#oneaday, Day 233: Keep On Movin'

I hate moving house. I really hate moving house. And yet it's one of those things that becomes necessary at least several times during your life. Still, I feel like I have done it more than many people, largely due to the fact I moved pretty much every year since starting university, until I ended up in this current place, which I actually lasted about two years in.

I didn't move every year through choice in most cases. Most of the time there were extenuating circumstances which caused the move. I moved after my first year at university because I wanted to live in a house, not a hall of residence. I moved after my second year because the flat I was in was a shithole and the cheeky bastard landlord put the rent, which was already expensive, up. I moved after my third year because my housemate was leaving town because she'd finished university and I was staying on to do my teacher training. I moved after my fourth year because I was no longer a student. I moved after that year because the beautiful, lovely flat I was living in was reclaimed by its landlord for her daughter. I moved after the next year because my housemate was, again, moving and also the house we were in had damp, mould and smelled slightly of gas. I moved after the next year because I was in Aldershot and was hunting down a job back in Southampton. Also, Aldershot is a shithole. I moved after the next year because the flat I was staying in had damp and mould. Again. And the circumstances under which I am leaving this particular place have already been well documented elsewhere on this blog.

So I'm pretty tired of it. There are a bunch of things that always, always cause stress to do with moving. First of all is never having enough boxes, and ending up having to spend more on boxes than on anything else you've ever spent money on ever. I remember when I was younger, our local supermarket used to have a little "pen" near its cash tills with hundreds of discarded boxes that you could just take for yourself. I haven't seen a supermarket do this for ages. It's probably some sort of Health and Safety Hazard. What if someone gets trapped inside a box? What if it's used to carry a bomb? What if Solid Snake is around?

So boxes have to be acquired via alternative means, be it hassling friends for them, finding them discarded in disgusting places or actually purchasing them for vast expense from packaging stores. I went for the latter option largely for convenience more than anything else, and at least it means I've got some decent-quality, new boxes that (hopefully) won't fall apart when I'm lifting the bastards into a van later.

Then of course there's the packing process itself. Bundle things into a box, seal it up and then suddenly, inevitably, something catches your eye. Something which should be in that box you just sealed up. Something which could easily fit in that box you just sealed up. But it's not in the box. It's sitting there on the side, mocking you quietly. So you swear profusely, bundle the thing into another box, consider writing the fact that you've bundled said thing into the "wrong" box onto the side of its new home, figure that nah, you'll remember where you put it, pack it in there and then six months later when you still haven't unpacked half your boxes and realise you really need that thing that you put in the wrong box, you discover that you can't, in fact, remember where you put said thing because you didn't write it on the box.

As part of the packing process, you also reach the inevitable "small bits" stage. No, this is not a euphemism. This is a reference to the stage in the packing where you've pretty much cleared all your bookcases and cupboards and all that is left are hundreds, thousands, of small little bits and pieces, none of which can be justifiably assigned a complete box. So you end up with at least one box marked "JUNK" which contains miscellaneous paraphernalia of such diversity that should you ever dare dip your hand into it, you'll come out with something completely different and unrelated every time. And inevitably, there's too much "JUNK" for one box, making you think you should have perhaps organised it a bit better, but it's too late now.

Then you have to move said boxes and furniture into a van. That's today's job. And the van will be arriving shortly. So I'd probably better get on with it.

#oneaday, Day 232: The Big Smoke

I spent the day in London today. Primarily for a job interview, but I also had the good fortune to run into one George Kokoris and one Mitu Khandaker. Well, all right, we'd pre-arranged to meet. But "had the good fortune to run into" sounds so much nicer, doesn't it?

Anyway, the actual reasons I was in London are fairly unimportant for the purposes of this entry. I want to talk about London itself.

London is simultaneously one of the most English places you can be, and one of the most un-English places you can be. Many people who come to visit England begin and end their visits with London. Many of them don't even get outside the city limits of our capital. Which is fair enough; there's plenty to see there, after all.

But the city has a unique character all of its own that isn't replicated anywhere else in the whole country. Sure, there are other big cities, but none quite have the same feeling as London.

