#oneaday Day 62: Too Long, Still Read

I'm almost entirely certain I have ranted on this topic at least once in the past. But, well, it bears repeating, given what I do both here and professionally.

More than one paragraph isn't bad.

More than 140 characters isn't bad. (Unless you're using Twitter, when all the deck.ly and TwitLonger nonsense kind of defeats the object.)

I read an answer to a question on GameFAQs earlier. The original poster had asked something which required quite a detailed answer. One respondee gave a detailed, good answer that was two paragraphs long, probably about 150-200 words or so. He apologised for writing "alot of text" (sic)—and I'll let the "alot" slide for the minute because there are bigger issues at work here, dammit. (Incidentally, if you've never seen this, well, you should.)

No. Stop apologising when you write things. Stop complaining at people in forums if they write detailed thoughts. Stop providing lazy people with "TL;DR" summaries and make them read. No wonder people haven't got the patience for books any more if they can't bear to read more than 10 words of someone else's opinion at a time and inevitably respond with something utterly inane like "lol". (And I bet they're not even really laughing out loud either, the bastards.)

Language is an incredibly powerful thing. Look at all the things it's built over the years. Those things didn't come about by people worrying about writing an "OMFG WALL OF TEXT" and people ignoring them. Those people had something to say and damn well said it, in detail, and argued their case. Their passion for what they were talking about came through in the power of the words that they chose, their enthusiasm for the topic came across with the depth into which they explored their topics verbally and on paper.

Now granted, there are times when brevity is better than verbosity. Anything from any government agency or law office, for example. I received a letter from the tax office a while back which went on for 3 pages when the single word "no" would have sufficed. These people have nothing to say and ironically spend pages and pages proving how little they have to say. Why? Who knows. To sound "official", perhaps.

But people with opinions? People debating things? People being—who'd have thought it—helpful? There's no sin in using a few more words if it might make someone think, discuss or smile.

So stop apologising when you write something, be it a blog post, forum post, Yahoo! Answers answer (well, someone has to write them) or blog comment. If you have something to say, it is absolutely your right to be able to say it without worrying about whether its length is going to put people off (*deftly sidesteps "that's what she said" gag*). And those who are too lazy to read a couple of paragraphs of comment? Well, they're probably not the sort of person you'd want to engage in a debate anyway. So F them in the B.

TL;DR: Stop being a dick.

#oneaday Day 60: Just Imagine...

Not so long ago, the world was a different place. Saddam Hussein was still in charge of Iraq, no-one knew who the Liberal Democrats were and Call of Duty was but a twinkle in a young Bobby Kotick's eye. Sounds like delightful times, doesn't it?

Well, the other thing about these glory days is the fact that we didn't have the Internet. And these days it's easy to take that fact for granted, given that most of the things we do throughout the course of every single day involve the Internet somehow, from the smallest little things to huge, life-changing events.

It wasn't always that way, and oddly enough it's a piece of educational software that really drives the difference home. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? was a game that tested your geographical knowledge and encouraged you to find out about the wider world. And you had to do it without the aid of Wikipedia, a website which means you can rattle through the Facebook version in a matter of minutes. Sure, it was often necessary to use reference material to pass the game's missions, but there's something a little different about using an encyclopaedia or atlas to find things out rather than typing things into Google.

For me, though, there's no going back to those dark days. I think about all the people I have in my life right now, and I bet over half of them are in my life because of the Internet, whether it's directly or indirectly. Some people I initially met face to face and then ended up getting to know via email or IM chat sessions. Some people I met online first and then met face to face later. Some people I've only ever met online, but want to meet face to face. And a few people I know online and am more than happy to keep them at a very long arm's length!

It's difficult to imagine how the events of the last year would have gone without the Internet. For starters, the situation wouldn't have arisen in the first place, for many reasons. But let's assume it had for a minute; the people from whom I had the most support were people I knew because of the Internet. A couple of them happened to be physically close to me, but a lot of them were on the other side of the planet. How different would it have been without them?

Perhaps if there was no Internet then I'd have more friends who are physically close to me. But then would that lead to a "compromise" sort of situation, where you hang out with people you don't really like because it's convenient?

Who knows? All I know is that I'm pretty damn grateful the Internet exists, and I'm equally grateful that the people I know because of it exist. You rock, so keep being awesome, and on that day when I win a bajillion pounds on the Inordinately Generous Lottery for People Called Pete (which doesn't seem to have started yet, sadly) I will be travelling around the world to meet each and every one of you, buy you a drink and/or call you "dick-tits" to your face.

