#oneaday, Day 15: Regression

I'm of the firm belief that you should never apologise for something you've written, particularly during something like a #oneaday challenge, because it comes from the heart. It comes from within you, reflects what you're actually feeling or thinking about and is, basically, something that shows who you are and what you're thinking. That sort of makes sense.

To clarify: I have been drinking quite a bit and as such this post may not be the most coherent thing in the world. But I make not apologies for this as drinking is fun, in moderation.

To whit, I went out with an old friend tonight; my friend Woody, who is someone I went to school with. I didn't get to know him, really, until I got into Sixth Form, when we spent a lot of time each lunchtime playing Uno, eating cheese and bacon baguettes and playing a bit more Uno. But since that time, we've stayed in touch and occasionally gone out to get a bit drunk.

Tonight was one such occasion. I haven't had the opportunity to go out and get pissed for quite some time. Actually, that's not quite accurate. The last time I went out to get pissed was New Year's Eve, during which time I managed to drink a lot and somehow spectacularly failed to get drunk whatsoever. This may have been something to do with the amount of Kinect gaming that took place during that time. Dance Central, it seems, is a suitable antidote to drinking.

Tonight, though, was another matter. Plied with Sambuca and beer prior to going out to the delightful pubs of Cambourne (imaginatively named due to its geographical proximity to both Cambridge and Bourne), we drank quite a bit and reminisced about the good old days.

As you get older, the opportunities to do something along these lines get more and more infrequent, so it's worth taking them when you can. Because sometimes, there's nothing better than sitting down with a good friend, chatting about days gone by, remembering times you'd got intoxicated on substances of your choice and the silly things that had occurred as a result of said intoxication.

Woody, incidentally, is someone who has managed to remain all but invisible to the Internet, which is something of an achievement in this day and age. But you might say that makes the memories I have with him all the more precious, as the only record of his existence I have these days are the few photos I have of him now. Most of which involve being drunk.

The UK has a drinking problem, it's clear from just walking down any big city high street on a Friday night. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's nice to spend some time with a friend getting off your tits and having a good laugh about days gone by.

That's what happened tonight. And I hope it happens more often.

#oneaday, Day 348: End of the Year Show

So, 2010. Here we are. Your last day with us. You have a lot to answer for.

Actually, let me start.

Fuck you. I remember at the start of 2010 thinking "2009 sucked. 2010 will kick ass." I can't even remember why 2009 sucked so much now, such was the order of magnitude that your suckiness dwarfed it by.

Let's keep score, shall we?

I started the year in a job that I wasn't sure I wanted to do—an ill-advised return to school teaching on the suggestion of several people who thought I'd be good at primary school teaching, and that it might be less stressful than the horrors of secondary education.

They were wrong.

Given that the school I worked at was in what can politely be termed a "difficult area", there were plenty of what can politely be termed "challenging pupils". Most notable among them were a child who decided to spend one early morning Guided Reading session lying face-down on the floor screaming "PLEASE STOP THE PAKISTANI INVASION! PLEASE STOP THE PAKISTANI INVASION!" in a school that was probably made up of a good 60-70% of ethnic minority children, and the kid who liked to tear down wall displays, run out of the classroom and climb trees. It's amusing now. It was less amusing at the time, and it should be pretty obvious that those kids have no place in mainstream education.

Also at the school, I went through an OfSTED inspection, where the school was judged to be "failing". This is because it was judged on the same criteria as schools in affluent areas and therefore, unsurprisingly, came up somewhat short. I was referred to as "inadequate" by a person who had spent approximately ten minutes watching me teach, and I knew that I had to get out.

Fortunately, an ideal excuse for getting out came along in the form of PAX East in Boston, MA. I had never been to Boston, and I had never been to a video game convention. This was also going to be an opportunity to meet a huge number of the Squadron of Shame members face-to-face for the first time. I wasn't about to pass that up, so I bought a ticket even before I'd quit my job.