It's a combination of things. Not all of them good. First of all, there's the fact that everyone's always in a hurry. Everyone has places to be, things to do and people to see that are far more important than whatever it is you're up to at the time. As a result, God help you if you dare to stand on the left-hand side while you're on an escalator or travelator, as you'll probably end up with someone physically pushing you out of the way, as I witnessed happening to another person earlier. And it's not as if charging down the escalators saves you any more than one or two seconds at most.

Then there's the traffic. I have a complete phobia of driving in London. I've only done it once and have absolutely no intention of ever doing it again. I'm not sure entirely why that is. Again, it's probably an aggression thing. See a light turn amber in preparation of going green and almost immediately horns start beeping and other drivers start getting impatient.

But on the flip side, there's the curious little hideaways that the city offers. Just today, near Waterloo, we wandered down an innocuous and borderline scabby-looking side street only to come across a little row of three lovely restaurants bordered by some gorgeous trees and bushes. Stepping into this restaurant was like escaping reality for a little while. The noise of the city was gone, and we were in a land of Thai curries, Lionel Richie advertising Walkers crisps on the TV, and a selection of R&B and soul from the last twenty years. Most peculiar. And an experience that can't be replicated easily anywhere else.

Somewhere else, somewhere near Regent Street (and I can't remember where, so stop hassling me and stuff) there's an awesome American barbecue and grill place that is pretty much a place where they give you an enormous plate of meat, some implements with which to eat it and the possibility of some bread and/or fries, and then it's up to you how to deal with it.

Then there's the theatres. Scattered around the place, there's hundreds of shows to see, things to do, stuff to enjoy.

It's a bombardment for the senses. And it's utterly exhausting. But I think, today, I came to appreciate it a little for once. Perhaps it was sharing it with other people. Perhaps it was having a sense of purpose for being there. Or maybe it's just one of those changes in my outlook. I couldn't say.

Just remember, though, if you're visiting England or the UK in general, we have a whole lot more to offer than that bustling metropolis!

#oneaday, Day 231: You Look Nice

Perhaps this is a "classic British reserve" thing. Or perhaps it's just me. Either way, it's weird.

Paying someone a compliment is difficult. It shouldn't be. Because saying something nice about someone which is something which should get a universally positive response. Compliment someone's choice of clothing and you are, by extension, complimenting their taste, their eye for choosing things that suit them and possibly even their financial situation. Compliment someone's hairstyle and again, you're paying them attention, giving them reassurance that the choices they made were the right ones and that yes, it looks good. Compliment something that someone's done and they should be happy that they did a good job not only in their own eyes, but in other people's, too.

So why is it so difficult to do sometimes? I think the picture above may have something to do with it. At least, within that strange and muddled place called my brain. Perhaps other people think this too. Or perhaps I'm just the freak here and should start being nicer to others!

It's assumptions. Thoughts about what might happen next. What the result of said compliment might be. If I pay an attractive girl a compliment, is she going to immediately assume I fancy her and thus be put off talking to me ever again in case I try any sort of lecherous advances? If I pay a guy a compliment, is it a bit gay? Is he going to want to punch me in the face for being a "fahkin' queer"?

Of course, most of these are moot points since I don't exactly make a point of talking to strangers at the best of times. And if a stranger talks to me in the street, it's usually to either 1) ask directions (it's that way), 2) ask for a light (I don't smoke) or 3) do this (fuck you).

But still. I feel the world would be a much nicer place if people felt that they could be at least civil to one another. As it is, here in Southampton, there's a fairly constant air of insularity and borderline aggression at times. Perhaps it's the nature of the populace here and if you went somewhere else it would be completely different.

In fact, I know that's the case. After point 3) above happened to me once again the other day, I tweeted about it and several other people chipped in with their experiences. Some towns are definitely more prone to it than others. And it doesn't appear to happen in the US anywhere near as much as it does here.

So why should that be? We British are supposed to be renowned for our reserve, politeness and general meekness. At what point did it become all right to insult people, and not all right to pay someone a compliment?

Perhaps I'm overthinking this.

I like your shirt/necklace/hair/tits.

#oneaday, Day 230: In Da Club

Last night I went out with a bunch of friends. It was my last chance to see a lot of them as I'm leaving Southampton at the start of next week. A great deal of alcohol was imbibed, hugs were had, tears were shed.

And realisations were reached.

