for a distraction whilst I continue the darned report.

I have decided to show a picture that I drew back at school when I was approximately 15. It is of Easter Island, and is from a photo I found in my school's art department. I currently have two pictures on my wall that I drew or painted, and this is one of them.

The rip in the corner was caused by my art teacher when she took it down from its place at school to give back to me. I really wasn't happy about that.

I don't often like looking back at my work from when I was younger, as I typically think it is worse than how I viewed it at the time. This picture however, I still enjoy and have tried to recapture the feeling in other works since. My next attempt will involve me taking a photo of a landscape, and working from that.

As a side note, the other painting on my wall is based on a painting I did at GCSE, so it seems I at least like my ideas back then.

-the Captain

Distinctive cartoon style (Continued, again)

2011-06-27T15:32:00.003+01:00

I have done more sketches now trying to keep in the same style. I should try and do more complete pictures soon rather than just the heads.

First off, the most recent. My girlfriend is playing Ocarina of Time on my old N64 as she never played it before. As such, I have drawn some Zelda inspired pictures. The first is an attempt of redesigning the Great Fairy, as she isn't that great in the game to be honest:

After that is the one I'm most happy with, the owl from Ocarina of time:

Then, lastly in the Zelda inspired run, a quicker sketch of the hero link, with Navi:
Next, we have Doctor Who inspired sketches. I found Amy Pond impossible to draw and had three attempts at her (not sure which is best):

That said, I was happier with the sketch of the Doctor:

The Doctor Who sketches were done to help with a project I want to do, which helps me see all that the Doctor has done, under which generation (a sort of infograph similar to those you can find already bouncing about). Hopefully I'll be able to put that here soon too.

-the Captain

Trying to create a distinctive cartoon style (Continued)

2011-06-09T22:42:00.006+01:00

Over the last few days since my last post, I have done a few sketches of people I know (but won't name), attempting to do them in the style I had from before. I haven't yet tried a new one of myself yet. The first attempt is directly below:

This photo is from before I then darkened up the details, where I feel I ruined the eyes by making them too dark (it still looked OK, but less like the person its based on). I wasn't happy with it, but it was a start. Then I was on to a male friend:

This, as all of the sketches, was done quickly and if I was more professional, I would probably do a lot of sketches of the same face to truly explore it. But I'm not. Next I returned to the same person as the first, but from a different photo:

It was again OK, but not as satisfying enough. I wasn't sure what it was, so I continued planning to go back to it. Next came another guy:

Now I was definitely happy with this one, even though it has a lot more detail than the original style in the previous post. So the male pictures I was happy with, now to try a couple of other female ones to see if I can do better there:

This was just OK, which is getting repetitive now. Teeth were a bad idea I think. Now one last one:

And it was one I was happy with! I think the nose turned out good and will maybe help improve the other female pictures. I was very happy with how quick these were all drawn, and how quick the progress was. Feel free to let me know what you think.

-the Captain

P.S. changed the layout, not 100% sure how this post will come out looking!

Trying to create a distinctive cartoon style

2011-06-07T15:50:00.004+01:00

When I was younger, I wanted to draw comics (and write them too). The first example I have still is when I was about 11 and had "made up" a group of super heroes called AlphaTeam (I think). It was just a front cover, which I drew on A4 paper and painted in acrylic. It wasn't badly done, but the characters were basically rip-offs of X-Men.

By the time I was at university, I had given up the idea that I would really ever by involved in comic books, but still hung on feeling I could still do little projects on my own or with mates (and still do hope for this!).

In my second or third year, I decided to try and come up with a style for comics that I was comfortable with. As it was for comics/cartoons, it wasn't to be too detailed, but still needed to be expressive and be able to show differences between people.

I started out with drawing a face which was vaguely based on my own. I was probably watching a lot of anime at the time, as that definitely influenced the use of thick strong lines. Also, I didn't want it to look like most western comics, but something in between. Once I had the face I was happy with, I then went on to draw a rough sketch of the body. The result of which is below:

Many magna (anime) faces do not include noses, or have very small triangles for them (see below), and mine is similar, but I do want more definition for the nose and I have tried to add more details into the face as well (but maybe could experiment more).

I will try and do an updated version of this picture soon and see how I would do it now. Plus given the style, I would need to test it by trying to draw other people (probably based on pictures of my friends) with the style and see how it works.

