Category: INTERNETZORZ

#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?

#oneaday, Day 6: Public Service Announcement

I should stop being surprised at this, but I still am.

People on the Internet are dickholes. Well, not all of them. I know a lot of very nice people who live in the Internet. Many of them are writing blogs like this one—hello!—but then there is another breed out there—the breed who thinks it's appropriate to hurl unwarranted abuse at others. Others that they've never met or spoken to, in some cases.

Ever been on Formspring? It's pretty fun. People can submit questions to you, either anonymously or under their username, and then you can answer them. That is the sole purpose of the site. I've had a lot of fun with it, thanks mostly to my very creative friends who are excellent with coming up with bizarre, thought-provoking questions. And somehow the questions are much more fun when you're not quite sure who they're from. It becomes a game in itself to work out who submitted the bizarre question about the robots and the cabbage.

Unfortunately, as we've seen many times by now, the potential anonymity that the Internet offers causes some people to think that they can say absolutely anything. So it was earlier on when my lovely Twitter-friend @Cilllah was bombarded with violent and pretty offensive nonsense from some nutjob banging on about his "garden" and about how he was going to rape and kill her.

Now, given all the nonsense over the #TwitterJokeTrial a while back, I don't for a second believe that this moron was actually going to do these things. But how is it in any way appropriate to say things like that to someone who's just going about their business on the Internet? Hiding behind the veil of anonymity to throw out abuse to strangers? That's kind of pathetic.

This sort of thing shouldn't annoy me so much—it's been going on for years after all. It doesn't make it right, though. I've been using the Internet and related technologies since the early days—a 300 baud modem on an Atari 8-bit, then on the Atari ST, then CompuServe under Windows 3.1, up through various incarnations of the "proper" Web to the stage we're at today. And at no point have I ever felt the need to pick on some poor person and be an asshole to them.

Perhaps I'm just too nice of a person to understand why people do the things they do. But I can live with that; I'd much rather be a person that the vast majority of people like and respect (and perhaps a few assholes think is a bit of a pussy) than someone who gets their kicks from threatening rape and violence on strangers.

The joke's on them, of course. The mental image that springs to mind as soon as anyone starts trolling like that is one of a Jabba-esque freak in his (you know it's a he) piss-and-cum-stained pants, probably with their semi-erect penis clasped firmly in their left hand (right hand is for mousing) and a folder called "HOTTYZ" on his desktop containing profile pictures of all the women he's harassed.

And if you're not that person? You can feel pretty good about yourself.

#oneaday, Day 1: Dawn of the First Day

I am aware of the factual inaccuracies in the title of this post. It is neither my first day writing #oneaday blogs, nor is it dawn. However, there are two reasons for naming it as I have: firstly, any excuse to get in a Zelda: Majora's Mask reference, and secondly, since the other members of the 2011 One A Day Project have all started today at number 1, I thought I would join them so as not to look too much like the grizzled old veteran that I am. Rest assured, there will be celebrations when I reach the end of my first year, though. Assuming I remember. (19th of January. Remind me.)

As it's a new year, a new beginning and a shiny new number "1" at the top of this post, I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce myself to those new readers that the One A Day Project has hopefully brought to my blog. Those of you I already know, bear with me for today and I'll get back to slagging things off tomorrow.

I'm Pete. I'm 29, and unemployed. 2010 was the worst year of my life, taking in the end of my employment, the end of my marriage, the end of my finances and the end of my independent status as Someone Who Does Not Live With Their Parents. All of the above are related to one another, at least in passing.

But as 2010 was a year of endings, January 1st 2011 seems like a good time to think about new beginnings. And what better way to consider new beginnings than with some new year's resolutions? Here goes, then.

