My Life in DDR (no, not the RAM...)

For reference, I am using the original name DDR. In europe, the game became known as Dancing Stage.

To some people, this may not be a surprise but I used to play video games a lot when I was younger. I became a fan of music games when I got introduced to DDR. I was given a dance mat for the PS1 when I was 12 (before DDR came out in europe) as a way of keeping fit (as if that wasn't enough rubbing it in that I was fat when I was a kid). At first, it didn't make sense hitting the arrows and I felt like a prat dancing in a 3x3 square but after a while, it got pretty interesting and as a natural competitive gamer, I was determined to beat every single song. All 11 of them. At the time, completing the last song seemed like a massive achievement especially given how tiring I thought it was.

I stopped playing it after 3 months since there wasn't that many songs. I occasionally bought new mixes but the harder songs I cheated and started to play on pad. It's funny how game developers make things more physical yet gamers always find a way to find it more lazier (see Wii Sports and how to cheat on it :P)

I then stumbled accross the TV segment on CITV. It was quite interesting how people were surprisingly better than me and it made me want to try and get this good! So after a bit of searching on the internet, I came across a website called DDRUK. It was a DDR fansite that had a forum which I began chatting to. I started making friends on there and began meeting up to local events.

At first, I didn't realise how good everyone was then I realised there were much harder songs in the arcades so I was encouraged to learn to play harder songs (in particular, passing a catastrophic song aka a 9 footed song). These took a lot of time to actually pass these songs. Even passing a 9 and 10 footed song was a huge achievement at the time since not that many people in the area could do them.

Eventually, I started getting better and even began playing competitively in tournaments. Mostly for casual knowledge and getting to know people since the standard of skill was near and far. It became easily distinguishable who would win and who would lose.

I started playing the new copies of DDR and dancing stage when they came out and became a lot better at them but a year later, In The Groove (ITG) came out. What I felt was a knock off to DDR. It was mostly in the arcades and while I did play it for a while, I couldn't get into the game even though it was exactly the same gameplay but with different songs. In my opinion, the steps were harder and the songs sounded more awful. I couldn't get into the game both physically and mentally.

I still continued playing Konami's dancing games in the arcade and still had certain achievements to beat such as achieving a perfect score and completing some of the incredibly hard songs. I still played tournaments but the standard was becoming higher and higher and I wasn't getting as good as the rest.

There was a point where I was filmed playing DDR in 2005 as part of a TV show I was in. It was such a niche thing the producers found that they filmed me for national TV. I was even asked to appear on the Paul O Grady show at one point! (True Story! But couldn't do it at the end because I lived too far away)

I qualified for the UK tournament in 2007 (only because all the other entrants in the north east couldn't head there and I was the closest to London) and was knocked out in the first round. It was then I realised I can't play this competitively anymore and decided to play on a more casual basis and concentrate on other things.

I still headed to events after then and meeting up with friends during then. But the DDR scene went to a frigid state about 3 years later. Arcades were closing, regular sites I haunted shut down and people moved on to other games and other things. I still speak to everyone and throughout the whole scene and I made a ton of friends and still stay in touch with everyone. The DDR scene wasn't just about the game but was also about meeting other people that had the same and similar interests as I did. I've always enjoyed the meetups and events I went to and they're experiences that I will never forget :)

BRIT Award Nominations and Bet Making!

The Brit award nominations are out this week and after a few years of realising I've been correct with about 95% of the winners, I reckon I should put a few quid down on each of the winners as well as my own opinions on who is going to win and who deserves to win. The majority of the winners are fan based or what's popular at the moment but occasionally there's a few odd slips that gets through (although they are the good kind of odd slips that bring out groups/bands that are good but no one's heard of)

Incidentally, I don't think these awards give justice to artists except that they won an award that's based on their popularity at the moment. The credibility of the awards was lost to me when I found out about the Mercury Music Awards. Nevertheless, I will use this to my advantage and make a little money out of it.


British Male Solo Artist

Ed Sheeran

James Blake

James Morrison

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

Professor Green

I reckon Ed Sheeran has got this one pretty safe given the list that's up. I respect Noel Gallagher's work and it's a decent album. Professor Green is a little late and probably would've got it last year. The only main contender against Ed is James Morrison since both have been in the limelight for a while.


British Female Solo Artist

Adele

Florence & The Machine

Jessie J

Kate Bush

Laura Marling

Huge respect for Laura Marling for winning it last year. Great albums. But this one is a no-brainer for obvious reasons since Adele is scooping this one. Even the bookies won't let my bet on her because she's that far ahead!


British Breakthrough Act

Anna Calvi

Ed Sheeran

Emeli Sande

Jessie J

The Vaccines



It's a tossup between Ed Sheeran and Jessie J. Ed's already been mentioned above but Jessie J had a fantastic year. She's not going to win best female in my opinion due to Adele and if so, will more likely be winning this instead. Nice to see The Vaccines get a mention though. I saw them live at Glastonbury and were fairly decent.

British Group

Arctic Monkeys

Chase & Status

Coldplay

Elbow

Kasabian

Interesting choices. All 5 are respectable. My money's on Coldplay but it wouldn't surprised me if any of these got them.


British Single

Adele - Someone Like You

Ed Sheeran - The A Team

Example - Changed The Way You Kissed Me

Jessie J Ft B.o.B. - Price Tag

JLS Ft Dev - She Makes Me Wanna

Military Wives/Gareth Malone - Wherever You Are

Olly Murs Ft Rizzle Kicks - Heart Skips A Beat

One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful

Pixie Lott - All About Tonight

The Wanted - Glad You Came

Okay, this one is normally voted by the public with a phone-in vote. This means that the winner will be almost, if not entirely, based on their fanbase. Therefore, from what I constantly see on trending topics (which I am sick of by the way), the winner will be One Direction, probably The Wanted second and probably JLS third.