#oneaday, Day 52: Desperately Seeking Perfection

The modern age brings with it many benefits. The ability to communicate with anyone in the world at any time (so long as they're not asleep). The ability to express one's creativity in a broader range of media than ever before. The ability to acquire pornography to cater to any and all fetishes. And, of course, more ways for people you want to avoid to track you down and "see how you are".

The downside of all this, though, is that everyone always seems to feel the need to constantly be reinventing themselves. It's a particular problem when it comes to popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Someone, somewhere decides that it's really important that sites have particular features in place, and some poor sod of a programmer out there has to implement said features. Then when said poor sod has implemented said features, everyone whinges and moans that it's "worse than it used to be" and "shit now" and blah blah blah and conveniently forgets that said services are, in fact, free and the owners of them are perfectly within their rights to do what they want with them, however stupid some of those moves might be.

But why does this happen? It's seen as "necessary" to constantly update and reinvent to "stay competitive". Why? It usually ends up doing more damage than good, because as we've seen on many, many occasions in the past, People Hate Change and will react in somewhat inflammatory, stroppy manners.

This isn't to say that all change is bad, of course. Not at all. Genuine changes that benefit someone's experience are to be applauded. New ideas that are experimented with should be treated with a "well, let's try this" attitude rather than the outright hostility we get right now. But change for change's sake when something already works just fine? That, right there, is the reason that we get aforementioned hostility. People just want a bit of stability, and when they feel they've got it and the rug is pulled out from under them, it's sort of understandable that they kick off a bit. Not always handled in the best way (in fact, usually handled in the style of a stroppy 8-year old) but at least a little bit understandable.

Combine stroppiness with the anonymity of the Internet and you get some ugly scenes indeed. It's a fast-paced world we live in these days, and some might argue it really doesn't need to be quite so fast-paced. It'd be nice to be able to slow down a bit, enjoy the view and only fix things when they break.

But nah, that's never going to happen. Everyone has to be the Very Best, to strive towards the "perfect" experience, the criteria for which seem to change on an hourly basis. And striving for perfection means having the techie types constantly at work with their hammers and nails and bits of code. A permanent state of construction. The eternal beta.

One day the Internet might be finished. But I don't see it happening just yet.

#oneaday, Day 33: Twitter: A Skewed Window on a Weird World

Twitter is many things, as I've said a number of times on this blog before. It's arguably my primary means of communication these days, since the vast majority of my friends are quite-to-a-very long way away, and asynchronous communication is nice and convenient. It's a good source of information (in fact, Twitter themselves now describe themselves as an "information source" rather than a means of "short, timely messages" like they used to) and a good way to keep up with what people you're interested in are up to—and not just when they're having a shit.

By far the most remarkable thing it does, though, is something that it wasn't originally designed to do, but which it was always naturally going to do, given its nature. And that is the way it can give an eye-opening snapshot of "this day in history". Even when seemingly nothing is happening.

Today, there happened to be several things of (in some cases questionable) note occurring. Depending on where the tweets were coming from, it was interesting to see the differences and priorities.

By far the most horrifying tweets were emanating from the Middle East, where Egypt has been undergoing some not-inconsiderable turmoil. Today, there were violent clashes in Tahrir square, and via one Middle East-based person I follow who was RTing someone stuck in the middle of the violence and horror, it was possible to get a "first-hand" account of what was going on. It was oddly sobering to see the whole thing unfold, and although I didn't know the person being RTed in question, I was hoping that their tweets would keep coming and end on a positive note. I didn't want to think about what a sudden cessation of the "commentary" would have meant.

Elsewhere in the world, Australia was preparing for an enormous cyclone. They haven't had a great deal of luck over there recently. Due to the fact I don't think I follow anyone who actually lives in Australia, most of the reportage on the incident that I saw today was pretty cold and clinical, although this image, showing what said cyclone would look like if it were en route to the UK instead of Australia, gave pause for thought.

And then there was the curious incident of Justin Lee Collins' new girlfriend, which was reported by the Daily Mail today featuring a series of obnoxious paparazzi pictures of the couple on holiday. The article in itself was objectionable enough—as far as I'm concerned, celebrity squeezes aren't news, even if they're squeezing another celebrity—but what I found rather surprising was the reaction from quite a few (games journalist) people I knew on Twitter.

