#oneaday Day 729: Stop SOPA, Read Books

So apparently a bunch of the Internet has blacked itself out in protest against the insanity that is SOPA. It's a move that I fully support and endorse, as SOPA is a piece of crap that, while (arguably) well-intentioned, is completely impractical with the digital world we take for granted today.

That's all I'm going to say on the politics of the matter for the moment, since there are plenty of other commentators out there who can doubtless discuss it in much greater detail than me. As a Brit, too, I'm not someone who will be directly affected by the law, but as we all know by now, the proposed measures will have a knock-on effect that could throw the whole online world out of balance.

What I wanted to talk about was how Wikipedia's blackout has affected the stupid people of the world. Not sure what I'm talking about? Give @herpderpedia a follow on Twitter and you'll quickly see what the problem is.

Wikipedia is an excellent and useful resource, of that there can be no doubt. But the level to which people have come to rely on it is perhaps a little worrying. To some people, it's almost as if Wikipedia is the only source of information. (People who think this are probably the same people who believe that Facebook is "the Internet")

There are, however, many more sources of information in the world than Wikipedia. Many more sources of information in the world than the Internet, for that matter. (Engage Old Fart mode) When I was at school, we had no Internet. Imagine that, you teenage morons! No Internet! If I got a bit of homework to "research" something, then I had to pick up an actual book and look through it. I had to know my alphabet well enough to look stuff up, and I had to know how to spell the thing I was looking up. Dark times? Not really, it was the norm; we accepted it. When the Internet came along, it was a source of information in addition to the knowledge we had in books, not a replacement. When I presented that homework to the class, it was written in my own words, showing my understanding. It wasn't a printout from Wikipedia.

And yes, when I worked as a teacher, on more than one occasion (more than ten, in fact) I received homework from students who thought that I wouldn't recognise a printout from Wikipedia. It showed absolutely no understanding on their part besides the most basic of net-savviest — an important skill in today's society, for sure, but not what I was looking for with the assignments in question.

Technology breaks. Open forms of media are unreliable. Every so often someone will come along and want to censor things. I'm not saying books are immune to these issues, but at least you can still read them when the power goes off.

SOPA sucks. Fortunately, it looks like it might not get through — though we're still a long way off victory at this time. Instead of bitching about not being able to cheat at your homework, try opening one of those dusty old books on your shelf and looking up the thing you want to know more about.

Magic, isn't it? Knowledge without electricity. Who would have thought it?

#oneaday Day 728: Lag

I've had a somewhat inconsistent experience with jetlag on this particular trip. The other night when I was playing Ascension until 1AM, I was absolutely fine. Yet tonight, it's 9.30PM and I'm knackered. Doubtless I will sleep shortly and awaken at approximately 4AM, when it will be freezing cold. At least it will give me some time to get some work done ahead of visiting the fine Mr Whittington tomorrow.

Part of this evening's tiredness can probably be attributed to a fairly busy day, however. We took a trip into San Francisco, rode the cable cars and walked a whole lot. I discovered what the hell "taffy" is (chewy, and available in a huge variety of flavours) and enjoyed some calamari and fries by the Bay.

As with so many trips away, time is passing far too quickly. There's only so much you can do in a week — particularly if you have a bit of work to do along the way — and it's easy to get to the end wishing you'd done more. Ideally we'd have had the chance to stay over here a bit longer, but that's not really practical at the moment, sadly.

On that note, I feel I'm going to have to bid you all farewell as I can barely keep my eyes open. Time to sleep early, and wake up at stupid o'clock in the morning; an inversion of my usual habits back home!

#oneaday Day 727: Together Apart

You know what it's like. You want to play with friends but they all live on the other side of the world to you, so you can never find a convenient time to play together, and as such, you never get the chance to take each other on.

Not so if you happen to have a smartphone or tablet. There's a bunch of asynchronous multiplayer games out there for you to play, meaning that you can take it in turns to play together when it's convenient for each of you. While it's not quite the same as playing live, it's the next best thing.