  • I will blog every day from January 1st, 2011 until December 31st, 2011 (and possibly beyond) come rain, come shine, come sickness, come health, come on holiday, come in a sock (sorry), come not really having any time or being really drunk of an evening. I've kept up this daily blog since January 19th last year and I have no intention of stopping now.
  • I will go for a run three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday where possible. Those of you who have been following me for a while will know that towards the end of the year I successfully completed the Couch 2 5K programme, which turned me from a fat bastard into a fat bastard who can run for up to 30 minutes non-stop, albeit quite slowly.
  • I will embark on a wide array of erotic adventures with a bevy of voluptuous redheads, all of whom either are or at least vaguely resemble Christina Hendricks.*
  • I will fuck up the tax man good and proper. I will attempt to figure out why the taxman still thinks I am self-employed despite having gone from full-time employment to unemployment in the last few years. Then I will fuck him up good and proper.**
  • I will get a job.***
  • I will earn enough money to get somewhere to live that has a living room big enough for a Kinect and Dance Central.****
  • I will speak my mind and not bottle stuff up like a +5 Cauldron of Resentment.
  • I will complete Final Fantasy XII.
  • I will make a sizable dent in my gaming Pile of Shame.*****
  • I will not play World of Warcraft.
  • I will actually finish writing the story I've had stuck in my head for the last ten years and which has gone through more rewrites than an aborted metaphor involving something that gets rewritten a lot. (12,000 words so far. On the story, not the metaphor. That would be a metaphor of Dickensian proportions.)
  • I will have no shame in my diverse, occasionally cheesy, occasionally really really gay musical tastes.******
  • I will stop being so gay on Twitter.*******

I think that's quite enough to be getting on with, and all of them are totally achievable. Setting yourself realistic targets is the key.

So, now that you know a little bit about me (and will undoubtedly learn more either by reading back over my past entries, which I promise I will do a "Best Of" one day when I can be bothered) you're probably confused by that comic strip at the top of each post. Spoiler: I am also a little confused by the comic strip at the top of each post. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I think it's Allie Brosh's fault. That minx. But suffice to say, yes, I have made the questionable decision to accompany every blog post with a silly little cartoon drawn in the Mac equivalent of MS Paint and laid out with frankly unnecessary care and attention using Comic Life Magiq.

You'll notice a few recurring faces in these strips. Here are the most common ones:

Pete

Pete is a 29-year old unemployed bum geek writer aiming to make his way in the world. He lives in a featureless apartment of indeterminate size with several other peculiar characters and seems to attract surreal situations to himself like moths to a Dali-esque flame.

Alex

Alex believes herself to be "the sensible one", despite having a boy's name. However, Pete isn't convinced that she is as sensible as she likes to make out due to two fact: firstly, she reads Grazia magazine, and secondly, she has slept with Phillipe on more than one occasion.

Phillipe

Phillipe gets terribly upset when people spell his name wrong, but it's often difficult to tell due to his odd facial expression, acquired when he discovered that the stories your parents tell you about "sticking like it" are all true. He is also a massive pervert, and gets his penis out at every opportunity.

Lucy

Lucy hates blonde stereotypes but unfortunately conforms to every single one of them. She is not terribly bright and occasionally descends into saying text-speak out loud. She is, however, a cheerful soul and is rarely seen without a smile on her face. She likes coffee and kittens. Not together.

Des

The personification of Pete's "black cloud of despair" which he felt on numerous occasions throughout the last year. Des eventually became his own independent entity and made friends with Alex over a cup of tea. Pete has defeated him once, but he occasionally pops in for a social visit.

The MoneyBot

The MoneyBot's sole purpose is to monetize everything. Unfortunately, a glitch in his programming means that he only ever attempts to monetize people—a process which he carries out by shooting people in their genitals with a green Monetizing Ray. The process is reversible, and he may be a dream.

There. Consider yourself primed for the year ahead. Good luck to my fellow One A Day Project bloggers. And readers? Don't forget to pay the official site a visit and donate either your time or money to Cancer Research UK or To Write Love On Her Arms to show your appreciation for everyone's awesome creativity.

Thank you!

* A guy can dream, huh.
** Note to overzealous policemen: I will not actually fuck up "the taxman" because I am aware the Inland Revenue employs many people from diverse cultures who could probably take me in a fight if they all teamed up and formed a Constructocon.
*** Subject to the "job market", or whatever people blame the lack of jobs on.
**** It's wrong that I'm a little too enamoured with Dance Central, I know. But honey, I got rhythm that I haven't used yet.
***** Subject to Anything Really Good coming out.
****** Already achieved. I am listening to Ke$ha while writing this post.
******* I make no promises as to being able to fulfil this one, particularly while @acronkyoung and @NintendoTheory are around. No homo.