-the Captain

Music listening habbits

2011-05-11T15:23:00.003+01:00

I started trying to get into music properly when I was about 14. My friends at school just seemed so much cooler for knowing all these bands I hadn't heard of. I started watching MTV a lot, back when they mainly played music videos. I found that most of the music I liked was on MTV2, which had the rock and metal bands on. I remember particularly liking the video for Pitch Shifter's - Hidden Agenda. I also watched MTV Bass sometimes too and quickly learnt about Tupac and Notorious B.I.G's death as all it seemed to show was documentaries about the two of them.

At that age, CDs felt expensive to buy for bands I didn't know. To compensate, I used to borrow them from friends, which expanded my collection quickly. I now had albums like Green Day's Dookie, Metallica's S&M, and Deftones' White Pony. I listened to these albums a fair amount, as well as making a "mix-tape" CD which had some of my favourite songs on it. These albums then made their way into my first car, where I would carry on listening to them on my 6 CD changer (I was very proud of this!).

When I made it to university, Halls was even better for getting more music. There was a whole building of people who really wanted to share their music passions, and as such my music collection expanded even more. But this caused a problem for me in terms of listening to it all. There are albums I got then that I still haven't listened to.

So now, I have become more dedicated to listening to music. When I buy a new album I put it in my car, where I can listen to it all the way through several times to see how much I like it, and which songs are good, including ones that grow on me. Then I will put it on my computer, and rate the songs (favourites go into a particular playlist). Finally, they then go on my phone so I can listen to the whole album, or just my favourites.

I feel this works well for me as I get to be familiar with the album as a whole (as the band probably intended it to be listened to, definitely do this for Noah & The Whale's First Days of Spring), and I get to see which tracks I like as singles. It has most certainly improved how much I enjoy music as a whole.

The last 5 albums I bought are:

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Gorillaz - The Fall

Radiohead - King of Limbs

The Wombats - The Wombats Proudly Present... This Modern Glitch

Noah & The Whale - Last Night On Earth

Let's see if I can remember the track listing on my first "mix-tape" CD (not my first actual mix-tape, because I would have been about 7, and it would be mainly Michael Jackson and MC Hammer). In no particular order:

Queen - We Will Rock You

Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back In Town

Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench

Foo Fighters - Learn To Fly

Foo Fighters - Next Year

Guns N Roses - Paradise City

Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

Guns N Roses - Welcome To The Jungle

Green Day - Long View

Blur - Song 2

John Lennon - Imagine

Rocket From The Crypt - Used

Rocket From The Crypt - On A Rope

Greed Day - Basket Case

I believe that's about right, I don't know why I only had 1 Blur song on it, they would be my all time favourite band! Do check out Rocket From The Crypt too, they are/were a very cool band.

So, how do you listen to music?

-the Captain

Guitar Picks

2011-04-27T20:35:00.005+01:00

I have 2 guitars. 1 electric and 1 classic acoustic. My electric guitar is a simple Squire Strat. I have promised myself that if I get good enough (decided by me), that I will get a nice, shiny new guitar to play with. That doesn't mean I don't like my Squire guitar though. I have stuck stickers on it (as lots of people do), the first one being an Opeth sticker (bought for me by my friend), with their symbol "O". As such, I named my guitar Ophelia. She has since got a few more stickers, and is shown below:

The most recent sticker, is a garbage pail kids sticker I got from the Kapow Comic Con this month. I'm not sure if I have a favourite sticker - the Autobots Transformers' sticker probably edges it just.

When I moved out of my last flat, I decided to make some guitar picks for my friend (of the Opeth sticker) and myself, based on his computer persona, our "never-gonna-happen" band, and a logo I made for my girlfriend. I got them done in time for his birthday (he got some of the band ones, and his computer persona ones) and was really happy with the results:

The left most are: his "Count Spatula" logo; then the white is my girlfriend's giraffe logo; and then the right most is the band's Death Pants logo. The Death Pants logo is my favourite. To make these, I drew the designs in Macromedia Flash, and the went to MyBadges website and sent in the designs.

These sort of things add to my enjoyment of playing the guitar, and will help make it possible for me to justify buying my next one. The current favourite for that is this:

The Ibanes S 570B in white. I'll let you know if I get it!