But what are these games? Well, focusing on iOS, here's a few:

…With Friends

Whatever you may think of Zynga the company, it publishes some of the most popular multiplayer titles in the iOS library: Chess, Words, Hanging and Scramble With Friends.

Of these four games, Scramble is my favourite because it's quick and easy to play, and impossible to cheat at. Words is far too open to abuse (there are tons of "cheat" apps on the App Store), Hanging is a bit boring and, well, I suck at Chess.

The fact that, at the time of writing, I am unbeaten at Scramble certainly helps!

Disc Drivin'

If you've ever flicked a coin around a makeshift course or played that racing game where you flick wooden discs around a racetrack, Disc Drivin' is for you. Offering a bunch of courses, some powerups and the ability to play with up to three friends, this is a fun one for a while, though lacks depth.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a brilliant entry-level board game, and its iOS version, while relatively expensive, is an excellent port. Offering not only a great port of the base game but also a fun solitaire puzzle mode, this is a personal favourite.

Ascension: Wrath of the Godslayer

A great card game, as discussed the other night. Ascension lends itself well to the asynchronous format because players compete with one another for points, but turns are pretty self-contained. What little direct interaction there is between players is easily resolved at the start of the next player's turn. The only thing this one is missing is a chat facility — you just play.

Starbase Orion

I admit I haven't spent a huge amount of time with this yet, but it's probably the deepest game on this list. Playing out like Master of Orion (or sort of Civ in space, if you like), this is a lengthy, complex game that strategy buffs will have a blast with in either single or multiplayer.

Hero Academy

The newest title on this list, Hero Academy from Orcs Must Die! developer Robot Entertainment is a turn-based combat strategy game that combines elements of DOTA, tower defense, Final Fantasy Tactics and, err, Scrabble. (Yes, really.) Providing players with a "rack" of units and abilities to use each turn, then allowing five actions per turn, this is a simple to understand but tough to master game with a lot of potential for awesome development in the future — new teams, maps and other possibilities are all in the works.

—

So there we go. If you have an iOS device and you're looking for some multiplayer action you can fit around your life rather than having to set aside hours at a time, the above are a great place to start.

Do you have any recommendations to add? Let me know in the comments!

#oneaday Day 726: Coming Clean

Okay, I lied. Last night I didn't pull an allnighter playing Ascension. I played Ascension until 1AM with my good buddy Chris Whittington, and then wrote last night's blog post. The reason it appeared to post at something like 6AM UK time is because I am actually in California right now, but was unable to say so.

Why? Because today was my brother's surprise 40th birthday party, which managed to remain a secret for months, even right up to today. Good job, everyone. And happy birthday, John!

Now he knows I, the rest of my family and Andie are all here, though, I can comfortably and confidently say that yes, I am indeed in California enjoying weather that is quite a bit better than what I understand is rather chilly back home.

I like America a lot. Well, the parts of it I've been to, anyway. I'm aware it's a rather big place with plenty of grotty bits as well as pleasant places. But certainly I've never had a time when I felt like "oh no, not America AGAIN."

California in particular is a beautiful part of the world, featuring everything from woods to beaches to mist-capped mountains. I would very happily live here given the opportunity (namely, an offer of employment that would sort out my work visa for me) and probably wouldn't return to the UK in a hurry if that happened. Yes, it'd be hard leaving friends and parts of my life behind in the UK, but I feel the good things that would come from living in the States would outweigh those negative things. Besides, the Internet makes staying in touch with people easier than ever, and given enough money, you can always hop on a flight across the pond to visit people.

This is all a moot point, of course, because no-one has, as yet, offered me permanent employment in the United States and offered to sort out a work visa for me. So far as I can make out, this is a complicated procedure designed to make it as difficult as possible for people to emigrate to the United States, dependent on a cyclic series of requirements that all seem to contradict each other, or at least cancel each other out. For example, the last time I looked into a potential international move, it seemed that I wouldn't be able to get a visa without a job offer, but I wouldn't be able to get a job offer without a visa.