#oneaday, Day 345: Leader of Men

I've never seen myself as the "leader" type. I follow orders well, but when I'm asked to take charge of something, I find myself thinking whether or not I'm "qualified" to make those decisions, particularly if they're on behalf of other people. Now, I'm a qualified teacher, so in the most literal sense of the term I am qualified to make decisions on behalf of other people. But if you're the sort of person who suffers a bit from self-doubt or a lack of self-confidence, then it's difficult to make yourself get into a position to "lead" others.

Which is why I've kind of surprised myself with stepping up to the plate for next year's One A Day Project. And also why I'm even more surprised that people—some of whom I don't even know directly (yet)—appear to be flocking to the cause. Apparently either my word carries some degree of influence, or people think it's actually a good idea.

I think it's a good idea. Yes, some may argue that the more relaxed rules of next year aren't strictly "one a day" in the most literal sense. And to that I say, "I agree". But it's a compromise. Those who do want to go the whole hog and commit to a post every day, I applaud you. (And yes, I am applauding myself right now.) Those who don't feel they can commit to a post every single day, that's absolutely fine too. Personally, while I am a fan of writing something every day and believe that both I and this blog have got something out of it, it's not for everyone, depending on work, family commitments and all manner of other things. So it makes sense to relax the rules a bit in order to allow as many people as possible to participate.

And that, I guess, is what heading up some sort of project is all about—listening to a variety of viewpoints, weighing up the pros and cons and coming to some sort of compromise that makes as many people as possible happy.

I'm really pleased with the amount of interest people have shown in the new project so far, and I promise I won't keep banging on about it over here too much. But I thought I'd just share the fact that we're up to 24 participants (with a few more sign-ups in my inbox that I'll be putting on the site once I've flown back from the US to the UK… boo) and we have had our first monetary donation to Cancer Research. We've also earned 153 minutes of crisis and suicide prevention services on behalf of To Write Love On Her Arms via ad clickthroughs.

It may not sound like a lot until you consider the fact that we haven't started yet. (Those of us who are starting on January 1st, that is.) Hopefully once everyone starts contributing, there'll be a wealth of content for people to enjoy, and said people will be happy to contribute their time or their money to the charities we're supporting to show their appreciation.

So yes; I know that "#oneaday" doesn't mean one a day next year. But that's fine; it's going to bring a bunch of people together to do something awesome. And it feels pretty good to be an important part of that.

#oneaday, Day 340: Blogrollin', Like They Do In Canada

I was going to write this post yesterday but then I got all wrapped up in the whole next-year thing, which you should read about if you're interested. It's the entry before this one. Which means it's after this one on the page. Which… oh, be quiet.

Anyway. To the point. I reorganised my blogroll yesterday. No, that doesn't mean I hung the toilet paper with the sheets hanging down the other way to normal, it means I sorted out the links in the sidebar. I nuked the lot and started again, because there were a bunch of defunct places that some people hadn't updated for ages and a few sites that just didn't exist any more.

Then I put out the call on Twitter for anyone who wanted to be included. I figured it'd be a good opportunity for me to have a chance to check out some other people's work, too. When you're writing a blog for yourself (particularly if it's a daily one) it's very easy to focus entirely on your own work and never pay any attention to what anyone else is writing. So, let's rectify that right now, shall we? Here's a bunch of the links I added yesterday and what they're all about.

First up, the fellow #oneaday survivors, who are well on their way to finishing their first year on the "job". You should check out all of 'em, since they've all got a veritable plethora of content for you to read and enjoy now. Like this dusty little corner of the Internet, all their blogs have evolved and changed over time, and hopefully they've all got something out of the experience, whether or not they intend on joining us next year.

So, in no particular order, then:

  • Game Design Scrapbook—Krystian Majewski's account of the trials and tribulations of developing an actual proper game that you'll be able to actually play and everything.
  • Halycopter—The daily blog of Jen Allen, editor of the slick and awesome Resolution Magazine, featuring candid thoughts on all manner of subjects.
  • Mat Murray—The man with the fastest Retweet finger in the West. He got married a short while ago and also takes nice photographs.
  • Mr. Writer—The #oneaday blog of Ian Richardson, veteran of Staffordshire (we salute you), motorsports enthusiast and aspiring journalist.
  • The Mirrorball—Daily blog of Mike Grant, Bristol-based writer and novelist.
  • Worthless Prattle Makes the World Go Round—Play Magazine's Ian Dransfield sets the world to rights with a variety of amusing posts and a classic Gran Turismo 5 tutorial video.