I quit said job just in time to avoid having to go on a residential trip with the kids I'd come to resent so much and spent a blissful few days amongst my fellow nerds at PAX East and can honestly say that there are few occasions that I've ever felt happier than when I was there with my "people". I wished it could go on forever, but sadly it couldn't. And things were only going to get worse from hereon.

I worked for a few scattered days doing supply teaching, but wasn't enjoying it at all, least of all the whole "get up early just in case there's any work" arrangement, where every day led to the weighing up of emotional wellbeing and financial stability.

In late April, I turned 29. I was not in a good place mentally, so I didn't feel much like celebrating at the time. I still don't. Then in early May, everything changed. The one thing I thought I could count on—my home life, my marriage, the love I had—went away. There were many reasons for this and at this point it doesn't do anyone any good to assign "blame" either way because things on both sides led to this point. I wish they hadn't, but it seems that some things are supposed to happen, however painful they are.

And painful it was. The experience damn near destroyed me. I had whole days where I was completely unable to function. I had plenty of times when I wished everything would just go away, that I wouldn't have to face these things any more. I went through all the however-many-stages-of-grief-there-are several times and am still jumping back and forth between them now. I resented everyone who told me that it would "just make me stronger" and put on a brave face for the public (and this blog, which I kept plugging away at even through those dark times) but appreciated those people who showed themselves to be true friends more than they could ever realise.

And all through this I was no closer to finding a job. I interviewed for a job I didn't want and did well (though didn't get it) and for a job I really did want and didn't get that either. Eventually, the money ran out and I found myself having to move back home, an act which however you dress it to me and however necessary it was still feels like a punch in the face every time I wake up of a morning.

The holiday season came, and I spent it in the States with my brother and the rest of my family. This turned out to be a positive move, as I had the opportunity to meet up with a bunch of people and do what is commonly referred to as "professional networking". I scored some freelance work out of the whole arrangement—freelance work that pays money, even.

Then I came home to discover a huge bill from the taxman thanks to some uncompleted self-assessment forms which I had no idea I was supposed to do and a podcast to edit whose audio files were ruined beyond repair. A final slap in the face from a shitty year? Let's hope so.

During 2010, despite all this, I made some great friends through the #oneaday initiative, through Kombo.com, through The Big Pixels and through Twitter. I also successfully completed the Couch 2 5K running challenge, and have posted every day since the 19th of January on this blog. Those parts of the year I wouldn't change. The rest can go F itself in the B.

2011 has a lot for me to look forward to. More freelance work, which I really enjoy, even the rewrites. The all-new One A Day Project, which I'm doing my best to co-ordinate. Hopefully a full-time job. And I'm praying for a lift out of the black pit that I've been sporadically stuck in since May. Can you be sporadically stuck in something?

Tonight I'm going down to Southampton to spend New Year's Eve with one of those true friends I mentioned earlier. 2010, I shan't be sorry to see you leave. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Actually, do. I've installed a spike on it, at just about ass-level. I hope you enjoy it. You cunt.

#oneaday, Day 307: Wait. Terry Wait. Overwait. Call The Wait-er.

How much time do you think you waste every year waiting for things to happen? Whether it's waiting for the phone to ring, the response to an email, the answer to a question, an alarm to go off, someone to call you into their office or for your delicious improvised curry sauce to thicken, chances are you spend a good proportion of your time waiting for things to happen or for other people to do things.

Just think how much more we could all get done without all this waiting. Consider how long it takes someone from any Government agency to write back to you, drawing out what is usually an unpleasant process (why else would you be writing to an arm of the Government, were it not to complain about something?) even longer than necessary. Perhaps your question was a simple one that can be answered with one word—the words "yes" and "no" were invented for exactly this situation—but no. More often than not you'll receive a letter back informing you that they're "unable to action your correspondence" or, in English, "not able to reply to your letter" and demanding further details that you've already given them at least fifteen times.