-the Captain

Plan for the blog

2011-04-19T11:57:00.002+01:00

Hi, This is simply a quick post to state what I intend for this blog going forward.

I haven't posted regularly, which is an epic fail on having a blog. I feel there is nothing to get out of reading a blog, or writing a blog unless it updates reasonably frequently. My plan to make this achievable here, is to store up some of my drawings with comments as blog posts, which will then be posted automatically at a regular interval (1 or 2 weeks). Then on top of that, I can occasionally write something that's on my mind. That way there will be something happening frequently, and I can encourage myself to write more. Wow, blogs are so incredibly self centered, I really hope I can make this worth while for people to read this!

-the Captain

I no longer like my Mac

2009-10-21T18:49:00.004+01:00

I have had my MacBook for 3 years now (13"). It seems my affection for Apple computers has soured (I say computers as I love my IPhone).

I first got a Mac for Christmas 2002 - it was a G4 PowerBook (17"), it lasted 5 years, with 1 OS upgrade, and loads of random programs installed. It crashed a total of 5 times, mostly in the last year (the screen was the first thing to really die). I found the OS easy to use, and as people have said before about Macs, I felt it was a pleasurable experience using it, and wasn't fighting against it like Windows' machines at the time.

This convinced me to buy Apple again when the PowerBook died. Now my laptop crashes more often (still not as much as Windows, but still...), ITunes has got worse (although slightly better now it doesn't lock my music to my account), it still isn't compatible with everything (websites aren't really written with Safari in mind), and to get the new OS, I have to pay £120 with no offer of student discount as I'm 2 versions behind it (on OS X Tiger), and can't upgrade the RAM at the Apple store as my laptop is deemed too old.

All in all, it feels like Apple have become more like Microsoft in attitude, with their product getting more buggy, and their prices staying high. It has helped make sure that I will get a new desktop soon, which will have Windows 7 on it.

I can see something similar happening when smart phones grow a few generations too.

-the Captain

And I Thought I Was All Grown Up 10 Years Ago

2009-08-07T03:21:00.004+01:00

Today I looked at some journal entries I wrote when I was 15.

I smiled reading through, seeing what troubled me back then, and I feel I've grown to be a better person - no longer with that pain.

I laugh when I read further and see that some problems are still with me, and think how the 15 year old me would react knowing its still something I think about today, almost 10 years down the line.

Also, on reflection, I hope I'm not as thick and naive as back then.

-the Captain

p.s. whilst writing this I was listening to Blur - She's so high, so the whole experience was a bit of a time travel.

One thing I do unfortunately know is a problem that was a stupid one from back then that I still have, is what my "band" would be called (even though I'm not part of one, or looking likely to being part of one).

I Quit!

2009-07-13T23:40:00.002+01:00

I quit my job last month. That was something different.

It had been a fantastic first job - The people there on the whole were fun and sociable, so I had a good time when not working, hanging out with people from work. But it always felt like a first job. I quit as I need a change in direction, and the job I had wasn't what I want to be doing for the future years.

Now I'm here, trying to learn skills on my own, and will need a part time job to sustain myself. It's definitely a different style now to then. I seem to be going out more.

-the Captain

My Whiteboard

2009-05-26T00:18:00.004+01:00

Sounds like a Scrubs episode to me.

I have a whiteboard in my room. This I know will probably be viewed as sad by quite a few, but I'm not friends with many of those people so that's fine.

The whiteboard has been very helpful for me, and allows me to flesh out ideas quickly, and very visually. At the moment it has some plans on it for how I want to improve my knowledge (there will be a post about that sometime soon I imagine).

This is a lazy post however, the title misleading - and below is something I drew on my whiteboard. I draw on it as a few times a week, as practice, and to help relax. I have other pictures, and they'll end up on my flickr page at some point probably.

-the Captain

HeadPhones

2009-05-08T18:16:00.003+01:00

To get it out of the way quickly - yes I haven't posted for ages, but I've had other stuff to deal with, so this was knocked down the priority list unfortunately.

I find headphones strange - I love the quality a good pair can get you, and I do like listening to some music loud, so in my room I have a pretty decent pair which i listen to music with when it gets late, so as not to wake flat mates.