Next up, here's some of my friends, many of whom are members of the Squadron of Shame.

  • 4X.Scope—Alex "Unmannedpylondronecommandsomethinglikethat" Connolly's blog, which hasn't been updated for a while but since he and his wife have been busy having a kid, I think we can excuse. Alex writes detailed, in-depth commentary on a variety of interesting games that you probably haven't heard of, and also draws rather well.
  • Alternate Course—Chris "RocGaude" Whittington's site, which he promises will provide a veritable cornucopia of audio-visual-textual entertainment in the coming year. Oh yes indeedy.
  • Cerebral Pop—As the name implies, this is a site that covers the more cerebral side of pop culture, run by a wide variety of delicious-smelling gentlemen, many of whom also frequent Bitmob (which I think I've been capitalising incorrectly for time immemorial).
  • First Time Flowing—Andre Monserrat's blog, deserving special mention for buying me a copy of Baldur's Gate today along with being a formidable opponent at Carcassonne.
  • Nice Guy Gamer—Cody Winn is the nicest person on the Internet. He likes video games, knit caps and kittens and writes about them here. Pay him a visit.
  • Press The Buttons—Matt Green is another ex-Kombo refugee and runs this gaming site with podcasting contributions from the sexygorgeous Brad Hilderbrand and Joey Davidson. Check in for some well-written commentary on games and the industry.
  • Rhymes With Chaos—Jesse Bowline's blog covers all manner of arty, musicy, gamey, geeky thoughts and opinions and is well worth your time. But what rhymes with "Chaos"?
  • Starfuckers, Inc.—The online home of Ashton Raze, formidable writer-about-games, man-about-town, hat-wearer, champion of DEADLY PREMONITION's cause and starfucker.
  • We Clock—Ian Scott appeared in my Facebook friend requests one day with a mutual friend, so I added him. His blog covers a variety of topics, from general geekery to eye-opening slice-of-life stuff. He's also an active member of the GOG.com and Reddit communities, so is a fountain of information on old games and Internet memes.

If I missed you, it's 'cause you didn't get back to me on Twitter. I know there's a couple of you out there but you're escaping me right now. Give me a poke in the comments and I will add your links to my sidebar (and this post) post-haste!

For now, enjoy all the hot and spicy content these fine folks have conjured up for you and I'll see you tomorrow.

#oneaday, Day 339: Looking Forward

Okay. I'm going to go ahead and make this pledge now, since I've been farting around with it for the whole day and don't want all that work to go to waste.

I will be continuing with daily blogging next year, whether you (yes, YOU) like it or not.

However, a couple of people pointed out that it's worth putting some kind of "incentive" in place for those who want to take part. I'm not talking about monetary gain for the participants (though if you want to fling a few quid and/or Steam/GOG games my way in appreciation for my hard work, I certainly wouldn't say no) — rather, as the fine, gorgeous and well-endowed Mr Daniel Lipscombe suggested, we should get sponsored. For charity, like.

With that in mind, I've set up a few things today. The first is this. I envisage this page being a central hub for our collective, where we can post all of our entries together and end up with a delicious archive of everything we've done together. This can also double as a jumping-off point for people to visit our individual sites, and contains the all-important donation buttons. I took an executive decision and signed up to benefit Cancer Research UK via JustGiving, and To Write Love On Her Arms via SocialVibe. Most people out there know someone or have been personally affected by cancer, so that seemed like a safe option. To Write Love On Her Arms is an organisation which helps those with depression, anxiety, crises and suicidal thoughts. Being someone who has suffered considerably with depression for many years now, this particular group held some personal resonance for me, and it's one of the more popular options to support via SocialVibe.

Here's what I need anyone reading this to do, and it's very simple:

Tell people. Get them to follow us on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Read the updates on the blog. And, for those who are interested in joining the party, signing up on this page.