This sort of thing is annoying and, in this age of instant communication, bordering on inexcusable. Who writes letters any more, anyway, for starters? Wake up and smell the electronics.

The trouble with taking this attitude, though, is that it starts to filter into other parts of your life. You find yourself wondering why the text message you sent thirty seconds ago hasn't been replied to yet, without thinking that the recipient may just have better things to do than respond to a message that simply says "COCK! PISS! PARTRIDGE!" because they might, in fact, have a job to do. You forget the context of a reply on Twitter because someone replied to something you posted four hours ago. And in the meantime, you sit staring at your computer screen, iPhone or, in the worst possible scenarios, your wall or ceiling. Because you might get that response you need in the next thirty seconds/minute/half an hour/hour/day and you couldn't possibly do anything useful in the meantime. But of course you can't send another message following it up because that's pushy and rude and you don't want to look like an asshole.

Well, bollocks to it. We need an inversion of this situation, where "important" things get resolved quickly rather than are "endeavoured to be responded to within 72 hours", and where it's okay for your friends, family and/or that hottie you texted to be quiet for a few seconds/minutes/hours/days at a time. Because let's face it, staring at a wall is marginally less productive than staring at a toaster waiting for it to pop.

Because at least if you stare at a toaster, you end up with some delicious toast. What's your wall ever going to give you?

#oneaday, Day 286: Murder and Mystery

Tonight's activity was an entertaining affair–a murder mystery dinner party in celebration of my good friend Sam's 30th birthday. (Sam, incidentally, does not know anyone called either "Don Woods" or "Pook" and would like to make that fact abundantly clear.)

For those who have never attended a murder mystery party, it's an enormously fun opportunity for a bunch of people to get together, eat, drink, dress up in silly costumes and then make twats of themselves with each other. Ostensibly, it's a game where everyone is supposed to "role-play" their characters and through careful questioning, determine who the murderer was.

In practice, it's an excuse for people to talk in silly accents, overact and generally lark about. It's a pretty far cry from what tabletop enthusiasts would call "traditional" role-playing, but in actuality it's pretty close to what your common or garden D&D group gets up to. Only probably with more comedy French accents and less in the way of dice-rolling. Which is good. Because the dice-rolling bit of role-playing is often seen as the "geeky bit", whereas with a bit of encouragement, most people can enjoy a bit of impromptu improvisatory theatre, especially when their confidence glands have been appropriately lubricated via the judicious application of alcohol.

Tonight was no exception to the above rules. A diverse group of people attended and hammed it up through three acts of questioning, accusations and gradually-escalating amounts of backstabbing, espionage and clandestine affairs. As the evening went on, people gradually grew much more comfortable with the whole experience and started ad-libbing somewhat. Mostly, it has to be said, with some fairly filthy comments. But that added to the fun. Particularly as the amount of wine consumed throughout the evening meant that everyone's accents suffered somewhat.

So if you're looking for an opportunity to get some people together, dress up in silly costumes and engage in a spot of light role-playing (of the non-filthy kind) then a murder mystery party is the way to go. The set we played–The Brie, The Bullet and The Black Cat–was structured pretty well, with handouts and helpful prompts for all characters, meaning that no-one was left flagging and having to come up with questions all by themselves. It worked well, even though only one amongst our number managed to correctly identify the murderers by the end of the whole experience.

It was a good laugh, though, and surely that's the point of any game when it comes down to it.

The group are now settling down to a game of Eat Poop You Cat! which I discovered the other day can be referred to as Broken Telephone in polite circles. Wine has been consumed, so I anticipate that the sentences and drawings produced throughout the course of the game will be somewhat spectacular.

It's up and out early tomorrow morning for a run, with a change of scenery for once as I'm in Winchester instead of back home. I hope it's not cold.