British Album of the Year

Adele - 21

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto

Ed Sheeran - +

Florence & The Machine - Ceremonials

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake


I feel that PJ Harvey is only there because she won the mercury music award in september so it's unlkely she will win this one. Coldplay have won the award with all of their albums except Viva la Vida, Florence won it before and Adele is basically the one everyone has bought. I reckon Adele is a clear favourite here but I think I can get good odds for Coldplay, I will place some money down.


International Male Solo Artist

Aloe Blacc

Bon Iver

Bruno Mars

David Guetta

Ryan Adams


Bon Iver is great. I still play his first album a lot. Winner will probably be Bruno Mars though.


International Female Solo Artist

Beyonce

Bjork

Feist

Lady Gaga

Rihanna

Tough to split between Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Rihanna. All three have had massive selling singles and it's probably going to be close. Rihanna had that really annoying 'We found loaves in a homeless place' song, Lady Gaga had that Blades of Glory one as well. Money's on Gaga but I don't think I'm that overly confident on it.


International Group

Fleet Foxes

Foo Fighters

Jay Z / Kanye West

Lady Antebellum

Maroon 5

First of all, two rappers collaborated constitute an international group category? How odd. Anyway, Foo Fighters' Wasting Light album was brilliant and is a great listenb but the award is probably going to go to Maroon 5 and their droney generic sound. With that odd one or two hit single.

International Breakthrough Act

Aloe Blacc

Bon Iver

Foster The People

Lana Del Rey

Nicki Minaj


Honestly, I can't stand her but Nicki Minaj is probably the winner here. Even though she has a really annoying singing voice and sounds like a chipmunk being whisked in a blender. Also, why Bon Iver is being nominated as a newcomer baffles me since he's been around well before last year.

3 Month Long Delay

Okay, my blog has been quiet lately. Mostly because I've spent the past few months after my university work doing pretty much nothing and searching for jobs. These few lazy months has also given me very few things to talk/rant about.\

So when I was thinking what to blog about over this 3 month period. And it occured to be while I was in the Jobcentre. Why not talk about unemployed life?

After spending nearly 20 years in education. You're suddenly shipped into the real world of looking for a job. It was quite odd at first being given all this free time to myself now that I'm supposedly qualified to work but in the last 3 months I spent more time trying to complete all my games on my xbox 360 that I never had a chance to finish.

The novelty wears off after a while and you're kind of leaned into finding a job. It's fun walking around your home in your underpants all day. But being given money to laze around on my arse all day didn't feel as pleasant as it may seem after about a month. Especially when you start wondering when was the last time you wore trousers...

So I decide to go to the Jobcentre. Probably one of the grimmest places to go to. Do you know what's worse than not being able to get a job? Someone else trying to find you a job.

For reference, I just graduated from a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. No work experience and looking to get my step on the ladder a Mechanical Design Engineer role. After the first search in the jobsearch engine. The top 4 results were:

Trainee Mechanic - Working as a car mechanic. Requires knowledge of using a wrench.

Senior Engineer - Requires 5-10 years work experience in a Electrical Engineer

Furniture Designer - Job involves woodwork and a creative design in chairs. Requires 3 years experience

Junior Hairdresser - Job involves the washing and cutting of hair. Experience preferred.

You can probably understand my disappointment where the first 4 searches were completely out of where I'm supposed to be working. Although the idea of being a hairdresser did tempt me at first, I looked at my own hair and saw that I had the same hairstyle as the caveman in the magazine I was reading so decided to give it a miss.

Much to my disappointment, I decide to find a job myself online and look at what everyone else can get me.

To be continued...

Apologies for the 3 month wait for a new blog (wait, who am I apologising to? I'm pretty much the only one that reads it!). Hopefully I might think up something more interesting before Xmas.

When you've finished studying.... now what?

It's been a while since my last post. Mostly because I've spent 3 months in social obscurity and writing my dissertation. Now that I've finished, I'm left unemployed, partially bored and having nothing currently set in stone for the future.

This time last year, I was stressing out because I was still looking for work and for something to do after I graduated from Warwick. When you live with your parents and stuck in the house because you have no money, no job and nothing planned ahead, it sort of makes you feel like shit.

This year, not much has changed, I'm still looking for work, I'm living with my parents again but yet I don't feel stressed. I'm keeping myself occupied, I'm enjoying the current time I have free from studying and although I am looking for jobs, not applying for the first thing that comes up.

Yes, I'm aware that the job market is in the dumps at the moment and the so called 'economic crisis' is really shutting everyone down. But as I'm looking for jobs and applying for the dole, I'm not forcing myself to pick up any job that pops up on the advertisement. For one, the first that popped up was a hairdresser and frankly, would just be hypocritical because of my terrible hairstyle :P. But also, I'm aiming for something this time.

So far since I finished my uni courses, I've fixed things, applied for jobs, made videos and writing blogs. And that's all in about a week. Ironically, I've been more productive during this week than the last few weeks of my dissertation!

Festival Failings

Having recently comeback from Glastonbury a few weeks ago (and barely managing to recover). I look back at my first festivals that I went to when I was back in college.

Glasto is my 4th music festival that I've been to. I've been to Leeds 3 times and each time you go, you learn from your mistakes. I see so many festival virgins and regulars going to their first festivals and simply failing not knowing what to bring and how to survive in the wilderness that is the music festival forest!

First and most obvious one is: Clothing and footwear. Always pack for everything. come rain or shine. Literally. Even if your wellies don't match your matching orange shirt or pink hoodie. Most notable fail I saw on the first day at glasto was a girl braving the thick mud with sandals at the entrance! (Little did she know that the mud was bordering 1-2ft deep as you get further in!)

Buy a decent tent! The first year I went to Leeds Festival, my tent door broke on the last day while it was pouring down and my tent got waterlogged. I've also found out how much of a difference double layered tents are to single layered. It's sooo much nicer without all that water and sweat dripping on your head!