They say that you've reached adulthood when you don't enjoy clubbing any more. Actually, they don't. I just made that up. But it's as good a measure as anything. I used to enjoy clubbing at university. At least I think I did. We used to go to a local shithole called "Kaos" every Monday night from the university Theatre Group, imbibe a great deal of cheap alcohol and dance until the early hours. And I have plenty of fond memories of those occasions. Again, at least I think I did. They're a bit hazy.

So last night we went to a couple of places. First up was the Orange Rooms, which is a reasonable-ish place full of girls in dresses that barely qualify as dresses, comfortable-ish chairs and overpriced drinks. It was cool to see everyone but the conversation was gradually muted by the fact that the music got so loud that the bass was shaking books off the shelves on the walls. And frequently onto our heads.

I don't know if I'm going deaf, haven't attuned my hearing properly or am just ill-versed in the fine art of conversation during loud noises. But other people seem well-equipped to continue a conversation under these circumstances. I find myself having to say "Huh?" and "What?" a lot, or feigning that I've actually heard them when as a matter of fact I haven't.

This becomes doubly troublesome when it becomes clear that the other participant in the exchange has asked a question. I have two choices at this point—yes or no. No-one ever asks a question requiring a complicated answer under these circumstances, which is a small mercy, I guess. So I have to work out whether the question which has been asked is one which requires a yes or no answer, and then pick one of the two. I have a 50/50 chance of my answer making sense. Sometimes it doesn't. Then I just shrug and let the pitiful attempt at conversation fade.

Late in the evening, a few people disappeared and the rest of us were dragged to a nearby club called "Junk". Aptly named. At "Junk" I had my first experience of a style of music a bunch of people I know have been banging on about for ages, which is, I believe, dubstep. I didn't really know what dubstep was prior to tonight, but I had a feeling I probably wasn't going to appreciate its finer artistic merits.

As it happened, that was a correct assumption. Dubstep, or at least the Junk interpretation of it, appeared to be playing songs as they originally sounded, only with a bassline that goes WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB over the top of it, and an occasional klaxon solo. So the whole thing ends up sounding something like TURN AROUND BRIIIIGHT EYES EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL A PAAAAAAWUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB HOOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOOOOOONK WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART

Sorry guys. I know you dig it and all. But I really don't get it. Like, even a little bit. It hurt my brain. The thumping beats are fine for dancing, but I couldn't see myself just sitting listening to it.

Dancing is weird, too, isn't it? People wilfully gathering together in order to gyrate suggestively and/or spastically presumably in the hope of attracting someone to have some form of sexual congress with. Well, okay, no. Not everyone is there to get laid. But the ones who are make themselves very obvious. I'd hate to be an attractive girl. The sight of a bunch of men gradually gathering around you making overtly sexual motions is probably enormously intimidating. And that, besides the fact I'd think I'd look like a dick, is why I don't do that. It is also why I don't go to clubs to look for a potential mate. Or indeed at all.

So there you have it. At the age of 29, I am officially Over Clubbing. (Note: this is different from "overclubbing", which generally leads to a significantly larger hangover than I had today) I like going out for a drink at a decent bar. I like having a laugh with my friends. I even like going to smaller clubs that play decent music. The Dungeon here in Southampton is a great example, largely because it attracts nerds, geeks, goths and other outcasts of "mainstream" culture. But spending time in what appears to be a darkened warehouse that plays music that doesn't make sense and getting surrounded by perverts in Ben Sherman shirts? Sounds like a dream come true to some, I'm sure. But I think you can count me out!

#oneaday, Day 229: First Aid

I went to bed last night with a thumping headache, hoping that I'd be able to sleep it off. Sadly, it was not the case and it was still with me when I awoke this morning. I went out to get some things I needed and a cup of coffee, hoping that the fresh air, caffeine and/or breakfast would get rid of it. Sadly, that didn't work either. So I came back home and took some painkillers. That did work.

But then, apparently, my brain decided that life was nothing without at least some form of physical pain, or at the very least discomfort, so decided to graciously allow me to lacerate my thumb whilst I was sorting out the bin bags.

As these things tend to be, it was a particularly rubbish and tiny cut which looked far more impressive than it actually was by the amount of blood that decided to bubble up from within it. I ran it under the cold tap and the blood mixing with the water made things look even more serious and quite possibly fatal than they actually were.