#oneaday, Day 281: Call Me "Beast Man"

Nicknames are curious things, and there are relatively few opportunities in one's life to either acquire them or get rid of them. Many of them are set in place at school and then promptly lost. Those who move away and go to university then have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to introduce themselves as "I'm Pete, but you can call me 'Bulldog'" or something similar. The only other times you get to do this are when you start a new job, or move to a new area. And even then, coming up with a nickname for yourself always seems somewhat… well, douchey.

The best nicknames emerge organically; they just happen. And then, good or bad, you're stuck with it amongst one group of people for a very long time.

I have three nicknames. One of these ("Angry Jedi") was self-chosen—well, technically, it was a joint effort between me and the buddy I was teacher training with at the time. We were called "Angry Jedi" collectively, as our preferred method of stress relief after a tough day at the chalkface was to compose bizarre sample-based music, and of course we needed a name under which to "release" these tracks. We fell out of touch, and I've been using "Angry Jedi" or variants around the Internet ever since. Except on Xbox LIVE, where some asshole got there first.

"Angry Jedi" was actually the latest nickname I acquired, however. I have two earlier ones which still get rolled out occasionally when I'm with a specific group of people.

The first of these—"Helmu"—came about when I went to the Edinburgh Festival with the Southampton University Theatre Group in 2000. We were taking Turgenev's tragic love story "A Month In The Country" up to the Festival Fringe and performing it in the open air in Edinburgh's botanical gardens. The play went well but was something of a commercial flop—well, you try convincing people that sitting outside in the cold Scottish weather to watch a "tragic Russian love story" is what they want to do, when there's a lot of comedy on in the warm with bars nearby—but the nickname "Helmu" was nothing to do with the play itself. No, instead it was to do with one of our evening's activities. Someone had had the foresight to bring a PlayStation with them (the original PSX, oh yes indeed) including a copy of Track & Field. I elected to play as Germany, and as everybody knows, the most amusing name in the Deutsche Grosse Kindernamebuch is Helmut. So I chose to call my character "Helmut". Unfortunately there weren't enough letters, so my player was known as "Helmu". This name then stuck for the next ten years.

The second name was also the work of the Southampton University Theatre Group. "Beast Man". Yes, I have the dubious honour of being occasionally referred to as a character from He-Man. The reason for my being dubbed "Beast Man" was due to my role co-directing a production of Twelfth Night for the group. At least, I was originally co-directing it with my friend Krissie. However, one day I got an email from Krissie saying that she was off snowboarding and would I mind awfully directing the whole play?

I had never directed a play before. The experience caused a not-inconsiderable amount of stress, which manifested itself as forgetting to shave and occasionally bleeding copiously from the nose. Both of these things were seen as somewhat Beastly, as my unshaven visage bore something of a resemblance to this gentleman here, albeit somewhat less ginger.

This nickname also stuck for the next ten years. Although I can't say it isn't strangely satisfying to be greeted by ex-members of the Theatre Group as "Ah! Beast!"

So how about you lot? Some of you out there have usernames that obviously mean something to you. C'mon, share some stories. OH GO ON. I'll give you cake*.

* offer of provision of cake subject to withdrawal at any time.

#oneaday, Day 277: Boobies

The title of this post was suggested to me as I was suffering slight writers' block due to being in a room with a number of other people, some of whom are playing Modern Warfare 2, others of whom are listening to the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Which, in itself, is pretty awesome, but isn't exactly the most conducive environment for nurturing the best of one's creativity. The post itself will not be about boobies. Unless I really can't think of anything else to write about.

Mmm, boobies… Sorry, where was I?

So I thought I'd go a bit stream-of-consciousy for tonight. I haven't done that for a while. This isn't proper full-on freewriting, 'cause I'm not starting the timer and writing for a set number of minutes. But I am writing things as they come into my head. Which is nice. It also means that I might go off on something of a tangent as I – oh look, there's a badger with a gun, do you see?