Transport. No, not how to travel to the site but how to carry all your booze there! It's all about the big wheels! Get a decent granny trolley. Do NOT bring a suitcase like I've seen. This ain't barbados (unless you replace sun with rain and sandy beaches for muddy fields... and even then I wouldnt bring a suitcase onto a beach!)

Okay, decide to go green this year by taking the train. When you think train vs car, you'd think trains are faster. Not this one. This one was 'low priority' which means it was the cyclists of the railway. You're on the rails but no one gives a shit about you because you're a cyclist and you're just a nuisance. Therefore, our train had to stop and start and let every other train passing come through.

Being on the long train journey, I was having conversations and asked the people next to me if I get searched for drugs or anything. Not that I was carrying anything but they somehow had the idea that I was some sort of heroin dealer :S...

Since Glasto was my first festival that wasn't Leeds, I thought I'd see what the big difference was. In fact, the difference was huge. There's so many things to see and visit. Even after the gigs have finished, there's performances, circuses, drinking, silent discos, I forgot what bands I wanted to see. I don't feel like they're trying to milk all the money i have in my wallet except for when I'm trying to buy food.

The only thing I hated about glastonbury was what I call 'QuickMud'. I'm not an expert in mud (and if I did, I probably wouldn't be a very good one). But there's 3 consistencies of mud: Hard mud that you can walk on, Liquid Mud that you can swim through (or at least still walk on and move your feet) and QuickMud where you get a perfect consistency of not being able to swim through and barely able to walk in. Glasto was the latter. I was better off travelling through hot lava on bare feet than through that guck and people who've played 'Stuck in the mud' before have no idea what it's like being literally stuck!

But yes, besides all that, the field was great, the sights were great, the music was great (even watching Beyonce was sorta great, don't ask why I went to see her instead of Queens of the stone age!)

The Top Shelf...

I've been looking at the top shelf of the magazine shelf at my local supermarket. And before you ask, no, I was not looking for porn! Instead I've been trying to find my regular gadget mags that I normally buy.

Whilst I'm already understanding that lad's magazines such as FHM, Nuts and Zoo probably do need to be on the top shelf. I'm struggling to understand why my usual tech magazines such as Stuff and T3 have had most of their bottom halfs covered.

Back in my teenage years, I used to buy Nuts and Zoo a lot. Back in the time before they became a porn mag. When I first bought it, it was pretty tame. Nowadays, it's ex-Big Brother stars showing their balloons like they have no shame (oh wait, they probably don't). Then I started reading FHM with the same idea since some of the content were more interesting such as fashion tips and the occasional fitness advice (of which, despite all the reading, I have not taken into practice).

But with Stuff and T3. The only 'raunchy' bit I see is the front cover. The rest are consumer electronic reviews and gaming stuff. Granted, some of the photo work in T3 is aiming more at the woman then the electronics in some sort of gratutious fashion but I doubt there someone who's masturbating over the new shiny iPhone (and dear god please get help if you do!) nor do people intend to buy the magazine for the lovely lady shown in the middle of the magazines. They don't mention the model's name and neither do they interview her in a page 3 style manner where they expect their opinion of current affairs.

If you go on the websites I've mentioned, you see little to no sexual content at all. But move into FHM or Maxim, then you see their intentions and marketing straight off.


Now I was under the idea that top-shelf mags are for porno mags or magazines that have sexy ladies that are pretty much close to porno mags. Yet I almost feel ashamed and disgusted if I'm only getting a magazine off the top rack because the moment you reach for that, people around you start staring and think 'Oh dear! I know what that boy's up to in the next hour!' It's actually making me ashamed to be geek!

I see more boobs and cleavage in Heat magazine! You don't see them getting covered up do you?

So the next time someone sees me pick up a mag from the top shelf. Fine, think what you want, but it's not what you think. Yes I like reading geeky magazines and there's no shame in it.

And for anyone else who has to know, porn is on the internet. I do not need a magazine for that!

OMG! I finished all my exams!!.....Now What?

I just finished my last (and possibly last EVER) exam. All I have left is my dissertation to do....

....

....

I'm bored already!!

I've been yearning for all this free time after my exams and now that I have, what do i do?!

I'm currently writing myself a list of things to do during my dissertation work for 3 months.

* Complete Portal 2 co-op

Incidentally,

* Find a Portal 2 partner for co-op

* Make some money by some sort of money-making scheme

* Go to gym more

* Erm.... Find a job?

How NOT to revise!

I don't know why they invent easter holidays. Easter's during the holidays when all the kids 16 and up are spent most of the holidays revising and although having chocolate eggs is a plus, still does not hide that fact that you're spending your holidays 'holidaying'....

I have about 2 weeks before my big exams coming up. It's hard to believe that I've been studying for nearly 20 years now and you'd have thought after 20 years of learning to learn and revise, I'd have got the hang of it now. But I haven't and I spend most of the time procrastinating. I particularly remember my maths A levels resits which mostly involved me doing past papers and writing notes about a week before the exam. To my own surprise, I came out with an A in Maths and B in Further Maths! Unfortunately, as soon as I decide to do engineering, I find out that I'm forced to LEARN things properly to get a good mark which has been hit and miss so far.

So, although I'm not the perfect person to write this, here's a list of things to do to revise for an exam for all those poor students and kids having to face the most gruelling days of their lives:

Find a quiet place - Your bedroom, the library, the basement, a soundproof room, a graveyard, a room full of deaf people. Anywhere where you can get peace and solitude to work.

Treat your studying like you how you would do if you're working - By this I mean work like you're going to work. As in job 'work'. In other words, get this right or you're going to get fired! In fact, you're not gonna get fired, you won't get a job! And therefore you're already fired before you're even hired!

No TV should be turned on - the only exception is if you have an exam on television programmings... though I would love to see a uni course to a study on TV programs and whatnot. Maybe they'd call it something crazy like 'Media Studies'! Ha!