Once things are up and running, I can co-ordinate everyone's work (and by that, I mean post their entries onto the Project's main page, not hassle people if they don't have time to write something) and we can all work on promoting blogging for a good cause.

Sound good? It sounds good to me, and as a co-operative effort I think it will work well. The fact that we're being sponsored for charity will give some people the push to carry on, and despite the name, I figured we can relax the rules on posting frequency a little bit.

By the end of another year, we'll have a huge body of work to look back on with pride and hopefully will have raised at least a little money for a couple of charities that are worth supporting. Plus it's certainly a more proactive approach than simply changing your bloody Facebook avatar.

#oneaday, Day 337: Internet Games #2: TinyURLette

It's easy to get stuck in a rut when browsing the web, visiting the same few sites over and over and over again in a vain attempt to find something new to waste your ultimately meaningless existence with. Facebook is usually the timesink of choice for many people, closely followed by Twitter, TVTropes, Wikipedia and a few others.

As such, it's easy to forget that there's a wider web out there, filled with sites that you may not have ever come across during your daily browsing routine. Some sites you would never have wanted to discover, ever. And some are real gems that you'll be happy you came across.

So what better way to explore the web than to make it into a little game? There used to be a website devoted to this very philosophy. Called ShuffleTime, it allowed players to jump around the web seemingly at random, answering trivia questions about the pages they were seeing. Correctly answering the questions allowed the players to collect cards and coins and purchase rewards and entries into prize draws. Sadly, it didn't last very long, but I thought it was a great idea.

So here's a variation on it. I can't promise any kind of reward (short of discovering something horrendous/wonderful) but it's a good time waster. Probably not safe for work, but if you're reading this at work then you're probably not concerned about that, either. Here is a picture of Rise from Persona 4 in a bikini to make you feel uncomfortable about reading this at work.

Well, it serves you right. Get on with what you're supposed to be doing and I won't have to embarrass you again.

Alternatively, you could embarrass yourself further by playing TinyURLette, a game of discovery. The rules are very similar to The TwitPic Game which I informed you all of a few days ago (and no-one participated, boo) except this time we're dealing with websites.

So here's what to do. Visit your link-shortening service of choice and simply add whatever you like after the URL. I will attempt this with both TinyURL and bit.ly links to demonstrate.

So first up, we have http://bit.ly/blargh, which takes us to a page of YouTube comments for this video. It is a Scottish guy who has obviously been studying phonetics recently. He also says hello to a lot of people. And goes off on a rant against one of the members of his channel. He also does that irritating "quick-editing" thing that people are doing all the time on YouTube. "Hello! I am [edit] a person [edit] who is [edit] talking [edit] to you about [edit] rubbish." Enough of him.

http://tinyurl.com/ihateyou, conversely, is appropriately named and takes you to a picture you really don't want to see. Especially if you're at work. You have been warned. It's not porn or gore.

http://bit.ly/arse takes us to BioEthics Bytes, a blog about multimedia resources for teaching bioethics. An unfortunate URL for a page that looks quite interesting.

http://tinyurl.com/what takes us to an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the death of Margaret Singer, an expert on brainwashing and cult activity. The obituary is an interesting read, actually, with some quotes from Singer herself.

By extension, http://tinyurl.com/whatisthisidonteven takes you to a page clearly intended to RickRoll you. Unfortunately for them, the video they have been using for RickRolling purposes is a broken link, meaning that this page is, in fact, a failed RickRoll. A RickStumbleAndFallOnYourAss, if you will.

http://bit.ly/yourface features a news headline from Twitter very literally about your face.

http://tinyurl.com/stopit gives us a blog post in Russian about Lifespring, the now-defunct "human potential training" company. Or, as Google Translate puts it, "Layfspringe", which is a much better name.

Finally, http://bit.ly/borednow takes us to a page from McCarthy Psychology Services from Australia about care provision for the elderly.

I'm a little disappointed. Out of 8 different pages, only one of them is the slightest bit inappropriate. You are not doing your job properly, Internet.

Found any entertaining TinyURL or bit.ly shortlinks through playing this stupid game? Let me know in the comments.