It transpires that the "mystery brunette" the Mail was referring to is actually someone who works in PR for the video games industry. I don't know the person in question and have never had any direct contact with her, so I wasn't much the wiser once people had explained the whole situation to me. But a lot of people seemed to find the whole situation hilarious—something which I found rather bewildering.

Now, granted, there's a certain element of "hey, I know that person!" if you see an acquaintance or friend in the paper. But personally speaking, whether or not the games journalism biz had "got one up on the Mail" (normally cause for celebration), if I was the woman in question, I'm not sure I'd be particularly happy about the widespread discussion amongst a number of people I may well have had direct contact with in the past. It's not her fault she got snapped by some paparazzi scumbag. Some may say it's an occupational hazard of dating a "celebrity", but that's no excuse. Her privacy has been invaded; and while the discussion of the fact "we know who she is and the Mail doesn't" hasn't been malicious in tone, it's drawn an unwarranted degree of attention to her.

In my opinion, anyway. But then I've never been one for any kind of gossip; people's relationships are their own business—not mine, not yours and certainly not the Daily fucking Mail's.

On a more uplifting note, one positive thing that came out of Twitter today was the #whatstigma hashtag started by comedienne @RebeccaFront. Via this hashtag, she was encouraging people to speak openly about mental illness, depression, anxiety and so forth, without fear of judgement or, well, stigma. It was heartening to see how many people took to it, and proof positive that there are plenty of people out there who are getting on with their lives despite struggling with difficult mental conditions. It was also, hopefully, a slap in the face to the sort of people who like to say "get over it". (Hello again, Daily Mail.) I'd actually like to write a bit more on this subject as it's one I do feel strongly about, but I think I'll save that for another day.

So, on the 2nd of February 2011, what happened? Several shit things. One invasion of privacy. And thousands of people stepping up to publicly say something about themselves without fear or shame.

While not the most positive day the world has ever seen, to say the least, it was certainly an interesting day. Will it go down in the history books? Who knows? But those of us who were here have our own personalised record of the whole thing. And that's pretty cool.

Good job, Internet.

#oneaday, Day 30: Julia

The Internet is a curious thing, as we all know. It's given us LOLcats, cakefarts, puddingfarts (so I'm told… I haven't dared look that one up yet), Twitter, Rickrolling, gayrolling, that kid throwing a WoW-related (fake) strop and jamming a controller up his arse, porn, dancing chicken man, leekspinning and all manner of other things besides.

The other thing it gives you is people.

As a kid at school, I often wondered what it would be like to meet people outside the local community where I lived. I grew up in a small village in the countryside that had a pretty close-knit community. You could probably name most of the local "characters" off the top of your head if you had a good think… largely because pretty much everyone got involved with everything. And, just to add to every country stereotype ever, there was even a semi-regular "village show" which was inevitably filled with middle-aged men and women making jokes that were smutty and/or at the local vicar's expense. It's pretty neat to see a close-knit community like that, actually, though I question how much it actually happens these days. It probably does, though I doubt to the same degree.

I remember when the Internet came to town, though. Or, more specifically, in the form of CompuServe, which wasn't the "proper" Internet—that was a mysterious and difficult thing that no-one quite understood at the time. CompuServe was a window onto the rest of the world; people who were potentially far away that we all had access to for the first time.

CompuServe had one of the earliest chatrooms around—this was so long ago that the term "chat" hadn't taken on the widespread meaning it had today. No, in keeping with the times (or possibly not), CompuServe elected to call their chatroom facility the "CB Simulator". You know, because it was like CB radio in that you could talk to random strangers. Only it was completely different because you were just typing things.

I remember "meeting" a few people through this facility, with one in particular springing to mind. Her name was Julia, and she was from somewhere near Manchester. We got chatting and hit it off pretty quickly, and thus began a long campaign of emailing each other back and forth. I can't remember any of the things we talked about—the usual teenage things, I imagine—but I remember that we were getting on well and it felt like we were pretty "close".

So eventually, we had the opportunity to meet. She was going to Alton Towers with her friends, and as it happened, my friends and I were planning a similar trip. So we decided to make our trips coincide. I was pretty excited about the whole thing. She'd sent me a couple of (clean!) photos which seem to have managed to travel from computer to computer with me completely unintentionally, and she hadn't promptly cut off all contact when I sent her a photo of myself looking slightly uncomfortable in a dinner jacket on prom night. Which was a good sign.