All distractions should be kept out of your room - THis means TV mentioned above, games consoles magazines, porn, your girlfriend in front of you, that pen with that picture of a woman that takes her clothes off when you press the pen down etc... (actually, I don't think i've seen them in a while)

Avoid the Bed The bed is the equivalent of Sienna Miller asking to have urgently have sex with you but you are tied to a chair until you finish this revision... well you get the picture.

Coffee is your friend - Some say coffee is the solution to all of life's problems. Although they will not solve the Bernoulli Equations (a small engineering joke...), it does help you concentrate. I have bad after-effects of coffee when I get comedowns (similar to taking drugs) after a while and just sleep it off... in fact, coffee occasionally helps me sleep at night which is ironic I guess

Facebook is your enemy! - I've written down on my diary to arrange to sue Mark Zuckerberg for all the hours I've lost on Facebook...

And finally

DO NOT START WRITING BLOGS TO PROCRASTINATE!

and that's all, I will leave you with this video :)

Red Rum! Blue Vodka! Black Whisky!

Contrary to what many people think, I rarely go to the bookies. One of the only times I go is to make a small bet on the Grand National. This is the 3rd time I've done this and given the fact that I know as much information about horse racing than I do about brain surgery, I pretty much have to get really lucky to win one.

Upon my third time in betting for the grand national, I realised that I was burning money betting on horses with odds of 50-1 or more. The past two years I put a quid on a two 100-1 horses and they didn't pop up. Now if I put that statistically, assuming that the probability is actually correct (which it probably won't be), then for every 100 goes I place a bet on this, it should pop up once. Figuring that, I realised it wasn't going to happen this year so I'd put my money on safer bets.

(Those of you who do maths should already be aware that this is not actually true... Yes I'm not stupid... most of the time)

Next decision is to choose a horse based on a funny name. Last year I put a few bets on lots of funny names such as Big Fella Thanks, The Package, Made in Taipan, Hello Bud and this pretty unusual one called 'Don't Push It'. Personally, I think the odds are based on how ridiculous the names are. The more ridiculous, the higher odds. This would probably mean that more suckers would put bets on this horse thinking that they have a 'special' chance to win it. Of course it never happens (bar the odd fluke of a time) and bookies rake it in.

Of course, if I ever owned a horse, I would probably put the name down as 'Your Mum'. The joke would be hilarious the first time round. But then you'd eventually get sick of the joke because you'd hear it all the time. You then apply this logic to winning races and therefore 'Your Mum' would be perfect!

Using this approach I look for a name that looked pretty cool and not too ridiculous. Looking at the names this year, some I recognise from last year. Some that I've chosen before and regretted, others that I've chosen before and reaped in my winnings. And then some that just sound to crazy to be true. Even though I won last year with Don't Push It, I'm also aware that no horse has won it twice in a row since Red Rum so I decided not to 'push my luck' on it (see what i did there? :P)

So finally deciding, I put a few quid on Silver by Nature and What a Friend after being tipped by a punter there. His reasoning? He was grey haired and was a Man U fan (What a Friend is part owned by Sir Alex Ferguson). Using this same logic because I too was also grey and red, I went to bet on these as well. Good luck to me!

Taking a quick glance again, I looked at the weirder names on the list and I saw 'Ballabriggs'. What a name! A name so crazy like that would never win a race surely!

And there goes my story of how I didn't win anything on the Grand National.

The Significance of Protesting

Put your placards up, write a sign, speak to the world and try to fight the power!

The past few months have seen a bigger jump in popularity in protesting than Justin Beiber supporters! (actually, that's a bit of a lie, because Justin Beiber's a c***). Tuition fees, cuts, money, pretty much hot topics that have been widely debated for a while. But just how many of these protests were successful and overturned a decision in their favour?

Tuition Fees? Close, but failed. Cuts? Not really. Libya? Well, it's a mess at the moment at least. EDL? Well they just like to batter things up.

Now I'm not saying I'm against protests. I think it's one of the greatest forms of voicing your power and significance towards a government or higher power. But the success rate is so slim that it's either because their minds have been made up or it's too little too late.

And then you have the credibility of a protest(or). I'm pretty sure 99% of a protest group are actually true to their cause. But it takes just that small minority to fuck things up and bring their credibility to that of a small child. All that minority has to do is break a window, start a riot, say a stupid thing. Like many massive groups, it takes one person to fuck it up for everyone. Which is a shame really because that minority is either a little 'over' enthusiastic about a protest or is simply there just to cause trouble and sabotage the whole protest from the beginning (which I'm sure happens).

The tuition fee was just clearly asking for a riot. If you're asking students (which I'm sure 99% are clean cut) to protest. And also being along bunches of 16-17 yr old hooded gangs into the mix, you're going to massively ask for trouble. And unfortunately, the media love things like this and show the dark side of this rather than the rest of the group which are all safe and clean.

The media also like to publish credibility on ONE individual out of a protest and publish how rich this kid is to be complaining about tuition fee rises. Whilst yes, there could possibly be a fact that his parents are well off but it doesn't mean that he can't protest about cuts in fees at all.

(I should mention that I hate newspapers and havent bought or properly read one page to page in about 10 years, and even then all I read was the comic strips!)

Now the last protest I went to was in 2003 against the war in Iraq. Well I say protest, it was just most of the school deciding to stay outside after lunch in the field area. Much as I had no idea how this was going to make an impact, the idea came after the local paper put a rival school on the front page saying all these school kids were doing the same thing as a protest to the war in Iraq.

Now I got to be honest, seriously? The idea to protest a war in Iraq was to stay outside, miss school lessons and basically pull a 'sickie' at school? I'm not sure who actually started this protest but if your idea was to gather the whole school playground into one area and play truant. You managed to get that working alright. Although it actually had no point on the war in Iraq at all. No signs, placards or music. But all the kids went anyway because it's a free excuse to get out and not go to lessons. HUZZAH!

(Yes, I was a tiny 'swot' at school)

Okay, that's enough from me for now. I'm off to protest about why there aren't enough renewable energy power stations by going for lunch. Ho Train Out. :)t

Veggie Week!