In this situation, it's around now that it's time to panic. What if it doesn't stop bleeding? What if you've inadvertently found the one essential artery in your body that is essential to survival? And whoever designed the human body put it in your thumb because surely no-one would be stupid enough to cut themselves on the thumb? So you flail around for a little while, not sure whether to keep your gushing (and still quite possibly fatal) wound under the cold tap, to wrap it in some tissue, to suck it (which might make you a vampire) or to go in search of a plaster.

I opted to do three of the above. I rinsed it, temporarily wrapped it in tissue whilst searching for a plaster (in fact, hoping that I had a plaster somewhere in the house as I didn't fancy walking to the shop with such a terrifying wound) and then finally managed to inexpertly dress said wound. Job done.

Injuring yourself is doubly terrifying when you're alone. What if it really doesn't stop bleeding? What if you pass out? What if you bleed to death on your own floor? Who would find you? More importantly, who will you moan at until they offer sympathy?

If someone else is nearby when you injure yourself, it's twice as likely you'll make a big deal out of it. Cutting yourself when you're alone will often result in an "Ahh! Fuck!" under the breath and little else. But suffer an equivalent injury when someone else is nearby and that whispered profanity becomes a full-blown wail of pain. And God help the other person if they don't respond immediately to your tortured cries. Even though they're clearly busy doing something else and you don't actually need them to do anything because your other hand is still just fine and can reach the plasters and dress the wound and you probably won't need an ambulance but seriously it kind of hurts and ow. The sympathy is good. Possibly not worthy of a hug, but at least worthy of the "inverted frown" look with the eyebrows, a vocalised "awww…" or, in extreme circumstances, an "are you all right?" You expect something. Otherwise the pain won't go away. And in fact, the injury can't heal until it's had at least some sympathy directed at it. It's like magic.

I'm fine, by the way. Unless there's no entry tomorrow, in which case I've bled to death in my sleep.

#oneaday, Day 228: Call of Cthuty: Black Arts

London, UK – 2nd September, 2010 – DECLASSIFIED: Prepare for the follow-up to the biggest entertainment launch in history: on 9th November, Call of Cthuty®: Black Arts™ will introduce fans to the occult world of HP Lovecraft. Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and award-winning developer Starfuckers, Inc. will take players behind the lines of madness in an entirely new and ill-advised chapter in the groundbreaking and record-setting, No. 1 first-person action series of all time.

"My favourite part is the one where Dagon kidnaps the president," said Starfuckers, Inc. Vice-President of Scenarios and Scripting Ashton Raze. "OF MEXICO."

Players will face off against their darkest fears in an epic struggle for survival against gradually-dwindling sanity. And when the time comes, the Dark One shall arise, and the world shall be devoured!

"The way I see it," said Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO, "is that we already sold our souls some time ago. So why not celebrate the Dark One in the only way we know how: by offering players the opportunity to participate in a futile and expensive struggle against an inevitable decline into insanity from a first person perspective with lots of big guns and no women whatsoever?" Kotick later explained that girls have "cooties" and he wanted nothing to do with them.

Activision also announced a multi-year agreement that will bring Call of Cthuty® add ons and map packs first to the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network.

"The Dark One needs His tribute, which is why we're thrilled to announce this Xbox LIVE agreement," said Philip Earl, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Activision's Dark Arts and Call of Cthuty® Business Unit. "This agreement reflects our shared and continued focus on funding the Dark One's attempts to break into this world via microtransaction, and our willingness to drive our playerbase insane by releasing content at a price significantly higher than any other publisher out there."

Call of Cthuty®'s revolutionary multiplayer mode features a robust progression system based on the player's insanity level. Reaching new heights of madness unlocks "Jerks", involuntary bodily spasms which allows the player to personalise their individual avatar in a unique manner until they are a shambling, stumbling mess only fit to turn their own gun on themselves.

"With 25 million members, Xbox LIVE is a prime feeding ground for the Dark One," said Marc Whitten, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Xbox LIVE. "With the release of Call of Cthuty®: Black Arts™, it presents a whole new opportunity for Him to feast upon the player base. And come on, who's going to miss those racist fucktards anyway?"