Obviously there are ways around this, otherwise there would be no (legal) immigrants in the U.S. But the whole process seems like a huge challenge, and like something of an impossible dream right now.

Ah well. I shall just have to enjoy the trips across the pond when they do happen. I've certainly enjoyed this one so far.

#oneaday Day 725: The Godslayer is Still a Bit Peeved

I'm a big fan of Ascension: Wrath of the Godslayer on iOS. It introduced me to an excellent deck-building card game and provides some excellent transatlantic asynchronous multiplayer fun. Always a bonus.

I'd been intending to check out the physical version for some time but hadn't seen a copy of it anywhere. Until today, that is, when I found not only the original Wrath of the Godslayer set, but also a new package known as Storm of Souls.

I shan't get into the nitty-gritty of Ascension's mechanics here as those of you reading this will either already know what it's all about or have the good sense to look it up for yourself. Suffice to say its a deck-building game with some superficial similarities to Dominion, but a much faster pace of play and a greater focus on "combat" of sorts, though not specifically against another player. Rather, all participants in the game compete against the game itself, and whoever does the best is declared the winner and the Lord of All Awesomeness, or something. There is a plot, but as tends to happen with many board and card games, it has little to no importance on how the game actually pans out.

For those already familiar with Ascension, Storm of Souls adds a few new bits and pieces. Firstly, it adds a bunch of new cards. These can be combined with Wrath of the Godslayer's cards to have games for up to six people at once. I haven't tried this yet, but I can imagine it's a very different dynamic to two-player games.

Secondly, a new Event mechanic allows cards to enter play that have ongoing effects. For example, one Event strengthens the Cultist "cannon fodder" enemies, making them more difficult to defeat but also making them worth more points. Others add modifiers to certain cards, some of which require you to think about the order in which you play your cards much more than in Wrath of the Godslayer.

Then there's the Trophy mechanic. Rather than Banishing certain monsters, putting them out of the game forever, certain monsters can be kept as trophies and banished at a later time for various benefits. This adds an extra layer of strategy which is very welcome.

As with many deckbuilding games, the joy of Ascension comes in building good synergies of cards and then unleashing them in a vast combo attack that looks suitably impressive. While it takes time to build up to this point in Dominion, in Ascension you're there within a turn or two, particularly if you pay careful attention to Events and the type of cards you're playing.

So is the new version any good? Most definitely. Tonight has been an all-nighter of play, hence the lateness of this entry — haven't been to bed yet! I hasten to add that it hasn't been Ascension that we've been playing all night — we also took on Dominion and Last Night on Earth. Ascension was the clear favourite though, particularly as its setup is straightforward enough to make three games in a row a very practical prospect.

So, I shall certainly look forward to playing it more in the future, and if you're a fan of the deckbuilding subgenre of card games, I suggest you check it out. And if you don't want to splurge on the physical edition, be sure to check out the excellent iOS version — a faithful adaptation that is very well designed for the small screen and the mobile platform.

Now if you'll excuse me, I better get some sleep…

#oneaday Day 724: Schoolyard Tales: Group Work

Mr Benson was a strong believer in cooperation and collaboration, particularly where his students were concerned. Every opportunity he had, he encouraged them to work together on projects and get to know each other a little better. At times this led to conflicts, especially in the more "lively" classes, as he termed them, but on the whole he felt it was a positive teaching strategy, and one which had seen him comfortably through several school inspections with a "Good" rating.

It was a new term, a new chance for the kids to group up and work together. 9F weren't the most cooperative class in the world, but most of them had seemed to accept the fact that English might be a relatively important subject, at least as far as qualifications were concerned.

He surveyed the classroom, the pupils gradually moving into their friendship groups to work on the first assignment he'd given them: to prepare a short interview-style presentation on a book they'd read recently. He always kept the first assignment of a new term relatively freeform and allowed the students to pick who they worked with. As time went on, he deliberately mixed them up and made them work with people they might not normally think to collaborate with. Sometimes this had disastrous consequences, but more often than not he found it had a positive impact on the interpersonal relationships in the classroom.