Okay, clearly I forgot to write this after announcing that I would go veggie for a week. so here's how I survived the week.

Day 1 - I came to a shock when I realised that my 9am bacon and egg butty wasn't vegetarian! So I had to settle for an egg and hash brown butty instead. Lunch was a Brie and Cranberry baguette and dinner was a margharita pizza.

Day 2 - Standard breakfast of cornflakes (but less bacon in it) and then survived lunch and dinner with chips and a cheesy garlic bread respectively.

Day 3 - Clearly I was cheating this challenge so I decided to cook something myself instead. (I say cook, basically anything that isn't a pizza...) So tried falafel for the first time. Surprisingly nice. It's like the chicken nugget's vegetarian and hotter cousin! Served with greased potatoes...

Dinner saw me try to cook toad in the hole using vegetarian sausages and vegetarian gravy. I cook toad in the hole quite regularly, about once a fortnight and it's always about using the best sausages you can get and a nice, thick gravy and smooth, herby mash. Since I'm using veggie stuff, none of that was possible since the sausages were made of Quorn and I came to remember why I hated Quorn so many years ago. Tasted more like 'Turd' in the hole! (disclaimer: I have NEVER eaten turd before...). The gravy looked more like brown water with a taste like brown water. No matter how much powder I put in, the gravy didn't get any thicker and had about as much taste as a burger completely filled with BLAND!

Day 4 - After an awful dinner, I was feeling the lack of the meat sweats in my walking. Lunch was a halloumi sandwich. Halloumi is chicken's closest brother and I quite liked it.

Dinner was a variation of crispy chili beef (with the beef obviously removed). I tried replacing the beef with tofu. Now I know lots of people hate tofu and it's a vegan thing and it has about as much flavour as eating chalk with a hint of dust on it but it's all about what you cook the tofu in. Cooking involved deep frying the bad boy blocks of tofu and cooking it in a sweet chili sauce. Tasted quite nice and didn't even require any meat!

Day 5 - Friday was Subway Day and to Subway's absolute shock and horror, I didn't order my usual footlong steak and cheese sandwich. So I asked what's in the veggie delite thinking it was some sort of quorn style patty. As it turns out, a veggie delite sub is just a sub with salad in it!! I asked the guy at the counter 'Couldn't you just call it a salad sub instead to save the confusion?' and the guy replies that it's a 'Marketing Ploy'... Like I'm sure you're going to sell a lot more subway sandwichs by renaming bread and salad into something more 'delite'ful!. I'd hate to see how they would rename 'Cheese on Bread'.... Probably something Welsh...

In the night, I got an egg mayonnaise sandwich for tea. Ironically, I like eggs, I like mayonnaise, but I don't like to mix both of these together in a sandwich myself. Yet i'd still eat it...

Day 6 - After a crazy night out while only being able to drink spirits and mixers (some beers contain meat according to my vegetarian friends), I stopped into a vegetarian restaurant in town and went to see what they had. They had everything on the menu except for the obvious... tofu.... (and meat obviously). So I decided to go for a 'Whaletail' Pie and salad. The pie was something like a potato and mushroom tart with cheese on and the salad was filled with everything except lettuce, cucumber or tomatoes! I didn't really like cabbage nor have a thing lentils so i left the salad out.

Night time was a vegetarian frittata. Basically all the leftover eggs and vegetables I had the left.

Day 7 - Sunday Roast! Went for a nut roast. I was always wondering what was in a Nut roast and thought it was lots of nuts crammed into some sort of bready filling. Turns out I was half right. Although it does sound more disappointing that it's simply just stuffing with nuts in it...

Dinner was a vegetarian japanese katsu curry. Basically, fry some vegetables, pour hot water over it. Then add a curry roux (which is sort of like curry on a stick) and it makes a really nice japanese style curry. The main difference with other curries is that it's sweeter and not as spicy

And there we go! 7 days of going veggie. I actually held on for an extra day because I didn't even realise I missed my meat! I probably could've gone a whole month no problem but unfortunately that failed when I decided to eat a marshmallow and realised that's made made from meat. FML

Going Veggie!

I've decided to go Veggie for a week (perhaps longer, I haven't decided yet). I thought it might be in an interesting experiment to try as well as how well it goes as a weightloss plan etc.

The idea came to me after Phil Ivey (google him) had a $2 million dollar bet to go vegetarian for a whole year but gave up and bought out after 3 weeks! I was thinking to myself "what a pussy! how hard can it be?".

The rules are:

* Not allowed to eat anything that moves.
* Gelatine is not allowed, this must be checked on any labels. Therefore, no jellies, marshmallows.
* Certain alcohols need to be checked if they are veggie friendly
* Failure will result in a £30 donation to charity

I'll be divulging the food I've eaten over the week and how I managed to survive in a later blog!

How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

(Apparantly there was some kind of show or comedy with the same name. This is not related to it at all. Although I am interested in finding out about it)

The past few weeks have bee a little quiet and I've spent quite a bit of time on cod (that's Call of Duty. Not the Fish...). It's got a 'Nazi Zombie' mode where you and a group of friends survive waves after waves of zombies coming in to pick at your brains.

First thing that came to me was 'Why Nazis?' Are we meant to feel less bad that they used to kill us and now that they're zombies trying to eat us? Or are we meant to be more scared at the fact that they're Nazis and they're Zombies at the same time?! OMG! Two of the scariest things have combined into making a Scary and Terrifying Doom! (also known as an STD)

But anyway, it's addictive and I've played it quite far in. At one point I played it so for so long that after switching the game off, every small sound kept sounding vaguely like a zombie groaning and coming to get me! This kept causing me to self-react and arm myself with the nearest weapon I could find just in case... You'd be amazed how useful it is when you instantly turn round carrying a ladle to hit someone with.