I don't like the phone head sets you can get, I've had to use them at work once or twice, and to me they feel unnatural - maybe they make me feel off balance as there is only one ear piece on them.

The main strange thing I find is how I no longer can gauge what people can and can't hear, or what I can and can't hear. So I'm there at work typing away at work listening to music happily, and then get a strange sense of my environment, wondering if the music is too loud, occasionally taking the earphones off and moving them away a bit to see if I can hear them (It always seems that the music is loud enough that everyone should be hearing it - even though I know that's not true!).

I'll also probably once or twice take them off to ask if someone said something, only to find out no one's talking at all. Finally my stomach will rumble, or I'll bite into some food, and not know if anyone can hear it at all.

Am I the only one who gets this with ear/headphones?

In other news I have found out a flaw in my post card sending scheme. I put the wrong stamps on - apparently you need stamps other than the "air mail" ones, so I now need to go out and buy them and try again. D'oh.

-the Captain

A Year In Work

2009-03-29T19:44:00.005+01:00

I have now been in my current job for a whole year. This has been my first job since leaving university and has taken some getting used to.

The people I work with are great, there is a lot less friction between people compared to when at school, but despite being a large company, there are not quite as many people as University, where you could separate totally and only hang around with those you wanted to.

The holiday time has been something tricky to manage too. With school and university, you knew when you had time off (and there was a lot), but now with work, you have to think about when you're going to have time off, and then get your manager to OK it! So now I'm battling between trying to save up days, and to have time off to look forward to soon. I think this will be tricky come summer time.

I've been good getting up in the mornings I feel, as I hate mornings and always will, so getting up each day at 7:20 has been a victory. I have a good routine in getting to work, where by I take as many opportunities to sleep as possible (on train and bus). I am starting to vitamin B tablets to see if they help me feel more awake in the long run.

When I started this job, my first target was to be there at least a year to prove I could do it, and I have. So what now? Now I'm going to have to think about new targets, I hate not having a plan.

-the Captain

Post Cards 50/50 success!

2009-03-21T16:10:00.002Z

I have sent two post cards now, with one still to do (at least). but it appears that only one reached its destination!

My apologies to Christina, my postcard to you seems to have failed to reach you in Cyprus. I put the air mail sticker on, and even put tape over it to ensure that the writing didn't get washed away in the rain (I was stupid enough to write it in fountain pen). Not really really sure what went wrong with it to be honest. I think i'll send another shortly to test whether that one will reach.

The one that did reach its destination was the one to David, my flat mate. That's right, my flat mate. He asked for one, and as such, I sent one. I do mean sent one too, I sent it from work so it had a bit more of a distance to travel.

I did enjoy the process of writing them, and will continue to write more, just hopefully to more than two people!

On to other things, I am going to try a new routine next week (time permitting). The idea is to take my laptop to work, and then after work, on the way home, stopping by somewhere with free wifi (although internet isn't necessarily essential to the plan), and working on my projects for about an hour before going home. There will of course be days when this is not possible, like when playing football, o going to the cinema, but if I manage it for just two work days a week, it'll be progress.

I'll let you know how it goes.

-the Captain

Bad timing!

2009-03-08T21:38:00.002Z

I've been ill this week, not all this last week however, it started on Friday, after work. Now tell me that's not bad timing.

I felt ill near the end of work, but nothing too bad, plus my brother had booked tickets to see the Watchmen that night, so couldn't really think about being ill. By that night, being at the cinema, I was not good at all, and shivered through most of the two hours forty minutes of the film (I still enjoyed it though) and couldn't wait to get home.

Saturday and Sunday have been pretty bad too, head aches, hot flushes, general aches.

On to other things, I have been reading a book lent to me by my flat mate David called 'Creative Writing'. As you can guess, I haven't read much of it yet!

The book has some interesting exercises in it, and maybe you can help, one of the exercises is to ask others about authors they like, to help expose you to authors you may not have thought of before.

My authors were: Tolkien, Pratchett, W.Collins, S.King, N.Gaiman, F.Miller, A.Moore, and Dickens - which doesn't have any who write in a current world situation really. But I guess that shows where my interests lie more.

So who are yours?

Late/ Post Cards follow up

2009-03-03T20:36:00.002Z

Title sums this up. I have been busy this last week (and a bit) and as such I have no prepared post. This has been threatening from the start, and at some point I will need to write two or more posts a week and have them queued up.