I am currently drinking grape soda, which I'm sure I have had before and liked but had forgotten quite how much it tasted like Calpol – the nice purple stuff you have when you're a little kid, not the foul and disgusting pink stuff you get when you're over the age of six (the imaginatively-named "Calpol Six-Plus", fact fans). For those of you reading in American, Calpol was, for a long time (and possibly still) the generic "cure-all" medicine for children. I have no idea what was in it that made boo-boos go away, but for kids it is very much the equivalent of the fantasy RPG "cure-all potion" that restores hit points and, if it's a fancy-pants version that costs more than 50 gold a time, sometimes cures status effects.

What was I saying? Nothing much at all, really. This is perhaps not my best work. But, you know, you work with what you've got. And I'm currently full of pizza and Calpol-flavoured fizzy stuff, surrounded by people I like very much indeed and so frankly, I'm more than happy with this post reflecting the pleasant feelings of "Ahh…" that I'm enjoying right at this moment. Regular followers of this blog since I started the whole #oneaday thing will know that it's been quite a while since I've been able to really sit back, enjoy myself and make a contented-sounding noise like "Ahh…" so I'm damn well going to enjoy it.

I may be broke, unemployed and not exactly in the position I envisaged being in at this stage of my life. But, you know, for the moment? I can deal with it. Things could be worse – things have been worse – so I'm pleased to say that this could well be that downward spiral taking a turn for the better. If spirals can indeed take turns for the better.

You know what I mean. You reach rock bottom, you have to start climbing back out again sometime. So onwards and upwards it is, and thank you to those people who have made it possible. You know who you are.

Now there are games to play and Calpol to drink. Night night.

#oneaday, Day 272: Person LF Person

People are funny things, aren't they? You'd think there would be infinite possibilities, infinite combinations out there. But the fact that it's possible through psychological testing to boil people down (not literally) into various categories based on whether they are introverted or extroverted, compassionate or twattish and, I don't know, whether they like Chinese food or not, suggests otherwise.

And so it is that you come across people who are Your Kind of People. People who are Your Kind of People can appear at any time in the wild. For introverts like me, it's sometimes difficult to find them as finding new people inevitably involves putting yourself out there a bit and actually talking to strangers. Scariness. Unless you have an appropriate context in which to start talking to new people. Perhaps you've been exchanging messages online. Perhaps someone you know is introducing you. Perhaps you're at a social occasion for some mutual friends. Perhaps it's a new job. Perhaps you get the idea by now and I can stop giving examples.

It's sometimes difficult to define what Your Kind of People are. Is it to do with interests? Personality? Physical appearance? Whether or not they stink of cabbage? Well, in my experience, the answer to this is "yes". All of those things are contributing factors in the complex equation that determines whether someone else is Your Kind of Person or not. And someone being Your Kind of Person doesn't necessarily mean that you're attracted to them, although this can and does happen. In which case you end up dating someone who is Your Kind of Person, which is pretty much an ideal situation to be in for everyone involved.

I am very pleased that over the last few days I have met several people who are My Kind of People. The reasons for each of them being My Kind of People are varied, but they're all people that I feel very comfortable and happy hanging out with. People who I feel understand me, or if they don't understand me now may well be in a position to say "Yes, I understand Pete perfectly" at some point in the future. People with whom I share some interests. People that I enjoy the company of. People who are, in short, pretty damn awesome.

It's always a pleasant feeling when this happens. You don't get a positive Moodlet in The Sims 3 for making a new friend for no reason, after all. Finding new people to spend time with is always good, particularly if they are people that you don't feel you have to compromise the person you are in order to be with. People that you can be comfortable with and let out the side of yourself that sometimes stays hidden in polite society. (And I'm not talking about the side of you that might like to wear nappies or do inappropriate things involving poo or pieces of ginger. That side is probably best to keep hidden until you're absolutely sure that Your Kind of People share said interests.)

So, I'm having a very lovely weekend when all's said and done. I hope you are too.