Taking some time off, I thought about what would I need to survive if someone accidentally drops a t-virus to where I am and somehow I'm the only one that survived. Obviously, there's been some inspiration from Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead etc. So here's the list:

Spot the Signs - There are numerous signs that you/they might be a zombie. Notice the following points:

* Inability to talk straight
* Cannot Walk properly
* Has a tendancy to eat your brains
* Pale looking

Keep an eye out for these and you should be able to prepare for any zombie attack

Always aim for the head! - Most zombie games seem follow the same rule. If they still move after their head comes off. Proceed to step 2:

Shoot the Legs If they can't move, they can't get you. Of course they can crawl. But it's not like you're gonna get outrun by them.

Avoid corners, walls, and windows, Especially if they break easily - I think I've pretty much seen every zombie movie that attempts to grab you from behind through a window of some sort. If you seen it done once, obvious move, don't do it again.

Do not attempt to 'save' a zombie - They're dead. Even if they were your sibling/spouse/friend/hooker, just shoot them already. Don't hesitate.

Any form of thick, sharp, heavy and/or blunt object is classified as a decent zombie weapon - If it's enough to knock out a normal person, it's good against a zombie.

If you have an opportunity to get shit loads of ammo and/or guns, TAKE IT! - What I don't get about Resident Evil is that you know you're going up against hundreds, nay, thousands of zombies, and their preparation for this is to bring a crappy pistol and decide to randomly find ammo if they pick it up. First of all, that's stealing, and second, who the hell leaves live grenades lying about in their cupboards?!

Erm... That's all I can think of for now. So sleep tight and stay prepared. Remember, If they start eating brains, Be Afraid!

The Evil Lair of Online Dating!

Despite hating the concept, idea and everything about online dating. I thought to myself I'm not allowed to berate it without actually rating it first. So for the sake of humour in my blogs (no really!), I decided to set up a fake account, put a picture of Leon Lai in my front picture (erm... look him up on google for those who don't know who is) and start exploring one of those websites. I should also note that I did not pay a single penny to use the whole site because donating to a site like this that I won't use is the same as Posh Spice paying to get herself a gastric bypass!

First, input your details. Seems fair enough, you put your name, your whereabouts, your looks and then it comes on to 'Body Shape'. Originally expecting it to be apple, pear or orange shape, instead the 3 options were 'Slim', 'Curvy', or 'Cuddly'.... which all I can guess are slang terms for 'Relatively Normal', 'Admits that he/she is fat' and 'Morbidly Obese'.

Having clicked on 'Slim' (again, this is Leon Lai, not me) and put in my personality (my own), I went in to the dating world with a mask covering my face. And oh dear... My first impressions where as expected, desperate people desperately looking for someone! On a scale of 1 to 10, the standard ranged from 6 to -6!. While I was looking in my local area, I noticed that there were people I recognised as well. (I won't mention who to save their privacy) and all I can say is there's no surprise here!

Some of the profile pics and their age showed that either there's clearly been some sort of age-reducing skin lotion I haven't heard about yet or some people have been lying on their pictures and profiles...Some of them are clearly exaggerating and some are trying to hard such as posing in a bikini....some of them less...which made me want to throw up...and almost succeeded.

The website had a personality match finding service where it compares my personality to other people by a percentage and matches it by the highest number. So far my best match has not been higher than 65%. I can understand that trying trying to match a person who has nothing better to do than write blogs and try to make jokes about online dating websites can be difficult. But then I tried altering my personality details to make it look like I'm a racist who is on the sex offenders register and an anti-semite. Oddly enough, I started getting matches of over 70-80%!

I can't help thinking every profile I look at has a 'problem' with it. If you're on that website, there's gotta be something wrong with you. So I clicked on this profile but for the sake of this purpose, let's call her 'Hannah'. Now 'Hannah' has a fairly decent, self-taken pic of her face and she matches some of my personality. Her ideal man is a 6ft, tall, dark and handsome fellow who will whisk her off into the sunset. Okay, she doesn't like everything that I like, for example, she likes Sex and the City. I just like the first bit.

Looking through, all seems fine until I see her height. She's 5ft. Instantly clicked away. The thought of a person who is a whole, footlong, subway sandwich between me and her made me think that I could place 12 stacks of 1 inch thick books on her head and she still might not be as tall as me! But that wasn't the only problem. Her other photos showed her and her massive obsession with ponies...NEXT!

After a few days, I noticed my profile had been getting quite a few views and they were clearly interested in my personality ;). Some of them have even 'liked' my profile. Something I thought I'm grateful of and thought I'd return the favour. Unfortunately I cannot show you what I saw for privacy reasons and the best way to describe it is to write what I said in my head:

"OH MY GOD!!!!! She looks like she's been beaten with Adrian Chile's face and put her nose in a deep fat frier! She's got more wrinkles than my grandma! That e-mail said she was 22 but she looks closer to being a mummy! An actual Egyptian mummy! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"

Regrettably, I sent an e-mail back to her saying 'Sorry I've been taken' to put her down safely (the social equivalent of saying 'It's not you, it's me' in a break-up).

Okay, I'm being a little harsh on this. It's sort of understandable that if you can't find love out in the real word, you're sort of forced to look through other mediums and I get it. There probably is a match for everyone and he/she might be on that particular website. Ideally, not hiding their faces like I did.

A week later, I decided to close the account and never access it again. For the sake of not receiving any more dodgy messages and for the sake of my eyes to never see some of the awful things I've seen there again! (I was better off making my eyes watch 2 Girls 1 Cup again!)

Blog is complete and I will now try to scrub my eyes out!

First Blog of the Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to 2011! This year is all about the ones and I'm hoping it'll be an absolute hoot!

Now that it's the New year, everyone's probably recovering from their hangovers and crazy nights during New Year's Eve. And while everyone (including me) is doing that, now is probably a better time than never to start writing some New Years resolutions!

I made a resolution years ago to stop making resolutions because I never kept them and broke them faster than a can of lager disappearing in an alcoholics anonymous meeting! Obviously, writing this blog means I have broken this resolution meaning my tradition of breaking resolutions will continue to happen.