Anyway, now for the post card follow up. I recieved one postcard (letter really) from Christina, and I have written back to her, but not yet posted it. This brought a flaw in my preparation up, I had not bought stamps to send them! This has been rectified, and the post card will be on its way soon.

There were other hard parts to this, mainly buying the post card. I was trying to get something that represented the local area (either at work, or at home), but buying quickly only gave the more generic ones available. Again lack of preparation playing its part.

However I am persisting with the idea, and have about two others to write at the moment. I will give another update on the progress once I have had more experience with it.

-the Captain

Post Cards

2009-02-19T22:20:00.003Z

I have been thinking about post cards for a couple of months or so now. With the internet and email and all that jazz, writing letters and post cards have pretty much gone out the window. It's totally understandable too, when you go on holiday now, you can go to an internet cafe and check your emails, upload a video you may recorded, and everything is that much more accessible. Why would anyone send a postcard now, when they can send a quick text?

"In Greece now, am well, lots of sun, txt soon, kthxbye"

Generally, anywhere you can send a post card, you can get mobile phone signal as well. I can't think how many post cards I've ever sent, but it can only be a handful, as it was when I was young, and so wouldn't have really thought about it.

Maybe now I'm being sentimental, but I really want to send post cards (also I saw the Benjamin Button film recently which features post cards a fair bit). Only problem is, that I'm not on holiday, and none of the friends I would think to send them to are further than an hour away, so it seems a bit pointless.

So now, if any of you few reading this want, I will send you a post card. It won't be a post card from any where exotic, but from where I live or work or go out. I'll try and write something worth while, and what would be cool, is if you send one back, and then we can have a regular correspondence.

If you are up for this, post a comment below, with an email address or something to contact, and then I'll get in touch asking for the address you want it sent to.

-the Captain

Four of Clubs

2009-02-15T12:47:00.005Z

The four of clubs, is a playing card (der!) that represents a game we play in our flat, and as one the flat's weird quirks, I thought I'd explain it here.

It's pretty simple, someone hides the 4 of clubs within the communal areas of the flat (so not in the bedrooms), and the other flat mates have to find it. Whoever does, gets to announce to us all that they are awesome and found it, and then gets to hide it again.

There are some vague guidelines that seem to have come up for this. We don't hide it somewhere where the card could be destroyed (the oven would be a good example of this). Don't hide it where it would never be found (the loft). If it doesn't ruin the hiding place, try and make it visible so as to taunt the people who haven't found it. Finally, as this game is a bit of a slow burner, if it hasn't been found for a while, give some hints as to where it is (like ruling out the kitchen).

I can't quite remember how this game came about, but I think it was because I had been throwing cards across the living room (as you do), and after tidying them up, some cards would still get found every now and then. The 4 of clubs turned up, and I was probably asked what to do with it (I'm sure someone will kindly correct me if I'm wrong) and then we decided to make a game with it.

There have been some good hiding places, the most recent being Sami hiding it on my door, as on my door I have the 8 of spades (my favourite playing card number), and he put it under that. It's been hidden in lampshades, on the shaving mirror, under coasters, under table tops, under carpets.

Now this may well all sound stupid to you reading (unless you're one of my flat mates, or previous flat mates, as i know you enjoy this game). But I think these strange little things make life a lot more fun, and personally I hope I carry on playing this game for many years to come.

On a side note, I was the last to find the card, and now have to think up a place to hide it...

-the Captain

p.s. I am intending to add more pictures to these posts, but have none at hand for this post. Last week should have included some snow pictures, sorry.

Snow Day(s)

2009-02-08T12:30:00.002Z

Last Sunday and Monday, London and the South East of England had snow, lots of snow. That should clear up any confusion you had if you were about and saw this strange substance all around.

That Sunday morning (1st of Feb), I had been watching my nephew play rugby, and it was very cold, but no snow. So that afternoon I return to Putney, and then it starts to snow. By that evening there it was settling, and one of my flat mates called (Sami) to come out side and meet him as he was walking back to the flat.

So out we all go to meet him. I didn't wear gloves, but wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to throw snowballs at him, which is exactly what we did when we met up with him down the road from our flat.