About Activision Publishing, Inc.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Publishing, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products, and also a glad receiver of lots of money from people who are happy to pay over the odds. Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Ninth Circle of Hell, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Purgatory, Australia, South Korea, China and the region of Taiwan.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Activision Publishing's expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, such as the Dark One's devouring of the world, which may put the kibosh on the whole Xbox LIVE exclusivity deal as without a world, there will be no Xbox LIVE on which Activision can sell map packs for $15 a pop. Activision Publishing generally uses words such as "outlook", "will", "could", "would", "might", "remains", "to be", "plans", "believes", "may", "expects", "intends", "anticipates", "estimate", "future", "plan", "positions", "potential", "project", "remain", "scheduled", "set to", "subject to", "upcoming", "blood sacrifice" and similar expressions to identify forward-looking OH GOD HE'S COMING SET LOOSE THE PUPPIES OF WAR BLOOD BLOOD SO MUCH BLOOD FORGIVE ME FORGIVE ME FORGIVE ME FORG—

#oneaday, Day 227: How Many Things in a Thing Again?

Measurements can fuck off.

All right, all right, come back. That's unfair, I know. Measurements in general don't have to fuck off. It is, upon occasion, quite useful to be able to quantify certain things. Like the amount of flour to put in a cake. How many photos you can fit on a memory card. How long your cock is. Actually, forget I said that last one.

But do we really need quite so many different ways to measure things? And quite so many different ways in which to convert from one to another? And so many with stupid names?

Let's take length, for example. (Just general length. Not cock length.) There are 100 centimetres in a metre. There are 1000 metres in a kilometre. (Swap the "r" and "e" around if you're reading in American.) These, to me, are logical. Units of 10s, 100s and 1000s make sense. They're nice round numbers. I have ten fingers and ten toes. It's a number that I'm used to dealing with.

Now let's consider an alternative unit of measurement. Inches. There are twelve inches in a foot. And a foot is roughly 30 centimetres. Okay. Fine. Why "foot"? My foot isn't twelve inches long. I don't think. Someone's might be. Someone's inhuman cock might be twelve inches long. Does that mean there are twelve inches in a "cock", too? (Enough with the cock already.) But the thing with feet, they're not exactly a universally-sized thing. My foot is considerably bigger than that of a 5-year old, for example. So why f— oh, never mind. What comes after foot? A yard? A yard is 3 feet? Okay. Why, again? I hear "yard", I think "wide open space". 3 feet isn't very big. It's 12 inches times 3, which is… *thinks* 36 inches? Which means it must be about 90 centimetres. So many different numbers.

Then what? A mile? How many yards in a mile? 1760? One thousand seven hundred and sixty? How the hell is anyone supposed to remember that?

The other problem that this causes is that when you go to another country, you often have a whole new measurement system to worry about. And the amounts that these units represent are often inconsistent between different countries, which doesn't help matters. And don't even think about trying to cook something.

Yes! Cookery. If you're American, chances are you deal with an oven that has big numbers on it. Come over to the UK and you might be dealing with an oven with very small numbers on it (like 1-7 small) or an oven with slightly-smaller-than-American numbers on it (like 150-200). If you aren't aware of the intricacies of conversion between Celsius and Fahrenheit and the black magic required to determine what the hell a "Gas Mark" is, then you can forget about cooking something and not burning it to a fine crisp.

So I'm firmly in favour of a globalised system for measurement that is resolutely based in good old base 10. There are 10 things in a bigger thing, 100 things in a much bigger thing and 1000 things in a really big thing. That'll do me just fine. And it'll save me running to Google every single time a website asks me my height in centimetres and I only know it in feet and inches.

#oneaday, Day 226: Crossing the Musical Pond

Being in contact with people from all over the world is cool. You get to learn all sorts of interesting things about other people. Granted, the vast majority of people I know from "other" parts of the world are in the US and Canada. But despite the fact that many people believe the UK and US in particular to have a lot of similarities, one thing often comes up that reminds me that we are, in fact, different. And that's music.

I was talking to a new friend the other night. She lives in the mountains in Georgia (that's Georgia, US), a place where she says they didn't even "discover" rock music until very recently. Up until then, it was country, country, country all the way. I found it strange to contemplate the idea that an area would just be completely without a style of music that I take for granted.