So here is my list of resolutions that I will (try) to keep during 2011:

Go to the Gym more: - Actually, I think I do this every year and the only thing getting lighter is my wallet! (Please see one of my previous blogs about the gym). A better resolution would be to go to the gym at more convenient times as I have a tendancy to go workout when I have lectures on or when I'm meant to be somewhere...

Be Less of a Cunt - Sometimes I can be an arse and I've probably offended more people than Nick Griffin at times just from the accidental blurts of lunacy that comes out of my mouth. In 2010, I may have unintentionally offended women, the jewish, gingers, germans and all of the above. For 2011, I will try to either offend less people or diversify my offensiveness so at least I'm an arse to everyone rather than certain criterias...

Talk Less about Poker - I have a feeling people seem to be assuming that I'm a gambling addict with nothing else to talk about but gambling. I should point out to everyone that I do have a life and the fact that poker seems to be the most significant points that stand out in my facebook statuses (amongst my other rants on life, the universe and everything) means that I should write less or at least make them less interesting otherwise they wouldn't be making such a fuss...

Get a girlfriend - Actually, fuck that, too much hassle, I'll just find a prossie instead!*

Get a First in my Degree - Now this is a bit of a long shot but at least I have something to work towards I guess.

Enter a big poker tournament Through satelite only... and on that note:

Win a WSOP bracelet, PCA, GUKPT, EPT, or any poker tournament worth £500 or more... or basically:

Make a shit load of money - that seems to work then

And finally,

Drink More - Preferably water.


Right, that's the first blog of 2011 done. Happy new year and good luck on any of your resolutions!

*Please Note I am not interested in looking for a girlfriend at time of writing NOR am I looking for a prostitute....

How to be a Bad Guy

If you're gonna be a bad guy in a video game, a movie or in a TV show, You're expected to be defeated eventually by the protagonist. While that is expected, I question how terrible some bad guys are so bad at being antagonists.

Bowser is a clear example of a terrible antagonist. I don't mean that he doesn't make a good rival. I mean he has these ridiculous plans to capture Princess Peach so that she can make him some 'cake' (which I swear is a euphemism for something dirty...). The guy is like 20 times bigger than Mario and yet Mario can still swing his tail around and throw him into a bunch of bombs in the field. Also, if Goombas and Koopas die by someone jumping on their heads, get them all to wear helmets!

And while on that, if you're going to take on someone where you have a massive advantage, don't give him an opportunity to let him beat you! In other words, if you have a specific weak point, cover it up! What clearly springs to mind is Star Wars: A New Hope where the death star blows up after a single plane flies in and shoots a missile into a hole and the whole thing blows up.... if that was a building in real life, the architect would've been hung, drawn and quartered for such a stupid error. (or in this case, Darth Vader would've probably been sacked.... but that just wouldn't make sense and would make the other 2 films obsolete...)

There are so many problems with bad guys. Including why bad guys always hire so many terrible minions. If they all keep getting beaten up by 1 person... You know something is amiss there. In fact, I reckon you've been hiring them from the wrong jobcentre and would probably consider looking for a new recruitment agency!

Also, when you have a list of demands, please make some sense, I'm pretty sure I've seen this in a lot of action films where 'If you don't give me £100 Million within the next 2 hours, I will blow up the earth!'. Because I'm sure blowing the earth will make them change their minds...

Another example is Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know where he got his doctorate from but if you can't build a machine that can catch 1 hedgehog, then I begin to question where he got his Doctorate from... (most likely from University of Teesside. OH SNAP!)

*only jk to any person studying a Teesside uni, I'm only teasing :P

Voldemort's plan was to kill Harry Potter. You have a massive army of death eaters, you can control almost any wizard in the world and you are the most deadly wizard known to man...yet you couldn't kill Harry Potter with any of your spells... below is a list of possible items and solution that could kill him if you can't kill him with a spell:

* A Gun
* A Knife
* A frozen ice pick
* Poison
* An inch of water
* A machine gun
* A sharp object that could pierce human skin
* A rottweiler
* A knife disguised as a dildo
* A gun shaped like a banana
* Acid
* Throwing him into a pool of piranhas
* Throwing him into a pit of lava
* Disguising yourself as Dumbledore and killing him in his sleep
* Disguising yourself as anyone but yourself and killing him in his sleep
* Have I mentioned guns and knives yet?

etc. etc. etc.

To conclude, bad guys really need to shape up if they actually want to succeed in taking over the world/becoming rich/killing his or her arch rival/become a megalomaniac. By all means become evil and all but seriously have some common sense and you may actually get somewhere one day....

Would you really wish for Xmas to be every day?

Wizzard once sang the song 'Oh I wish it could be Xmas Every Day'. It was released back in 1973. Clearly at the time, Wizzard did not consider the massive drawbacks. Much as everyone loves Christmas, the point of it is that it comes once a year. Here is the list of the flaws in the song.

Constant Snowing! - This week's weather has been 'chaotic, and a catastrophic nightmare' as the news have been claiming it as. I enjoy making snow angels, throwing snowballs at annoying kids and building snowmen and then holding a funeral for it once it has melted. I don't think I'd enjoy doing that 365 days a year... Plus snow begins to piss everyone off once you realise you can't get the car out a week after the snow's started.

Santa would be working his fat arse off! - By that I mean Santa would actually have to work everyday! And in fairness, the lazy bugger only works one day a year so making him work over 300 times wouldn't work for him. This would also mean he would use more elves, slave labour, outsourcing to India, basically making a business.

The whole world will be constantly drunk and fat! - Lots of food + Lots of wine = Lots of food and wine.

The X Factor would go out of business! by the 10th series, you know they'll just pick any randomer off the street and make them release a single :P... (Oh hang on, they've been doing that since the 1st series! OH SNAP!)

And finally, Brussel Sprouts will be the world's most popular vegetable! although I still don't get why everyone hates sprouts so much. They're like mini cabbages! Maybe people just don't know how to cook them right...