We then walked about the roads around our flat, and it was amazing. David (another flat mate) was taking pictures, Sami was appreciating how great it all looked and myself and the other Alex were mucking about (paints us in an immature light I suppose).

Walking around was good fun though, as we saw that lots of our nieghbours had exactly the same idea. Everyone was smiling, whether they were having snowball fights, sliding around or making snowmen. Some kids saw Alex and myself having fights, and if they looked like they wanted to join in, I threw one towards them (but not hitting them), and waited to see if they would retaliate. They did, and we we had fights for a bit before moving on.

My highlight on the Sunday, was the moment I saw these two girls having a snowball fight with two guys on the other side of the road, and I went over to see if they wanted to use the snow ball I had at the ready. They said they didn't need that as they couldn't throw, and asked me to, so without hesitating, I threw it at the two guys and hit one on the arse! I was (ok, still am) very chuffed with myself!

Eventually we made it back to our flat and watched it snow from the window,

The next day was an absolute blessing, as I got up, and saw it still snowing. I thought I may not be able to make it to work, so I tried to check the relevant websites, which were so busy they wouldn't respond. So I had a shower just in case, and then rang work to find out that no trains could make it, and I was asked to find out if I could make it to the London office – I couldn't (no tubes or buses running).

I went back to bed, it was a day off, and I hadn't had my usual lie-in the previous day, so I was going to have it now.

At about 1, David and Alex were up and ready to go out and explore in the snow, so I got up and went along. It took us ages to anywhere, as David was taking photos, and we were always throwing snowballs (or making them!).

We went through the park and ended up at a warm pub on the river front at about 2.30 – 3.00, and had a late lunch (it had a fire place, and a view of the river, and was all round a nice pub).

We then made our way back, having enjoyed our brief release from responsibilities. It was a most welcome, unexpected day off, that I'm glad I made full appreciation of, and I greedily hope that this Monday sees the same occur again!

- the Captain

p.s. If you want to see photos I took (not David's good photos, sorry, he hasn't got a flickr account yet), you can see them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30062982@N02/

Review of 2008

2009-01-31T13:33:00.007Z

Now when I say review of 2008, this comes from a personal angle, so not looking at major public events of the year or anything.

The most major even for me was getting a full time job!

I had started applying around November 2007 after finishing my Master's course that summer.

For the most part I had being applying to places via company websites. That got old quick, filling in similar, yet slightly different forms on each one. The breakthrough came by going to a graduate recruitment website, who then worked really well to find me places. They sent me regular updates, and eventually got me an interview with a company called Fidessa (financial software company, in support), who were on my list to apply for at some point anyway. Having got the interview I felt confident I would get the job, as I do well in interviews generally, and sure enough they offered me a job!

So that meant getting used to a 9-5 lifestyle, which is why this was the biggest thing to happen to me last year. This meant 9-5 every day, not just every-now and then, and was a big deal for me. It was something I wanted to prove I could do, and even though I hate mornings still, I am managing it fine, so bonus points for me!

I played less sport last year, but that's mainly because I quit the football team I was apart of to take a year out. I still play occasionally with work, but need to increase this back up again. I generally don't like traveling to play sport, but as soon as I'm playing, I don't want it to end.

Socially I still went out in a similar fashion as to when I was at university, by which I mean the weekdays were (and still are) pretty busy, with the weekend chilling out at my parents mostly. One of my favorite things has been keeping up with my friends from my Computer Science, which we organise weekly. I kept up with my other friends from uni too, but not as often unfortunately.

Occasionlly I'd go clubbing or to a mid-week party, which would mean night buses back home, meaning very late nights! This hurt the next morning, but were totally worth it, and I would do the same the year. Although one time, I feel asleep and ended up in Richmond and had to get a cab back...

Another major part of last year was a change in living arrangements, two of my flat mates moved down the road, and a new flat mate moved in. I miss living with the two who moved out, and see them reasonably frequently, but I have enjoyed living with the new guy (Sami). Its been a year and a half living in this flat, and has been awesome, I feel it's in a great location, and has been|is with great people.

The final big event of last year I can think of (whilst typing this), was my summer holiday. I went on a P&O cruise for about 2 weeks around the med. For people who haven't been on a cruise they generally can't see the appeal of them, which I understand, and will probably try and explain away in another post. It was great fun, with amazing people, who I am still in touch with (and plan to meet up with again). It was near perfect, and made me more hopeful that I can enjoy that sort of lifestyle still in the future, essentially being able to hang around with friends 24/7 with less responsibility.