#oneaday, Day 336: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. @shoinan (And Any Other Prospective #oneaday-ers)

The few of us who are still flying the #oneaday flag are closing in on the grand finale. 365 posts of non-stop bollocks, some of which might have been entertaining, some of which may have been utter nonsense. If you haven't checked out the fellow survivors' blogs yet, I encourage you to pay Jen, Mat, Mike, Krystian, Ian and other Ian a visit and support the awesome work (and endurance) they've shown over the last year. Give 'em a big hand, or whatever the Internet equivalent of applause is.

Now: to the point. I have tagged @shoinan in this post because he was specifically asking about it on Twitter at some indeterminate point in time that I'm confused about due to intercontinental time zone drift and watching Scott Pilgrim until 1:30 in the morning, then getting up at 7am to record a podcast. But this post is directed at anyone who wants to be Awesome Like Us.

#oneaday is something I intend to keep going with once my year is up. The others may feel differently. For some it feels more like work, for others it's a good habit that they've got into. Some are persisting out of sheer bloody-mindedness, some are passionate about the whole thing and want to succeed in it as a creative endeavour. In fact, most of us have fallen into some or all of the above categories at different times. And those who dropped the project partway through the year all did so for completely valid reasons, too.

It's a challenge, make no mistake, but it's one you largely set the rules for yourself. The only rule that everyone needs to abide by is this:

Post something—anything—at least once a day for a whole year.

Exactly what "something" means to you can be anything at all. It can be a photo-based post (I've done a few of those in the past). You can set yourself a minimum of at least a paragraph. Personally, I try to write at least 500 words a day, and in the last *mumble* days I've also been doing my comic daily, too. (All right, I couldn't be bothered to check. But I know it's over a hundred days now.)

But there's no hard and fast rules about how much you need to write, how good it needs to be or even what it needs to be about. The whole point of the exercise is to get you (yes, YOU) writing. Writing anything. Posting anything. Getting into the habit of being creative regularly. Creativity is something you need to exercise, just like your muscles. Spend your time not being creative and you'll stagnate, but it doesn't take long to get back on track. And there's no better way to exercise the creative bits of your mind than coming up with something—anything—every single day.

The other side effect that you might find is that it's a good outlet. I've had a shit year, by all accounts, and I know that one thing that has really helped me deal with said shit is writing about it, getting my thoughts out of my head (where they'd fester and eventually explode) onto the page. Saying things and knowing people are reading them—even if the things I've written aren't specifically aimed at anyone (or are, in some cases)—helps. It's a form of therapy.

I'm not saying you need to have something going on in your head to enjoy success at #oneaday blogging. But it certainly gives you something to write about, and I believe it's a healthy thing to do, too.

So for those of you interested in participating next year, I'm fully intending on continuing to take part and helping to co-ordinate everyone's efforts, too. Keep an eye on these pages for further details, and in the meantime feel free to get started whenever you like. If you do, be sure to let me know that you're on the case and I'll be sure to throw up some links.

Not in a vomity way. That would be weird. You know what I meant.

Anyway. Now it is time for pancakes. I hope those of you reading this who have a creative itch that is proving difficult to scratch will certainly consider joining me on another year of #oneaday blogging next year. Good luck to those of you who are in for the ride.

#oneaday, Day 333: Internet Games #1: The TwitPic Game

You're sitting in front of your computer right now. You're either working, or bored, or wondering what on Earth you should do with yourself. You probably wouldn't be reading this otherwise.

So today, I present to you a simple and fun game which you can play whenever you've read the whole Internet and are at a loss for what to do next. It's a simple game, and there's no real "winning" as such. But it can be played solo, or as a social game with the aid of additional participants on Facebook, Twitter or the social network of your choice. You can even play local multiplayer with people in the same room, either hotseating on one computer, or with a collection of different computers.

The game is very straightforward to play. The image-sharing website "TwitPic" is used to share images on Twitter. The URL format for TwitPic is http://twitpic.com/stringoflettersandnumbersgoeshere. You can probably guess the rest, but for those of you who haven't cottoned on yet, simply replace "stringoflettersandnumbersgoeshere" with a code of your choice (keep it no more than 5 letters or numbers in most cases) and then see what out-of-context images you can discover.