#oneaday, Day 264: Cupid Rules OK

OKCupid! is a fascinating site. Even if you're not looking for a potential partner, soulmate or someone to shout "gief cyb0r plz" at, I'd encourage you to take a look at it for the simple reason that the site itself is pretty unique when it comes to the world of social networking, finding friends and dating.

If you've ever dipped a toe into the murky waters of online dating, you'll know that most sites are 1) filled with people who are apparently far more attractive than you (but in fact are either using a fake photo or a very good photographer) and 2) demand that you give them vast quantities of cash every month for the privilege of being able to actually talk to anyone. Fair enough if they work; certain places like match.com even offer a money-back guarantee if you can't find yourself someone to talk to on their network. There's also that interminable string of "OMG! GET LAID WITH GIRLS IN [insert location from your IP address here] TONIGHT!!" that you get on some of the Internet's less salubrious sites. But the less said about them the better.

No, OKCupid takes a different tack by first of all being free to use. Marvellous. Second of all, rather than relying on people searching via simple criteria ("I am looking for a woman aged 25-35 in the Outer Hebrides") it does some rather clever profiling of your personality via a bank of approximately five bajillion "match questions", some of which are "official", but many of which have been submitted by other users. All of them are multiple choice, and all of them require you to not only put your own answer, but the answer you'd like your ideal partner/friend/fuckbuddy to put, too. And they don't have to match. Perhaps you're spoiling for a fight, so you put that you like immigrants, but you'd rather your ideal match were a card-carrying Daily Mail reader with borderline racist tendencies. Or perhaps you want to find someone who will never, ever argue with you about anything, ever. In which case you put that your ideal partner/friend/fuckbuddy should answer the same as you, and that it is MANDATORY (like the sex party) that they do this. And you won't accept anything less. No sir.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that the site builds what is probably a pretty accurate psychological profile of you and, as such, allows you to find people who you're likely to "click" with fairly quickly. It's pretty remarkable in the way it works, and it's surprising to see how accurate a picture of your personality it can build from these questions. And of course, the more you answer, the more accurate said picture becomes.

Not only that, though, but the site also does stuff like tracks how likely people are to respond to unsolicited messages. So that hottie you have your eye on may only have a 5% response rate, in which case your declarations of a desire for a night of wild and steamy passion will probably fall on deaf ears. Or at least ears that will go "ugh" and block you promptly.

All that for free, while the sites out there that demand your credit card information to even get you to sign up still cling to the old ways. Why not go on over and find out a little something about yourself? You might even make some awesome new friends. "AND MAYBE MORE!!" as the saying has it.

For the curious, these are my Sims-style personality traits based on the 389 questions I've answered so far. (It's super-quick to answer questions using the convenient iPhone app. Also, I get bored at night-time.)

From left to right, said icons indicate that I am less aggressive than average, less ambitious, less compassionate (not sure I'd agree with that one), more attentive, more pessimistic, less spiritual, more loving and more scientific. The magic robots have spoken. That is me. Until I answer some more questions and prove them wrong, of course. Apparently I need to grind my spirituality and compassion stats a bit.

#oneaday, Day 257: Away Message

I'm away for the weekend. Specifically, I'm attending the Eurogamer Expo, the UK's answer to gaming conventions like PAX. It's been running for a good few years now apparently but I only really became aware of it this year. I decided to attend, as I thought it'd be a good opportunity to get hands-on with some of the latest hotness that I'd missed out on at PAX, as well as catch up with a few friends from Twitter.

Eurogamer Expo has a way to go yet before it can even think about competing with PAX in terms of scale, but it's certainly got potential. There are plenty of high-profile companies in attendance with their big games, and tickets sold out completely, so people are certainly interested in events like this. They need to sort out their non-existent press provision and look at more in the way of "special events" to make it a truly excellent gaming convention, though. Some evening concerts wouldn't go amiss; or more in the way of the few developer talks and presentations that they do have already.