So 2008 seemed to be a good year looking back at it, so if this year is as good as last year, I'll be happy.

...

Having said that, I'm aiming to make it better than last year!

-the Captain

p.s. so much for shorter posts! I need to get ahead of schedule with these things soon!

Slow Week!

2009-01-25T13:16:00.002Z

Ok, so this week I haven't really thought about what to post. I'm sure you're all devastated.

I feel I have an excuse, as there have been other things I needed to do that took priority. Those priorities have been successfully dealt with though, and so I can try to get back on track.

Getting back on track refers back to my New Year's Resolutions post, and so far the progress is ok, but only ok. I had put too many things on my list to keep track of weekly, and as such I haven't started some of the activities listed (learning a language for one). But I have decided that until I start them, they remain at zero, and do not lose points.

Got behind on going to the gym this week, and the spreadsheet has helped me feel like if I put in a strong week this week, them I'm back where I should be.

Finally, this post hasn't been too well thought out because I've been thinking about how to make this better, as posting once a week ends in one long post that at best is hard to read.

So I'm thinking that I should maybe post a couple of times a week, in smaller posts, with the posts broken up with some art (mainly made in Flash), and maybe some talk of the projects I'm undertaken art wise with drawings that are going towards them.

Hopefully next week will be better, have a good week people!

- the Captain

My Computer Requirements

2009-01-17T19:40:00.008Z

My dad is thinking of getting a new computer. He does this when he thinks there is something wrong with the current computer he has, even if there isn't.

I'm happy with my computer right now, although I suppose it could be better. I have an Apple macbook, a little 13" one. I upgraded the RAM on it to 2G, but didn't do much else to it. (I have just heard that my mum wants a laptop now, what's happening?!)

I bought it when at university, and needed to use it for programming, and writing up coursework and projects (as well as browsing the net, listening to music and storing pictures and videos). So this suited my needs, the only hardware that's a bit frustrating is the small screen, but that helps for portability.

Software is a little more tricky though. Obviously macs comes with certain programs like iTunes and iPhoto, but here's what I use apart from them:

I have Open Office on my computer, as my course used this to, although I hear NeoOffice is meant to be good. I can't complain about Open Office though, as it has done everything I would want from it, including writing professional looking reports, to producing a good looking CV in pdf format.

I also use eclipse for writing Java, so another free program, which has been brilliant so far, as i don't think I could stand emacs. It basically helps make sure I do not make stupid mistakes in my code, like not ending a line properly (it highlights this as wrong), and also makes the code easy to read (auto tabbing, comments in green, that sort of thing).

For photo editing, I use GimpShop, which to be honest I really don't like. It's slow and cumbersome, at least on my mac (as it uses X11). It does what I want it to, but the layout seems awkward and designed to slow me down from what I want to do, but again it's free, and I'm not paying for Photoshop, escpecially as the main thing I use it for is photo cropping, resizing the image, and the file. Plus I tried drawing stuff in GimpShop, and it just wasn't fun, although I have yet to go through the tutorials online to create professional looking images.

Finally, my most recent software I use, is Macromedia Flash, and I love it. It takes its time over certain tasks, but for what I use it for it's brilliant, although expensive! I mainly use it for drawing pictures that are mainly for use on the internet (they will feature here soon too). I have a tablet, which links into flash well, and uses pressure sensitivity, and the main thing I love is that its vector base, so resizing works well quality wise.

To show a typical picture I have done with Flash, I will start with my profile picture, which was based on a photo of me, which I then made more pirate-y:

Anyway, I am always looking into new software, especially good free open source software, so any suggestions, please let me know! If I find any others I like, I'll be sure to mention them.

- the Captain

p.s. I think I've just noticed that the published date on the posts may be wrong...

My life on t'internet so far: Part 1

2009-01-04T12:22:00.015Z

Having discussions with one of my friends (name check: Mark), I thought it might be cool to have a look at how I've used t'internet seeing as I've been using it near 10 years now (not as much as some by a long way I know).