But then it occurred to me. This happens all over the place. She educated me a bit in the ways of country—a style of music she'd only grown to appreciate recently herself—and I realised that over here, barring occasional anomalies like Shania Twain's brief incursion into the UK charts a few years back, we really don't "do" country over here. At least, not in any sort of mainstream way. We have other things instead. And we have equivalents for different areas.

Okay, so rural English accordion-based folk music isn't exactly the same as country. But it's music from rural areas. The intent is the same, if not the execution. Similarly, urban music in the UK shares some stylistic features with urban music from the US, but comes out rather differently. (I don't like either of them, which at least is something constant.)

In fact, about the only thing that is the same, as I allude to oh-so-subtly above, is the bland, manufactured pop crap. Some whiny twat with a stool and a spotlight bleating on about "oooh, girl" and probably pronouncing "you" as "joo" because that's how cool and/or non-white people do it. It's the same here as in the States.

These musical styles help people form a sense of identity. From the line-dancing country fans up in the mountains to the chavs blasting Dizzee Rascal at 0.5W out of their mobile phones ("blasting" probably wasn't the right word there…) on a street corner, these pieces of music give people a feeling of "belonging". They can attach themselves to it, identify themselves by it, bond with other people over it.

I don't have a particular style of music that I call "my own". As a musician, I've always been pretty fascinated by all styles of music. By exploring them, I've developed fairly eclectic tastes. I know what I like, and what I don't like. I tend to feel more strongly about the things I don't like than the things that I do like. And I don't feel particularly pressured into feeling that I "should" or "shouldn't" like a particular style of music just because of who it is. I've listened to Ke$ha's album, for example, and enjoyed it. (I believe I described it as "what would happen if Kelly Clarkson were forcibly inserted into a NES", which I think is a compliment in my world) I enjoyed the country that my friend introduced me to the other night (Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" is a lovely song, incidentally). I don't find myself screaming over R&B and generic-sounding "urban" music because I've listened to it analytically and don't find any appeal elements in there for me personally, though I'm sure it has its uses. In fact, I almost appreciate it in the whole "darkened club" situation, but then if you drink enough you can come to appreciate pretty much anything. Get low, low, low, low.

So in summary, then? Music is good. Listen to whatever the hell you like and damn what other people think of you if they find out.

#oneaday, Day 225: This Post is Controversial

Want to get your voice heard on the Internet? Then you'd better have something contentious to say, or at the very least something to say about something contentious.

I've seen it myself on this blog. The day I wrote about Kevin Smith's experiences with Southwest Airlines (day 28, if you're keeping score) was one of the highest-traffic days that I've ever seen. Granted, this being a personal blog which not that many people know about, that still wasn't very many people. But it was enough to make a noticeable spike on that handy little pageviews graph that WordPress helpfully provides you with.

And today. I happened to tweet earlier that Xbox LIVE's prices were going up by $10 a year. Thinking nothing of it at the time, I returned about an hour later to discover that this tweet, out of the other 16,740 that there are (I know, I know) was retweeted by something in the region of three billion people. All right, that's an exaggeration. But you get my point.

And then, an article published by a colleague over on Kombo has seen one of our highest ever "temperature" ratings on gaming news aggregator N4G. The subject of the article? "Top Ten Most Overrated Games". Compare this to an article I wrote on the subject of women in the games industry, which attracted ill-informed, stupid comments from people who obviously had read nothing more than the title, and you'll see that at times, the Internet is not the place for reasoned discourse. Incidentally, this isn't a slight against Lucas' great article, which actually makes some fair points.

A friend and colleague described services such as Digg and N4G as "places where lazy people go to yell at each other over stories they didn't read concerning topics they don't understand". It's sad, but it's true. It's also an awesome quote. Thank you, Brad.

So it seems that in order to get people interested and reading what you have to say, it either has to be a contentious opinion, or an opinion on a contentious topic. It's possibly a side-effect of the celebrity culture I discussed the other day, where apparently our own lives aren't interesting enough and therefore we must go look for scandal, opportunities to accuse "the system" of screwing us and chances to argue and flame at every opportunity. Are our own lives really that boring, though? Do people really have that little to say about themselves? Should I turn this into a blog about what the latest celebrity idiots have been getting up to recently?