I'm not sure what happened. Perhaps it was shyness, perhaps it was the presence of all our other friends "cramping our style", perhaps it was the fact that one of my friends was hitting on one of her friends (and doing quite well, from what I could tell), perhaps I wasn't what she'd expected or hoped for (she totally was what I was hoping for, she was a hottie)… but we found it pretty difficult to talk to each other in "real life". It was weird; we'd told each other lots of things, including plenty of "secrets", but as soon as we were faced with one another it was suddenly like starting over… and it became a missed opportunity, sadly. We drifted off and lost contact after that. There was no "breakup" or words spoken in anger; things just… "stopped".

I think about Julia every so often and wonder what she's doing with her life. I hope she's happy, wherever she is.

#oneaday, Day 22: Make Love, Not Hate

On the Internet, opinions exist in a binary state for many people. There is your opinion (1), and there is everyone else's opinion (0). Sometimes other people's opinions coincide with your own, meaning they can join you in the happy 1 gang, while the 0-toting losers get to stand over there being Wrong.

It's strange, though, really, isn't it? People develop such strong feelings about particular issues, and these opinions spread virally very quickly via all forms of the media. I remember reading about this in A-level Sociology and forget all the names and dates of studies concerned, but since this isn't an essay I'm not going to go and look them up. What I do know is that nowadays, such opinions spread far quicker than they have ever done before thanks to the immediacy of online social interactions, meaning that in some cases people may end up feeling that they should change their opinions on things in order to remain somehow "credible".

'Twas ever thus, of course, with the school bullies always listening to the most badass music out there whilst the flute-playing pansies amongst us voluntarily listened to—or even played—classical music. (Guess which of the two categories I was in, though I didn't play the flute. Flutes are for girls.) One group tended to kick the shit out of the other on a fairly regular basis, and it was usually a pretty one-sided battle.

You shouldn't start actively hating something just because other people say so, though. You should take pride in your tastes, however idiosyncratic or separate from the supposed "norm" they are.

Let's take a few examples of Things I Like That Should Be Embarrassing To Admit But Really Aren't, Honestly, No, Stop Looking At Me Like That And Please Don't Unsubscribe, Think Any Less Of Me Or Be Any Less Likely To Do Nice Things For Me (Like Buy Me Cake, Give Me A Big Wet Snog Or Make Me A Delicious Roast Dinner) Should The Opportunity Come Up.

Okay. I can do this.

(takes deep breath)

I like Robbie Williams. I also enjoy the comedy of Michael McIntyre, the radio show of Chris Moyles, the bubblegum pop music of MIKA and think Ke$ha's album is a work of quirky genius that I believe I have described as "sounding like Kelly Clarkson being forcibly inserted into a NES" on several occasions. I voluntarily bought both Dead or Alive Xtreme games and played them a lot, and not just for the bazongas involved, I enjoyed the dumbass illogical "dating sim" mechanics that were in there too. I follow Katy Perry on Twitter and find her music cheerfully uplifting. And I own two Spice Girls CDs.

Tastes change over time, of course, but who's to say that I'm "wrong" for liking any of those things just because the popular opinion is to hate them and deride those who enjoy them? I'm just as guilty as anyone else, of course; I find myself hating shows such as The X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and the like irrationally and automatically. I loathe Call of Duty. I would rather gouge my own eyes out than watch anything involving Piers Morgan (I think we can all agree on that one, surely).

The world would undoubtedly be a nicer place where everyone could feel more confident in themselves if our personal preferences stopped being scrutinised so much, and assumptions made based on those preferences. Take the recent announcement of Final Fantasy XIII-2, for example, a sequel to one of the most controversial Final Fantasy games there has ever been. Not because of the content, but because of the gameplay, which wasn't to everyone's liking. There are people out there who assume that because Final Fantasy XIII wasn't to their taste, XIII-2 is going to be shit as well. Justifications range from "Square have lost their way" (well, perhaps, but can't they pick it up again?) to "it's the same team, of course it's going to be rubbish" (because everyone is always universally good or universally bad?) and it's nonsense. Nonsense I tell you!

Basically, do your blood pressure a bit of good and start concentrating on the things you like a bit more. Tell people how much you like them, by all means. But let's all make a pact to stop making people feel bad about things that you, personally, "hate".