To start with then, I'm a bit hazy on when the internet arrived at our family's house, but I was about 13 (so about 1998). Which was about the time I changed schools. Some of my friends already had AOL and I already wasn't jealous of that fact. However it did have one thing worth while at the time: AOL instant messenger.

Instant messaging was the main thing I used it for in that first year, and at its height, I had AOL, ICQ (the one with the flower petals), Yahoo and MSN all at the same time. Now I have MSN but barely use it, and Skype which is used when people say to me to be online at a particular time.

I found that I had my friends at school on my contacts list, and then also a few people who went to my school, but I didn't talk to on my list as well. At the time I didn't question it, but now looking back I spent ages talking to these people online (girls in the year below mainly), and didn't really ever speak to them in person until the final two years at school when they started hanging out with our year in school!

After messaging, came online games. Mainly little ones found on sites like www.miniclips.com (other sources include FHM's 100 greatest online games and newgrounds). I found that a lot of early small online games were easy to cheat in, for example, if written in flash, you could simply right-click and go forward.

However, one in particular was BattleMail, which was a small game played through email, which was a Kung Fu rock paper scissors game essentially (similarly had the same for "soccer". The results of the battle were then sent to BattleMail who then updated their scoreboards).

You can see what it looked like (sort of) here thanks to the internet archive (and other pages here).

This game had some level-up stuff going on, but the main thing that got me into it was the forum, asking for people to challenge, and then the banter afterwards. It had "clans" to join too, so I had to decide which to join, all I knew is that I wasn't joining the same one as my brother so we could compete against each other (This was essentially my World of Warcraft)!

They added more games, and ended up having to charge a small amount for what they provided, and I paid (as did a lot of others) but it was the beginning of the end, and it started to fade away.

However, before that happend, my brother had started a clan, where I was 2nd in command, then I had to take over for a while, and I discovered irc (through webirc or something). I was now very into the online community and still am today.

I think that brings me half way through my internet usage, and as such I think that's a good place to take a break and do the latest 5 years in another post!

p.s. BattleMail has been resurected in some form here:
www.battlemailkungfu.com
p.p.s. I will include more pictures and videos and stuff in posts soon i promise ;)

Are your New Year's Resolutions worth while?

2009-01-01T22:46:00.010Z

It's now a new year, 2009 and as with any New Year people have made resolutions to carry into this year to help them.

I welcomed the new year with a small shindig being held at my flat - this was mainly down to my flat-mates and myself being lazy and not wanting anything major to happen and to be able to laze at our flat after a calm evening. It sort of worked, although i ended up going to bed at 4:50, earlier than some of our guests, which i felt bad for.

The next day wasn't seen until around 2, when we all started to stir and then set about organising a fry up which wasn't ready until 4. I feel that it was a good way to welcome the new year.

When it comes to making resolutions for this year, i started early, about a week or so. Some of my resolutions are very typical, like going to the gym more, and others are more obscure and specific to what i want to do - learn ruby in order to create two websites.

There was a point to the title of this post, which i am getting to, honest.

The point was short, when i try to make changes in my life, i can stick to them well for a month or so, but then it starts to slip. Then you (I) start to feel "why bother", but i'm now at a stage where i think, if i can do it for a few months, then that is at least something, even if it doesn't last, and at least i give it the chance to last. Plus maybe something will stick.

My resolutions:

Try to learn a language (i did French and Spanish for GCSE, and a bit of Italian, so progression in all three is preferable)
Learn more Ruby and Java
Do more art specifically for web comics which i have been asked to help in)
Learn more musically (i am learning Guitar, but used to play sax and clarinet, so get back to playing them)

This is it mainly, and already part of my life already, but i have now put a spreadsheet to this to account for my progress (i did an engineering degree, we like spreadsheets!).

So how about you? what are your New Year's Resolutions and how do you plan to keep track of them?

Hopefully this year i will make more progress than previous years.

I hope you all had a great 2008, and have an awesome 2009!

- the Captain

Initial Post

2008-12-28T18:08:00.000Z

This is my first post under this blog, and as such comes as more of a test than anything.

I am wanting to explore whether i have anything worth a blog, and whether what i write is interesting to anyone reading a blog.

Right now in front of the computer with no notes, i have nothing to say! I plan on making notes on what to say here, and also when to blog, as it should be regular, and at a reasonable frequency.

ciao

- the Captain