On this note, I was doing a little research on Christmas everyday. And I came across this man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Park_(Mr._Christmas)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088872/Man-celebrates-Christmas-day-scaling-celebrations-credit-crunch.html

This man has celebrated Christmas everyday since 1994. Everyday he has eaten turkey dinners and watched the Queen's speech over and over again.

"People do think I'm crackers [well you got that bit right!], but I enjoy treating myself and I'm the only one in the world who does it [And there's a reason for that!]."

Just one question popped up when I read this. "When did she leave you?!"

This is (Probably) the best blog about slogans in the world!

This is (Probably) the best blog about slogans. In the world!

It's surprising how advertising affects the world and many of us don't realise. It's one of the fundamentals of marketing and advertising, get a slogan stuck in their heads so that you get their money (err... I'm not a marketing expert so don't question me on that)

But some slogans are too ridiculous when they are taken literally or from a different perspective. Here are a few of them and my thoughts on them.

Good things comes to those who wait - from the Guinness Adverts. Now I can be a patient man and as an example, if I am waiting for England to win the World Cup (and I'm probably going to be waiting a while), It won't be a good thing when they win the world cup. It'll be me shouting to them 'IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!'. Now that surely isn't a good thing.

Also, waiting for food at a restaurant that are running late is not a good thing. If I am waiting for a pizza at Pizza Hut and finding out that it took me an hour to get the food out, it's not necessarily a good thing and I can assume that it would've been better if it came early. Simple logic.

Fills you with Volcanicity - Volvic. Considering volcanos can be filled with lava that's over 1000 degrees, I don't think I want something that's gonna burn my insides :S

Have it Your Way . Burger King. I once asked a Burger King if I could have a Big Mac because I wanted it that way. Needless to say, I got kicked out.

Flash Kills 99.9% of Bacteria Surely they could've just rounded it up to 100 for advertising purposes.

'He who thinks Australian, Drinks Australian'. Fosters. The big irony here is that Fosters is brewed in the UK! Plus it's awful to drink.

'The longer you wait, the harder it gets' Tagline from the 40-Year Old Virgin. Sounds like a side effect of viagra. But apparantly, getting harder must be a 'good thing' since we've waited for so long. Although it is partially true for hardening cement, making ice, trying to down a irish car bomb (consisting of Guinness, whisky and Baileys) but that's another story)


Any other slogans that need to be criticised? Post them here :)

Plinky Plonky Plastic! Rock Band 3 is out!

I used to love games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution (I've even played competitively at DDR for a short period of my life!...okay, well long period!) and I still do enjoy them in some aspects. But the fact that I am an expert at guitar hero and can complete a DDR song that goes 300BPM doesn't mean that I am a break-dancing, van halen imitating guitar genius no matter how long I try attempting to complete 'Jordan' (look it up on youtube).

Having said that, I am learning guitar and whilst I can't say I'm a secret Tom Morello in disguise (again, look it up on youtube if you haven't heard of him). I can play basic stuff on guitar and still learning. However on guitar hero, I am the equivalent of Tom Morello in Lego form with the ability to only move my arms up and down and only able to play guitar it can fit into my U-shaped hands!

I am well aware that being good at Guitar Hero doesn't make me a good guitarist. If video games do improve your life skills, then I'd have an amazing ability to pick up coins, eat mushrooms to grow and jump on turtle shells so I can ride on top of them!

When I first played Guitar Hero well over 5 years ago, I found it so easy since I played DDR nearly 10 years ago and the logic of hitting buttons with your feet as they approach a line is applied in exactly the same way except your feet are replaced with your hands instead. It was so easy that I jumped straight into Hard mode. no shit. I completed Hard and Expert all within a week. I don't think I've really played a Guitar Hero game for any longer than a week without completing everything.

Guitar Hero 2? Completed Expert in 10 days (but 3 days consisted of completing Freebird).

Guitar Hero 3? 5 Days (although it took a further 2 weeks and a few days recovery from RSI attempting to complete Through the Fires and Flames)

World Tour? A weekend! Guitar Hero 5? Rock Band? well you get my point. By the time I played Guitar Hero 5, I was so bored that I began learning to play with my left hand (This logic does apply to masturbation in some sort of disgusting way. Get bored of your right hand? Try your Left one instead!)

However, this all changes now that Rock Band 3 has come out. No more can people mock you by shouting 'Learn a Real Instrument!' while you get 5* on freebird. No more will I ever complain that these games are too easy. This is cos Rock Band 3 has just come out and it's now got Pro Mode!

Those of you who aren't aware, Pro mode is a 102 button guitar mode that actually teaches you how to play the real song in the game! I can imagine this is Harmonix's way of saying 'Fuck You!' to Chad Kroeger and Axl Rose who said kids should be learning real instruments. This mode is one step closer.

Also new is the new keyboard mode. You get 2 octaves and you apparantly play the [almost] exact notes that the real instrument plays. Although I do enjoy games that are benficial to life, keyboard mode isn't. Considering that songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody require a whole length of a keyboard and hand switching, I'm wondering how well they've translated it into 2 octaves. A game called KeyboardMania tried making a keyboard rhythm game before and that was ridiculously hard! (And I'm a grade 8 pianist!) Simply for the fact that sight reading on the fly by rolling 30 odd notes down is incredibly difficult to play out. I'm up for trying this keyboard mode out but I ain't hoping for much.

Much to my enjoyment of finding a new challenge to a stale genre, I'm questioning how long is it gonna take for me to complete 'Free Bird' with the real instrument. I'm gonna challenge myself to learn and complete FreeBird within 4 months of getting the game. As soon as I get the game, I'm gonna start (Free)Bird Watch with Will Ho!

First blog of November done. It's nice to get typing again :)

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Apparantly, I am never happy, and just to prove I'm not always depressed about everything. Everything in this blog will all be about happy stuff.

...

Chelsea lost yesterday. :)