Unless it's terrorism, AIDS or Piers Morgan. You can hate those as much as you like.

#oneaday, Day 19: Day 365, or: Judgement Day, or: Judgment Day, or: The Best Of 2010 (And A Bit Of 2011)

It's dark. I remember falling through something—a trapdoor? But why would there have been a trapdoor in my house? It doesn't make any sense. But then neither does being in a place so completely devoid of light. There's usually at least a little light to see by, or at the very least, you eyes adjust to the darkness and let you make out the shapes of things in the room.

But here, there's nothing. Just darkness.

Oh wait, and now a pair of glowing red eyes and a supercilious grin.

"Des," I say. "Good to see you."

Des lets out a bellowing laugh that seems to reverberate around this space we're in, even though exactly what "this space" is isn't clear.

"Seriously?" I say. "Evil laugh? There's no need for that, is there?"

"I'm just trying to lend a bit of drama to the occasion," says Des, sounding a little hurt. "Today is a big day, after all."

"You're right," I say. "Though spending some time in a darkened room isn't exactly how I'd have chosen to celebrate 365 entries of non-stop daily blogging. No offence."

"None taken," he says. "I know we haven't always seen eye to eye. But I figured we'd do a bit of a Christmas Carol thing here, and whizz back through some memories. You like memories, right?"

"Hmm," I say. "Depends what they are. If you're referring to the memories of the year just gone, I'm not sure I do."

"Nonsense," Des says, laughing. "You'd be surprised. Let's start from the top, shall we?"

"Must we?" I say. "This is going to be a long story, otherwise."

"Yes," snaps Des, a little more aggressively than he apparently intended, as he says it again, softer. "Yes. From the top."

The blackness shimmers, and fades in to an image of me sitting at a laptop computer at an untidy desk in a classroom. I'm typing at my usual rapid rate of knots, but there's a faintly confused expression on my face. I'm writing nothing in particular. No change there, then.

"Humble beginnings," says Des. "I'm not sure you knew what you wanted to write about."

"No," I said. "I didn't. To be honest, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find something to write about every day for 365 entries. I wasn't terribly happy at the time—no change there, then—but was aiming to take some positive steps to improve life for myself."

"Right, right," says Des. I can't see his hands, but I imagine he'd be stroking his chin if I could. The image fades. "Like going to PAX East?"

"Yes," I say, fondly remembering those awesome few days in March.

"Uh-huh," says Des. "Good times, huh?"

"Right," I say. "Good times. An escape from the unpleasantness that had come before, and the calm before the storm that was to come."

"Overdramatic," says Des. "But probably accurate. It was an interesting time all round, really, wasn't it? What with that leaders' debate, the time you met those Twitter people in town and forged several close friendships as a result and, of course, the day you decided to write all about cock." Images flashed past rapidly as he spoke, ending with a close-up of a penis that I really wished would go away quickly.

"The word 'cock'," I correct him. "Also crudely-drawn ones. Not actual cock."

"Oh," says Des. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to find that perfect image?"

"Approximately 0.19 seconds using Google Images," I say. "Plus maybe a minute's browsing time? I mean, you're the one who was surfing for cock. I don't know how long you spent."

"SHUT UP!" says Des, sounding extremely British. There is an uncomfortable silence for a moment. "You remember the time you picked a fight with Roger Ebert?"

"I wouldn't call it me picking a fight with him," I say. "He started it."

"Oh please," says Des. "What is this, the schoolyard?"

"No," I say. "Fuck him, though, he made a lot of people a bit annoyed with those comments."

"All right, all right," says Des. "Keep your panties on. So, May, huh?"

I grit my teeth. May was not a good time.

"Yes?" I say. "What about May?"

"Well," says Des. "Where to begin? You went dancing. You got really drunk and then analysed the experience in exhaustive and, I have to say, very amusing detail the next day."

"Thanks," I say.

"Welcome," says Des. "You got a reply from Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half. You successfully located some animated GIF images of stickmen shagging that you thought had been lost to the dark days of the Internet gone past."

"Yes," I say. "Thanks for bringing those up. They've been stuck in my top search terms ever since."

"And talking of stickmen," Des says, a flood of light suddenly appearing and a crudely-drawn stickmen dropping to the ground in it, "you introduced Stick-Pete, albeit a somewhat bizarre-looking one."