Here's some samples from a quick go today:

http://twitpic.com/spack comes up with this delightful image of someone's dinner. The plastic tray and plastic cutlery seem somewhat at odds with the battered shrimp, corn and unidentifiable green shit in the corner.

http://twitpic.com/felch comes up with this image, with the caption "THIS. My cousin is me all over", worryingly, though as the astute commenter beneath the picture observes, there is no actual felching in the picture.

http://twitpic.com/crunk displays this disappointingly dull image of someone on their way to Charlotte for training. Unless Charlotte is a person, in which case the implied "training" which will be going on can take on an altogether more interesting meaning.

http://twitpic.com/arse gives us more food. People really love to show each other what they're eating on Twitter, it seems. It appears that one of the stereotypes about Twitter users is true.

http://twitpic.com/butts gives us a sleeping man. Why is he asleep? No-one knows. But the cameraperson is certainly very close to this sleeping man. Sleeping man also appears to not be wearing a shirt and have slightly flabby shoulders.

And finally, http://twitpic.com/dirty gives us a collection of jazz music, thereby confirming something we've all known for a very long time: the fact that jazz music is dirty. The internet has proved it.

This game also works with a variety of other sites, including imgur, yfrog and numerous others. For the truly brave, you could also try it with URL shorteners such as bit.ly and tinyurl. There's no telling where you might end up with those, and so that, dear friends, is a game we shall save for another day.

Found any awesome TwitPic URLs yourself? Do let me know. That's what them thar comments are for.

#oneaday, Day 329: Be A Dick Mode

With the increasing mechanical complexity and narrative ambitiousness of many modern games, it's easy to forget the purity of how gaming used to be. Just a player, a joystick, and an arbitrary number representing how "good" the player was at the game. In other words, the score.

Games with scores aren't dead, though. Far from it. And in this age of global communication thanks to the Internet, one could argue that games with scores are more relevant than they've ever been.

The reason for this? The hidden option that you won't find on any game's menu. The mode that allows you to compete against your friends and mercilessly taunt them when you prove yourself—with numbers—to be objectively better than them.

I am talking, of course, about Be A Dick Mode.

Be A Dick Mode crops up in many game, though it's not just any game with a score and leaderboards that it works with. Shatter on PSN and Steam, for example, is not an example of a game featuring a Be A Dick Mode, despite being in possession of leaderboards and scores which frequently extend into the hundreds of millions. Geometry Wars 2, conversely, has Be A Dick Mode in spades. After Burner Climax? No dick action there. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX? Dickishness in spades.

There are few games with a more powerful, potent Be A Dick Mode than Adult Swim's seminal two-button masterpiece Robot Unicorn Attack, however. It was bad enough when the game was first released on Adult Swim's website. Twitter became awash with screenshots of everyone's latest and greatest high scores.

But now, they've gone and embraced Be A Dick Mode with open, err, arms.

How have they done this, you may ask. Simple: put it on Facebook.

For all Facebook's faults, privacy concerns and stupid, stupid UI redesigns, the one thing that it is magnificent at is promoting friendly (and not-so-friendly) competition between diverse friends across the globe. The ability for Facebook applications to access your name, profile picture and activity in applications you have in common with your friends was a masterstroke, privacy concerns aside. There's nothing better than looking at a leaderboard filled with the real names and photographs (or avatars) of your friends and seeing yourself at the top of it.

And there's nothing worse than seeing yourself in second place, with first place tantalisingly out of reach. There's nothing worse than knowing that the next time you log onto Twitter, there will be an @mention in your direction inviting you to check out Facebook and suggesting you might want to play some Robot Unicorn Attack instead of whatever it was you were planning on doing.

And then you play Robot Unicorn Attack. And you fail to beat your friend. And then you play it again. And some more. And then you get annoyed, so you go and play Bejeweled Blitz instead, but then you realise that someone else has pipped you to the top of the scoreboard on that too, so you go back to Robot Unicorn Attack and play it until that Erasure song has burnt itself into your memory and you can't see a field of horses without wanting to sing and fart rainbows at them.

In short, Be A Dick Mode will ruin your life and the lives of your friends. But you know you wouldn't have it any other way.