There was a wild card this time, though. He glanced at the new girl sitting in the corner and frowned at his register. Erin Adams, her name was, scruffily added in pen underneath the cleanly-printed class list he was already familiar with. He'd taught 9F when they were still 8F, and even the "tough" kids in the class gave him some grudging respect. This Adams girl, though, she was an unknown quantity — and judging by her reticence, she felt the same way about her peers.

"Erin," said Benson. "Having trouble finding a group?"

"Y-yes," she said meekly. "I'm new."

"Yes, I know," he said, smiling. "How about you go and work with Berri and Danielle?" He indicated a pair of smiling girls sitting in the corner, knowing full well that they were probably the friendliest of the whole bunch. "Berri? Danielle? You all right with that?"

The two girls nodded and beamed at him. Mr Benson was their favourite. They secretly both harboured a crush on him, but neither would dare admit it to the other, and certainly not to him.

Erin wandered over to the pair of girls and stood looking at them shyly, waiting for one of them to speak.

"Hey," said the blonde girl. "I'm Berri. You knew that already, probably. But I think this is the first time we've spoken."

"And I'm Danielle," said the girl with auburn hair. "You might have known that already, too. You're Erin, right?"

"Yes," said Erin. "I'm, err, new."

Berri giggled.

"Well, no shit. C'mon, this class may act tough but they're easy enough to ignore. Let's get started."

Benson sat down at his desk and began to mark books as the murmuring of conversation began to take hold of the class. Over the course of ten minutes, the murmuring had crescendoed to chattering, and the volume was gradually increasing bit by bit. He knew perfectly well that a goodly proportion of the group weren't listening, so he pulled out his favourite trick.

"All right!" he bellowed, slamming a hardback dictionary down on the desk as hard as he could. His Internet-connected computer in the corner of the room had made physical dictionaries almost obsolete, but he kept the bulky volume around specifically to bang on the desk when he needed to restore order. "And stop."

The chattering gradually subsided, a few disgruntled-looking boys in the corner continuing to whisper for a few seconds longer than anyone else. Benson frowned at them, but said nothing, and they too fell silent.

"I want to just check you're all getting on all right," he said. "And to do that, you're going to tell me what your group is going to talk about."

Benson methodically questioned each group in the room on what they were covering. He weeded out those who were slacking and made a mental note to have a quiet word with them once discussion started once more, and publicly praised those who had taken on ambitious books.

When he came round to Erin, Danielle and Berri's group, he actually applauded when Erin claimed to have read Pride and Prejudice.

"I watched the TV series," admitted Erin. "And I thought it might be fun to read it. You know how people always say that books are always better than films, right? I wanted to see if it was true with a TV series."

"Loser," muttered a boy in the corner. Darren Jackson, Benson's least favourite student. He tried very hard not to have favourites — and, for that matter, least favourites — but when a child was as obnoxious as Darren was, it was difficult not to dislike him. Benson knew there were extenuating circumstances — a broken home life, some possibly-spurious medical condition, a brother in prison — but he didn't felt that excused poor behaviour.

"Darren," said Benson coolly. "What you have done there is made a choice. You have made a choice to be rude and unpleasant to someone we should be making feel welcome. You can wait behind after class, if you please."

Darren tutted, but didn't argue further. He'd learned long ago that Benson was impossible to argue against. Benson only raised his voice when he was banging his dictionary on the table, and even then only to get the students' attention. He certainly never did it in anger.

Erin looked around at everyone who was staring at her after what she had said, and Darren's outburst. She blushed and sat down again.

"Wow," said Berri. "You're smart. Don't mind Darren, he's a dick."

"Yeah," said Danielle. "Stick with us and you'll be fine."