Day 1 has so far passed in a most pleasant manner and I am looking forward to tomorrow. I wrote an article about Fable III today, you should totally go and read it, as it's awesome. Here's the rest of the day in one-word summary format:

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer: Tense.
Killzone 3: Loading.
Killzone 3 in 3D: Migraine.
Gran Turismo 5 in 3D: Cardboard.
Peter Molyneux: Entertaining.
Fable III: Amusing.
Dead Space 2: Frightening!
Gears of War 3 Beast Mode: Multiplayer?
Fallout: New Vegas: Fallout.
Saw II: Bloody.
3DTV: NO.
Rock Band 3: Realistic.
@jenjeahaly: Yay!
@shoinan: Fun!
@lewisdenby: Brief!
@LinkYeah: Freshers.
Eurogamer's press provision: Horseshit.
Being told off for taking a coffee while wearing the wrong wristband: Bewildering.
That redhead girl I saw at one point: WOW.
Tonight: Surprise!

So that was my day. Tomorrow will be another day and hopefully I'll get a chance to try out a lot of the things I didn't get to see today. There's a lot of really good-looking games on offer, most of which will be well familiar to people who went to PAX, in all likelihood. Fable III in playable form was the big deal for those who like that sort of thing, and it's looking lovely. Peter Molyneux's talk on the history of the Fable series and its influences from movies and games was particularly interesting, as you'll know already if you've read this like I suggested earlier.

It was great to finally put a face to some Twitter usernames, too, and meet a few new ones as well. Hopefully over the next couple of days there'll be more of that until we're all one nice big happy games-loving family of awesomeness.

And, of course, tonight. Surprising a very dear friend was totally worth it. Even if I got called a few rude names along the way.

For now, I bid you good night.

#oneaday, Day 240: Making your Mark

It's odd (and not a little morbid) to think about the things that you leave behind that people might remember you by. Those little marks you make on the world, whether they're physical marks scrawled on a toilet door with permanent marker pen, mental marks left in the mind of people or now, technological marks, too.

There'll always be a little trace of me left in Southampton thanks to largely-pointless but fun geotagging app Gowalla. When I first downloaded said app, there weren't many people using it but I liked the idea of it. Go out, walk around, "collect" places. If nothing else, it was a nice way of building yourself your own custom tourist map of a place.

So on more than one occasion, I went out for a walk with the specific intention of creating a bunch of Spots around Southampton. This became something of an obsession, with the vast majority of Spots around the city centre being created by me. General way of telling: if it has a lengthy and slightly sarcastic description, or is the kind of thing you wouldn't find on a typical tourist map (such as "The Pedestrian Crossing That Makes The Funny Noise"), it was probably created by me.

Now, as pointless as Gowalla is in many respects, there are many reasons why it'll always hold a fond place in my heart. Firstly, as I say, it's been my way to leave my mark on Southampton. I "found" these places and tagged them the way I wanted them to be tagged. This means that Greggs on East Street will forever be remembered as "fine dining for chavs". At least until they realise and ask politely for the description to be changed. Which, let's face it, they probably won't.

But the second reason is that my wandering around, creating these spots, marking my territory (as it were… albeit with less piss than is usually implied by that phrase) caused me to meet one of my dearest friends from that city. She happened to use Gowalla, stumbled across some of my sarcastically-described Spots and decided that the person who tagged Greggs as such was someone she'd like to get to know better. So we progressed from stalking each other via Gowalla, to tracking each other down on Twitter, to chatting on Twitter, to finally meeting face to face. It was one of those random instances of chaos theory at work, where one little choice made slightly differently would have meant we'd never have met. And, given what was going on in my life at the time we met, and how much she helped me through that difficult time, that would have made things go very differently for me.

So I'm certainly glad that I've left a "mark" on a few places over time, be it physically, emotionally or technologically. Because you never know when those marks might lead to something great, even after you're gone.