"He was," I begin, "I was looking worried. Of course his… my face is weird."

"Right," says Des. "Of course, you were under the impression at this point that it wasn't always appropriate to have clumsily-drawn stickmen as part of what were often quite emotionally-draining blog posts."

"Yeah," I say. "I was wondering when that was going to come up."

"I am a personification of your own black cloud of despair," says Des. "Of course it was going to come up. But you know what, people seemed to appreciate the way you dealt with it in writing. You wrote a surprisingly poignant post about bacon sandwiches, which I think no-one was more surprised about the power of than you."

"Uh-huh," I mutter. "Can we talk about something else?"

"I suppose," says Des. "Are you sure you don't want to be miserable for a bit longer?"

"Quite sure," I say. "I can do that every day. Show me something amusing."

The stick-figure Pete is still standing in the beam of light, looking over at the pair of us, squinting into the darkness. I can't tell if he can see us or not.

"Okay," says Des. "How about this, then? Things you thought were true, but aren't. Changed your mind on any of those yet?"

"No," I say. "I still worry about my car exploding when someone throws a fag-end under it. Particularly with the weird noises it makes in cold weather."

"And talking of weird," says Des, sighing at his own pitiful segue, "you explored some of the strangest viral phenomena ever to come out of the Internet in one memorable post, I believe."

There's a sudden burst of sound and a chiptune version of the ALF theme starts playing. Stick-Pete starts dancing with two chicken wings that have inexplicably appeared in his hands. I can't help but smile.

"Haha," I say. "Seriously, what the fuck is that about?"

"I don't know," says Des. "But bear in mind you also prepared an exhaustive and illustrated guide on how to laugh on the Internet the following month, so I'm not sure you're in a position to comment."

The music continues. Stick-Pete continues to dance.

"Can we turn that off?" I say. "It's a little distracting."

"I kind of like it," says Des, his red eyes bobbing around in the dark. "Catchy."

I sigh. "Fair enough."

"You also showed people the ten-step programme of how to go out on your own," says Des. "Though I'm not sure your way of doing it will catch on, to be honest."

"No, perhaps not," I say. "But then, you know what an antisocial git I am. I have time to write a blog every day which includes a comic strip, however crudely drawn it may be. Do you remember when that started?"

"Yes," says Des. "And the first person in it was that blonde bint Lucy. And you."

Stick-Pete stops dancing and the music stops. As amusing as that piece of music is, it's been getting a little tiresome over the last few minutes. A blonde girl stickperson drops down next to Stick-Pete and they smile at each other. Stick-Pete offers her a chicken wing. She accepts.

"While I was taking my work into new and unexplored territory, though," I says, "some other people were deciding that they didn't want to carry on. I chose to honour them in my own individual way."

"And honour them you did," says Des. "Much as you honoured the guys and girls at Kombo when that site went through… changes. And again when The Big Pixels launched. And again when—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," I say. "Look, is this going on much longer? Only it's been nearly 1500 words now, and that shit all happened in October."

"All right," says Des. "Let's quickly jump into a few big achievements and leave it at that. I'm sure you have more important things to do. Like writing blogs. Oh wait."

"Shut up," I say. "Celebrate my achievements. I haven't had that many opportunities to do that in the last few months."

"All right, all right," says Des. "How about that time you beat the Couch 2 5K running programme? That was pretty awesome."

"You're right," I say. "That was pretty awesome. Not to mention the fact I'm still going, and aiming for a 10K in May."

"May, huh?"

"Shut up."

"You also did your bit to enhance international understanding," says Des, ignoring me. "And frankly, I'm not sure why you're reviewing the year again right now, because you did just that on New Year's Eve."

"Yes, but—" I begin, not sure where that sentence is going to end. "Never mind. Are we nearly done?"

"I'd say so," says Des. "The recent stuff is… well, recent. People can look back for themselves."

"All right," I say. "Can I go now?"

"In a moment," says Des. "First, you must BEHOLD MY TRUE FORM!!"

There's a flash of light. Stick-Pete and Lucy look on in horror as the darkness swirls around, revealing a huge, slobbering monster with thousands of tentacles, wings, mouths and spider-like legs emanating from it in every direction. I am nonplussed.

"Seriously?" I say. "You're doing the JRPG final boss thing?"

"Oh come on," says Des, his voice now loud and booming. "You love final bosses. You have waxed lyrical at great length on the subject, even long before you started doing this every day."