"All right," said Erin absently, but she wasn't really listening. Her hands were shaking and she felt more nervous than she had ever been in her life. She'd spoken up, and someone had ridiculed her. It was going to take a while to recover from this one.

#oneaday Day 723: The Escapist

Escapism is cool, and an important and valid method of keeping yourself sane.

There are, of course, many means of escapism, and different ones are more or less effective for different people.

There's the escapism of a child giving life to the inanimate lumps of plastic they own. Without a child, they're just potential, models, things to be looked at, without life. Add a child (or, more specifically, someone still in possession of their childish imagination) and something magical happens — those objects come alive, engaging in battles to save the galaxy; heroic adventures; or even just a normal day in a normal street.

Then there's the escapism of a good book. Good readers also have one of the most important qualities of a good creative writer: that active imagination again. But it's partly also down to the writer to create a convincing world, compelling characters and a reason for the reader to commit part of their life to staring at tiny print on paper, e-ink or an LCD display. You know a writer's done their job properly if you can hear the characters' voices, see the places they're in, picture the things they're doing. And as a reader, your interpretation and mental imagery might not be the same as the writer (or indeed the person who designed the book's cover) — but that doesn't make it any less valid.

There's the escapism of interactive entertainment. Instead of passively observing an unfolding story, you become a part of it. It doesn't have to be an explicit narrative as such — a long game of Civilization tells a story just as much as a chapter of Heavy Rain. The meaning the player chooses to assign to the experience is what makes interactive entertainment special.

There's the escapism of film. Increasingly designed as memorable spectacles these days, a good movie plunges its audience into darkness before casting them into a whole new world. It could be a world of giant robots; of CIA agents; of lads on a pulling holiday. For those couple of hours, though, the outside world ceases to matter.

There's the escapism of a good TV show. When you find a show that resonates with you, you want to stick with those characters, to find out what makes them tick, what they want, what they find challenging. You cheer for their successes, feel bad when they encounter adversity. And given the amount of time you spend with the cast of a TV show over an average run of a moderately successful show these days, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the cast might feel like "friends" by the time you're through.

And there's the escapism of music. Music is a powerful imaginative stimulus, but again it means different things to different people. For one person it might stir up dormant memories. For another it might encourage them to close their eyes and picture themselves in a whole new situation. For yet another it might have an emotional impact that reflects the things that are weighing on their mind at that moment in time. And for others still it might inspire them to push forward, to do their best, to power on through and do that extra set at the gym, or put in that extra bit of effort at homework.

All this isn't even getting into what it means to be a creator as opposed to a consumer of all the above media, either.

The fact is, the world can be, at times, a bit of a sucky place. Having something comforting to escape into, whatever form that escapism might take, is important. No-one likes to feel trapped, so even if it's only for a short while, escape into something awesome and return to the real world refreshed, invigorated and ready to tackle any challenges it might want to throw at you.

And if you don't have anything like that? Then you need to have more fun.

#oneaday Day 722: Schoolyard Tales: First Day

[Explanatory Note: I feel like writing some fiction again, but not sure I want to commit to a full month of nothing but an improvised story at this time. Instead, I am officially inaugurating the Schoolyard Tales series, in which I will attempt to create some recurring characters and provide them with a series of self-contained stories for them to feature in. This may or may not spin out into something bigger over time — I haven't decided yet.]

[Second Explanatory Note: I am English, and as such all the Schoolyard Tales will be set in an English school. This means any mention of "football" refers to soccer, people will use words like "wanker" and no-one has any idea what a "Glee Club" is.]

It was the first day after the holidays — a time for renewal, a time for changes. Today marked the day that some moved on to the next stage of their lives, while others began the part of their journey that would eventually lead to adulthood, and others still were stuck in the middle — drifters, wondering what their role in life was, where they'd end up and whether or not there was any point to it all.