No. Because if everyone goes about doing that, it just makes the situation worse. I'm writing here for me. I write about what I want to write about, when I want to write about it… so long as it's still one thing a day. The fact that other people read and enjoy it is a happy bonus. And it gives me some faith that the Internet isn't solely populated by dribbling spastics.

Just mostly.

#oneaday, Day 224: Patch Notes

Thank you for continuing to play Life. We are pleased to announce that Patch 2.0 is almost ready for release. It is currently awaiting approval from Apple, and we hope to have it available to all users very soon.

While you wait, here is a list of the exciting new features you can soon be enjoying from your Life experience.

Quick-Save. The most-requested feature is finally here! Are you about to get yourself into a situation which you're a little concerned about the outcome of? No matter! Simply press the Quick-Save button (assigned to your genitals by default) and, should things not go the way you intend, you can simply try again! Please note: there are certain situations when the Quick-Save command will be unavailable. Please ensure your brain has enough free space for the save data before using the Quick-Save function.

Difficulty Adjustment. Some users have commented that Life is too easy or too difficult for them. As such, we have added a difficulty slider to the main menu (accessible by closing your eyes for five seconds and then coughing). If life's getting you down a bit, simply drop back the difficulty slider for a while and enjoy increased fame and fortune for less effort. Similarly, if you're enjoying the trappings of wealth a little too much, simply bump up the difficulty slider to increase the number of scandals you'll encounter. Please note: Adjusting the difficulty slider will affect the experience points gained.

RealID. We've added a facility where once you know a person's name and have added them to your Friends List (assigned to that notebook in your dusty old chest of drawers by default) you will never forget their name ever again thanks to a handy pop-up over their head. You will also see all contact information they have made available and be able to track them via GPS. Please note: GPS tracking is not intended for use by stalkers. Misuse of this facility will be punishable by account suspension.

Common Sense. Long-time subscribers will receive an exclusive "Common Sense" special ability. When entering a situation which is potentially dangerous, illegal and/or stupid, a large red flashing sign will appear saying "STOP IT". It will continue to flash until the user removes themself from the situation in question. Please note: the "Common Sense" ability will not be automatically available to anyone who has been a subscriber for less than 25 years. They are, however, able to obtain it via questing.

Chat Filters. Another oft-requested feature, the Chat Filter facility will allow users to filter out any or all of the following depending on their own personal preferences: Profanity, blasphemy, religious fanaticism, racism, homophobia, tolerance, sexism, corporate jargon and foreign languages. These phrases can either be muted or automatically replaced via a seamless automatic translation algorithm. For example, when the corporate jargon filter is activated, the sentence "Let's table this then bluesky and run it up the flagpole for mind-showering purposes whilst leveraging our monetization strategies in the name of excellence" is replaced by "BULLSHIT".

Item Rebalancing. Coffee now restores twice as many MP. Brussels Sprouts still cause flatulence and nausea, but no longer restore any HP, thereby making them more of a novelty item than an unpleasant healing item. HP Sauce now works as intended by fully restoring HP upon consumption of an entire bottle. Kit-Kat Chunky may no longer be equipped as a weapon. Jaffa Cakes now add the Happiness effect, which stacks up to ten times.

New Dungeon. Haunted by the past? Jump into the new Personal Demons solo dungeon and fight against your worst fears. The new dungeon is only accessible at night and features our toughest boss encounters yet! Please note: Players are not able to take party or raid members into the Personal Demons dungeon.

Adjustable Day Length. Not enough time to complete all your Daily Quests? Simply pop into the Main Menu and extend the day by up to 48 hours.

Graphical Enhancements. A new "Tango" slider enables users blinded by the bright orangeness of those making use of the Fake Tan item to tone down this effect.

Social Networking. Now you can share everything you do via both Facebook and Twitter completely automatically. No longer will players need to make use of "Computer" or "Phone" items in order to inform other users that they are going to the toilet or having lunch. Please note: No responsibility will be accepted for quests failed due to inadvertent tweets/Facebook updates from places/people you are not supposed to be in.

Thank you for your continued support of Life. We hope to have the Version 2.0 patch rolled out as soon as possible. It's been many years in the making and we think you'll be really pleased with it.