"Yes," I say, smiling. "But I'm not at the end yet."

#oneaday, Day 18: Why Blog?

Mark Fraser wrote a great post earlier today on the nature of blogging—particularly daily blogging—and the reasons we do it. In this post, I thought I'd explain why I do it. It seems like a faintly topical thing to do, especially since tomorrow marks one year since I started writing daily. One year. 365 entries, most of which are around the 500-1,000 word mark. That's a lot.

So why do it?

Because I enjoy it.

Shit, that sounds like far too simple an answer, and at the end of this sentence that's only 93 words. That's not enough for the arbitrary minimum I set myself back when I started.

But it's the truth. The reason I write this blog is because I enjoy it. Sure, it's great that some people come and read it. Some people are even subscribed to it (that's dedication for you). Other readers have undoubtedly come and gone. Some are recent additions to my little family of readers (oh, you, I love you all) but, you know, the only reason I'm writing this is because I enjoy it. The fact that you lot out there in readerland seem to enjoy some of the things I write is a happy bonus that I wouldn't exchange for anything.

I can tell when something I post is going to be a big hit, though. When I posted about Kevin Smith's unfortunate experiences with Southwest Airlines, I saw a big spike in people reading. Similarly, when I bitched about that ridiculous campaign on Facebook where everyone changed their avatar to a childhood cartoon, I had, I think, the most daily hits I've ever had. Which, given that the daily cartoon for that particular post featured someone masturbating furiously, was something of a bittersweet success. So to speak.

The thing is, though, I don't deliberately court readers. The notion of "hit-chasing" is seen as a necessary evil in the world of online journalism, which is why we get so many games sites lowering the tone with "OMG BEWBZ" articles, because that will get the clicks from the horny teenage boys who supposedly populate the Internet. Unfortunately, it seems to work, leading to something of a self-perpetuating cycle. Similarly, the Daily Mail undoubtedly enjoys a massive spike in traffic by posting something completely cuntish like they did the other day. Go find it yourself, I'm not linking to those bastards again.

But this site? No. This is for me. It's selfish but it's true. I'm very lucky to have some friends who enjoy reading my work and appreciate my stupid cack-handed cartoons—and occasionally some random strangers, too. Writing this blog every day is something fun to do that I look forward to. It's helped me work my way through some difficult times. And it's helped my writing as a result.

Basically, I don't play the game in the same way Mark describes. At least not consciously. But one thing I do enjoy is being an active part of the One A Day Project community—one of the reasons I decided to step up and try and organise the whole thing this year was based on one of the most common complaints last year: there was no sense of community. There was no "centralised" place for people to come together, and some of the participants weren't even aware of each others' existence. This led to the situation where there were only six people left at the end of the year. (Ironically, of course, this led to us becoming friends, as six blogs are much easier to keep up with than 160.)

This year, though, we're already seeing people posting some cool responses to each others' posts as standalone entries in their own right, some discussion and banter on Twitter, and I know of at least a couple of awesome friendships that have already formed as a direct result of all this.

So while I primarily still write for my own amusement, catharsis and/or personal development, I feel it's important to say that I do appreciate the community of other bloggers out there, some of whom might be reading this right now.

Kissy kissy. Wuv yooo.

#oneaday, Day 13: My Name Is Wicka Wicka Slim Shady

Anyone who's had any kind of interaction with any kind of online community and wanted to take your relationship with the people you know to the "next level" will have dealt with the situation above at some point or another in their life. You're sure you recognise someone from their avatar, but you're not quite sure if you should go over and say hello to them or not, even though you might have been exchanging filthy penis anecdotes online for the last two years. (Filthy anecdotes about penises. Not anecdotes about filthy—oh, you know.)

Then, once you finally do summon up the courage to walk over and say hello to this person that you might have thought you were quite close to until you were faced with the terror of spending time in physical proximity to them, you are faced with a very difficult question, and one which has baffled philosophers throughout the years.

"Who am I?"

There's a moment of silence when time seems to freeze. It occurs right after you say the words "Hello, I'm" and is a moment that seems to last forever. You have an important decision to make at this point—a decision which will determine your conversational partner's immediate reaction to you.