It was 8 a.m., and the bus stop on St George's Road had by now picked up a small collection of kids. The atmosphere was muted. The only sound was the distant sound of traffic, the wind rustling the nearby trees, and the tinny rasp of a mobile phone speakers playing "Power" by Kanye West, its appreciative audience of two halfheartedly dancing and occasionally attempting to sing along, while the remainder of the bus stop's population occasionally gave disgruntled glares in their direction.

Erin Adams adjusted her tie, tightening the knot slightly and pulling it up to the collar of her blouse. She knew that most girls her age tended to wear their ties very short, tucking the longer narrow end into their blouses, but she preferred to be neat and tidy. It was a trait she'd picked up from her mother, who was a compulsive cleaner. The Adams house was always free of dust and looked immaculate — all apart from Erin's room, of course, after an incident with a diary and the subsequent screaming match had taught Mrs Adams that interfering with her daughter's personal space would be a very bad idea.

Erin sighed to herself. She was the new girl. It was all right for the little kids standing over there, wide eyed and curious, apart from the one with his head stuck in his iPhone — how the hell did he afford that? — they got to all be new together. But to join a new school in Year 9, when all the cliques have already formed, everyone is already friends with one another and no-one knows quite what to make of a new face?

She wasn't relishing the prospect, but she knew it was an unavoidable one. Erin's father had fled the family some months previously, leaving Erin and her mother in a house they couldn't afford. Mrs Adams, who had always been rather strong-willed, spent a day of grieving for her failed marriage before waking up bright and early the next day to begin preparations for what she called "The Big Move".

She'd done her best to make it seem like an exciting adventure, and Erin appreciated her mother's efforts to remain upbeat. But Erin had always been something of a daddy's girl, and she missed her father very much. His departure had been sudden, unannounced, inexplicable. He'd made no attempt to reconnect with the family — he'd just packed his bags and gone, and neither Erin nor her mother knew where to find him. Erin knew that she should probably resent him for forcing her into the role of the new girl this late in her school career, but she was more confused than anything else.

She blinked and looked around. No-one seemed to have noticed her presence, or if they had, they didn't seem to care too much. Perhaps the school got a lot of new kids.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the bus. It was a battered-looking old double decker that had seen better days. She joined the line of figures trudging up to the now-open door and fumbled in her trouser pocket for her purse, which contained the bus pass she'd been given.

"Pass please," said the driver, a kindly-looking bald man with a salt-and-pepper goatee. Erin flashed her pass and he nodded, waving her through into the body of the bus.

She surveyed her surroundings. A few kids were scattered on the ground floor. There were a couple of tiny-looking Year 7s who looked as if they were friends from primary school, desperately sticking together in a hope they wouldn't have to talk to anyone they didn't know. There was a tough-looking kid sitting in the middle of the back seat, legs akimbo and arms resting on the backs of the seats around him. No-one was sitting anywhere near him. Erin made a mental note to give him a wide berth. Back-seat kids were generally trouble, in her experience.

She decided to ascend the stairs to the top deck. The bus gave a lurch as she was halfway up, and she nearly fell, but managed to grab hold of the handrail in time. The experience made her heart pound, and she realised that she was actually quite nervous about this whole experience. If a bus pulling away could feel like something frightening, then clearly she was on edge.

She emerged from the staircase on to the top deck, which was also sparsely populated. The number of kids catching this bus really didn't warrant a double-decker, but Erin guessed that the elderly-looking bus would probably have been retired long ago were it not for the school run.

She looked around. A blonde girl with long, immaculate-looking hair. A bespectacled nerdy type in a puffer jacket. A sour-faced boy in a baseball cap. And a couple of giggling boys looking at something concealed by their bags.

Erin walked through the juddering bus and selected a seat that was out of the way of everyone else. She gazed out of the window as the vehicle passed through the streets of the town she'd had just a few weeks to learn to call home. Past what passed for its high street — a tiny collection of local shops, a Co-Op and a Smiths. Past that new-looking estate with the nice, clean-looking houses. Past that really old church. And into the traffic leading through the school gates.

Erin heard the bus driver growl something downstairs and sound the horn. Evidently someone was getting in the way. It had always been the case at her old school, too — tons of kids were driven to school by their parents, and it made the traffic hell. Erin had been able to walk to her old school, so she always watched the congestion with some amusement. Now she was stuck in it, she could see why people got frustrated.

She heard the "hiss" of the doors opening downstairs, and the driver call out "Everybody off! Might as well get out here, 'cause we're not going anywhere and I ain't making you late!"

The kids on the bus got up and trudged miserably downstairs. Erin waited until they'd all passed before following them and getting off the bus.

This was it, then. Time to be The New Girl.

#oneaday Day 721: We're Gonna Live Forever, We're Gonna Sleep Together

I have a confession to make. I enjoy musicals and, by extension, musical episodes of TV shows.

No, whatever social stereotypes might have you believe, this is not a euphemistic way of coming out as a homosexual. It is simply a statement of a fact: I appreciate musicals, in all their gloriously cheesy, camp glory.

After watching the entire series of Community, I realised that I had enjoyed the various musical numbers that pepper the series on both ironic "haha, musical" and non-ironic "hey, I'm actually genuinely enjoying this" levels simultaneously. Come on, you can't say that this isn't one of the catchiest songs you've ever heard.

I had a similar experience with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, which is, to date, one of my favourite episodes of any TV show, ever. And a YouTube comment just reminded me that it's ten years old. Jesus. Anyway:

And this isn't even getting into South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, which is both a brilliant parody and a genuinely brilliant musical at the same time. Here's my personal highlight from it, clear evidence that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have watched and enjoyed Les Miserables at some point in their lives:

After some consideration of all this, I figured that it was about time I checked out Glee. My only experience of Glee to date has been hearing the songs on the radio and, the first time I heard what they'd done to Journey's Don't Stop Believin', wanting to kill them all, as tends to happen when I hear cover versions that really aren't a patch on the original.

Having watched a few episodes of the show now, though, I get it. Glee's music isn't intended to be listened to in isolation. Its overly-processed, super-cheesy, unconvincingly mimed numbers are meant to be watched as much as listened to, with intricate dance routines, cheesy montages and, in some cases, comically overwrought facial expressions. And when watching one of these numbers, it would take a hard-hearted soul to not crack at least a fragment of a smile.

Why, though?

It'll likely be different for different people, but from my perspective, here's what I've enjoyed so far — about both Glee and musicals in general.

I find them a satisfying experience to watch and to listen to. It's difficult to pin down exactly what I mean by that, but let me attempt to explain. It's to do with a sense of "fullness", or all your senses being bombarded with something that is infused with emotion, however false it might be. In some senses, the exaggerated, stylised nature of musicals means that they're a very "pure" art form — they're light on the subtlety and heavy on the audience cues for how they should be feeling. It's the exact opposite of the sort of movie where everyone mumbles and no-one moves their facial muscles more than the absolute minimum required to form words.

This "fullness" extends to the sound of the music, too. Autotune is, generally speaking, a great evil, particularly when overused, but when used effectively it can add a degree of richness and otherworldly "perfection" to a voice — particularly if said voice is then harmonised to high heaven. If you want to know what I'm talking about and own an iPhone, then go download the free Glee Karaoke app and sing the Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star tutorial song when no-one else is around. Then tell me that hearing yourself harmonised in that beautifully rich, inhumanly perfect manner isn't at least a little bit satisfying. It sounds artificial, sure, but the very nature of musicals is that they should be stylised. It's not just visuals which can be stylised, after all — there's nothing to say you can't make a human voice sound somewhat… well… inhuman.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't me turning my back on "real", "gritty" or "authentic" music. I've always had something of a soft spot for cheesy music, and music from musicals scratches that itch very effectively. Seeing as how Glee combines both cheesy music with one of my favourite "guilty pleasures" in TV and movies — high school drama — I'll be giving the series a bit more of a chance. Coming to it with "beginners' mind" and without the media hysteria that seemed to accompany it when it first burst onto the scene, I feel like I can enjoy it somewhat objectively. It won't appeal to everyone, for sure, but it's certainly providing me with some pleasing entertainment for the immediate future.