That decision is whether to introduce yourself as your username or your actual name. For people whose usernames are their real names, this isn't an issue (though it does often prompt the overly-formal seeming "introduction using both first and last names, occasionally including middle initials" situation rather than the more casual "Hey. I'm Pete.") but for those of us who picked ridiculous usernames and are now stuck with them, known better as our self-appointed, perfectly-justifiable-to-ourselves-but-harder-to-explain-to-others monikers than our actual names? It's a difficult decision to make.

"Hello, I'm Pete," assumes that your conversational partner has paid attention to your profile (assuming you put your real name on it, which some people don't) and carries the risk of them looking at you blankly and going "Who?" while walking up to someone and cheerfully announcing that "I'm angryjedi!" could simply prompt a look of bewilderment, a cry of "No, I'm angryjedi!" to start echoing around the room or someone laughing in your face.

In my experience, it's often best to do both. "Hello, I'm Pete—@angryjedi from Twitter." This is usually followed by a "Well, you don't look very angry to me!" (obviously they haven't read this blog enough) which we all have a good titter about and then move on to actual proper grown-up conversation. Or possibly shouting "COCK!" at each other, depending on the appropriateness of doing so in the context.

Last night, I attended an event at which a number of people I knew from Twitter, including several other One A Day Project bloggers, were in attendance. It was probably the smoothest this particular exchange has ever gone, with the possible exception of PAX East last year, an environment that positively embraces nerdism and encourages you to cry "I am xXSanguine-Warrior69Xx!" from the rooftops.

I was actually surprised at myself. Confronted with a room full of those that I see as SUPA IMPOARTANNT PEEPLE FOR MUCH RESTECP (including Ian Livingstone, Jon Hare, Richard Wilson of TIGA, Andy Payne of UKIE, a whole mess of MPs and a variety of journo types) I was expecting to freeze up and/or drink myself into oblivion with the graciously-provided free refreshments. It was not to be, though. I schmoozed with the best of them, got some great interviews (the iPhone is fantastic as a portable recorder, if you've never tried it, incidentally) and had a brilliant time.

I came out of the whole thing thinking "Yeah. This is something I want to do." Which is nice.

Now to get on that.

#oneaday, Day 9: Mild Irritations: aolsystemmsg

The trouble with mild irritations is they have a habit of repeating themselves. And the more they repeat themselves, the greater the effect they have on you.

Such is the case with instant communication's best friend, "aolsystemmsg".

If you're unfamiliar with this robotic twat (ably played with aplomb by Money-Bot above), let me educate you.

If you use instant messaging services like AIM, Skype, MSN, Google Talk or Yahoo! Messenger these days, you're undoubtedly delighted by the fact it's possible to stay in touch with your friends/colleagues/people you fancy wherever you are thanks to the wonders of smartphones. And sure enough, it's great to be able to sit in Starbucks, or indeed the middle of a field, and chat with someone who might be thousands of miles away.

If you've popped out and left your computer on, however, there's a chance you may have left your instant messaging client of choice switched on back home. No big deal, you might think. And, if you're using Google Talk, it is indeed no big deal whatsoever. If you're using MSN or Yahoo! Messenger, then it's a mildly bigger deal; they insist that you can only be logged in on one device at a time, and so they log your other device back home out automatically. Fair enough—it's a simple matter to log back in later.

AOL Instant Messenger, though, does not like this at all and gets very jealous of your other devices. Dare to log into another device while your first one is still logged in and you'll be bombarded with IMs from the mysterious "aolsystemmsg" helpfully informing you that you're logged on in two different locations, and that if you'd like to log the others out then would you be kind enough to type the number "1" now, please.

Well, all right, "bombarded" is perhaps a little strong. You get one IM. But you get this one IM every single time you change devices. If you're like me and you hop back and forth between desktop computer, netbook and iPhone quite a bit, this can become extremely frustrating very, very quickly. "aolsystemmsg" takes on its own personality in your mind, a robot sitting there copy-pasting the same message to you over and over, cackling maniacally at your growing annoyance because he's not actually causing you any harm and therefore isn't breaking Asimov's First Law of Robotics.

He's still a complete cock, though. And there is no way to turn him off. At least, I'm not aware of any way to do so. Short of throwing your phone down the toilet. Which will make it ultimately quite useless as a means of communication for the sake of dealing with what is, essentially, a minor annoyance.

So, there's a lesson to be learned here then, perhaps. Use Google Talk. Don't let the robots win. Because we all know what happens when the robots win.

That's right. Eternal servitude in salt mines. And you don't want that, do you?