#oneaday Day 720: To the Lurkers

As a somewhat belated and not-very-difficult-to-accomplish New Year's resolution, I thought I'd make a specific effort to try and engage a bit more with those who leave comments on here. Being a relatively directionless personal blog, of course, the vast majority of my readership is made up of people that I already know in real life (or quasi-real life, otherwise known as "elsewhere on the Internet"). But in the last year particularly, I've seen quite a few people showing up here who aren't among my immediate group of close friends.

That's not a bad thing! Don't shy away!

Whew. Thought I'd lost you for a minute.

Anyway, to all new readers, I'd like to say a big hello! And to those who have been reading for quite some time, hello! and thanks for reading!

I know there's quite a few people out there who read but never comment, either, so I thought it might be nice to devote this whole post to us just getting to know one another a bit. If you're a lurker and you've never commented on this blog, why not make this the first post you write a message on? If you're a long-time commenter, why not get to know some of the other random people who frequent this site and strike up some friendships between the disparate social circles in which I move, both on and offline.

Of course, this is all a moot point if no-one comments on this post, so I'm hoping that I don't end up looking somewhat foolish by putting this post up only to receive no responses whatsoever. And this isn't a shallow, thinly-veiled attempt to get more comments — well, it sort of is, but that's not the primary point. Many bloggers seem to measure their worth by how many comments they get. Me? I'm just curious as to who out there is reading this, who they are, what they're doing and what brought them here.

So I'll start. I'm Pete. I'm 30 years old. Were my girlfriend writing this, she would have emphasised the word "old" since she is several years my junior. I live in Chippenham, which is a small and unremarkable town in Wiltshire, somewhere in the depths of the West Country of the United Kingdom. I live with my girlfriend Andie in a small two bedroom house which has two very friendly cats named Artie and Chester who live next door and frequently barge their way into our house.

Until the end of last year, I was a writer for GamePro.com, which sadly folded at the end of last year. Currently, I write for Inside Network covering social games and mobile apps, and am looking for a little more work with which to top up the money I'm getting from that. In past lives, I've been a teacher in both primary and secondary schools (swearing "never again" to both), a supply teacher (ditto), a Creative and a Specialist in the Southampton Apple Store, a temp at the Most Depressing Company In The World (a loss adjusters, if you're familiar with the concept), and at university I was a starters chef at a pub and The Man Who Collected Glasses and Cleaned Up Sick at a grotty, "trendy" bar in Southampton city centre.

I went to university in Southampton for four years, the first three of which were spent studying English and Music, a more useless combination of subjects I don't think it's possible to pick when considering future employment prospects. (Kids: ignore anyone who says English is a "good, general degree") The last year was spent doing a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate of Education) — in other words, training to be a teacher.

I got married in October of 2008 but my wife and I split in May of 2010, an experience which was quite possibly the most emotionally agonising, painful thing I've ever been through. I made it out the other side, though, and can accept that mistakes were made on both sides, and have moved on.

I like video games, cats, music (I play the piano, clarinet and saxophone), drawing stickmen, my iPhone, reading, writing, blogging, the Internet, Community, Friends, Spaced and friends with whom I can both talk seriously and make jokes about flatulence. I hate onions, spiders, leeks, The X-Factor, people who won't shut up about platform wars on either console or mobile (seriously! Just use what makes you happy, and stop telling other people they're wrong and/or gay), Facebook Timeline, spam (on the Internet, not the meat), Big Brother, reality TV in general and the sort of teenager who wears tracksuits that look like pyjamas and too much Lynx.

That's me, handily summed up in a few paragraphs. A more comprehensive breakdown of my skills can be found here. Any questions?

So what about you? Who are you? Why are you reading this? Where did you come from? Do you think I'm se– no, wait, that's a different list.