My Mildly Mad, Maybe Mundane, Monday Music... Review

M⁷R: Intro

Intro? you say. To what? you say. Well honestly that is currently something i'm asking myself atm. This is just one of my several "oo that would be a good idea" ideas and that was definitely how i felt yesterday and today... well i thought to myself is it really such a good idea, but since you're reading this you know that i have just gone for it, and thrown caution to the wind. Also i do have another similar thing to this hopefully coming later this week, but i will have to see how i feel then.

So back to this thing, well to summarize it in a couple of sentences: After making a comment to my friend Emma, about how i seem to listen to a different artist each week, i've set myself the challenge of listening to a different album each week (enforcing that statement) and i thought hey why not write about this in some sort of blog review thing. So that's it basically, a music review although saying that i'm not one to have strong opinions on music and tend to listen to a wide range so the reviews will vary from genre to genre and will mostly be not very critical or in anyway probably helpful. 

Just a few points i've come up with to help with this task is a general template, which knowing me will change constantly (hopefully for the better), this will involve: a top 3 list of my 3 favourite songs on the album and a list of my skippable songs i.e. songs that i'd prefer to skip than listen to; and probably the way i found the music most enjoyable, as i spend much of my day listening to music, whether that be driving, revising, reading, eating crisps or just listening to the music. 

So i think that's mostly all i wanted to say, the first proper M⁷R will be next monday and should hopefully be run weekly, however if i can't make it to a computer i might have to post a few weeks at a time. Finally i would love to hear some input, whether that'd be album suggestions (new and old, i'm listening to them all, but i'm trying to find less well known ones), new ideas for the blog in general or M⁷R specifically (constructive criticism only please, and maybe even some positive comments who knows). Now this is where i would like to introduce you to my new fancy blog email... *trumpet fanfare* venividiblogavi@live.com this would be the ideal place to send your comments or you know just comment below either is fine, just one's not public.

 So that is that, i think. If you think i've forgotten anything just say, and if i remember anything i've forgotten i will post it in the next M⁷R. Apart from that regular VVB will continue, this will just run alongside. See you next monday for the first exciting (hopefully) M⁷R installment.

My Greek Summer

Now i would like to say that the title of this post comes from my recent discover of a  frankly excellent Greek flatbread recipe, opening up a whole new food stream for me to try over summer, also just a nice snack for those long summer days. However that is not the reason for the title at all. It seems that in my attempts to pack my summer with awesomeness, i might have sort of run out of money. Thrusting me back into super frugal mode after a few months of lavish (well definitely lavish for me, so actually probably not that lavish really) spending, having found myself with a few extra pounds in my pocket.

I'm sure though that all my money hasn't gone into sorting out summer, it can't have, can it? I just have this niggling feeling that somewhere large amounts of money have slipped through; i sort of wished i had some sort of accounts or something to help me get rid of the feeling, by letting me look back and go "well that's where it all went", although it wouldn't help the lack of cash thinking about it. Right now all i can do is attempt to think back and remember what I've spent in the last few months and for me that's a very difficult task. I mean what did i spend last week, i just don't know. A prime example of this was last month when i bought some clothes and then for the next few days sat wondering where £30 had disappeared to, even when wearing said clothes i couldn't remember.

So that's part of the spending mystery sorted, and i deem it was a necessary expense as part of uni prep. I mean i can't go to uni with only one nerdy t shirt, i need at least 6 and coincidentally i now own 6! Then there's trousers which aren't jeans, because weirdly i didn't own a pair before, all i had were loads of pairs of jeans. Lastly but definitely not least on the clothes front is my blazers, of which the number i own has doubled now thanks to a sale. Then there were blue suede shoes, shorts and some sunglasses as well, so really i reckon i can put a large amount down to clothes.

However i think i know where the smaller change has gone, and when i say smaller change i mean lots of small change so it probably adds up to a sizable sum actually. That has most likely gone to the worldwide establishment which is McDonald's. And no i don't have meals from McDonald's regularly, although in the past few months I've had about 3 meals from there, the real problem is the late night trips for McFlurrys. These trips have become a little tradition with my friends and honestly i think that buying a McFlurry nearly every week was a worthwhile expense as there's been some good McFlurry moments... that sounds like it could become some sort of mini-series or something... hmmmm maybe.

Then on top of that i have already booked 4 holidays this summer, and that has come to quite a summation and frankly if i cared to total the cost of them i'm not sure i would be comfortable with the amount spent, especially since that's just the core cost, there's still the actually spending on the holidays to come, and i don't mean gifts and such i mean food and petrol, so not exactly avoidable costs. As always i try to find the positive, and what i can say is that this summer is going to be pretty fun, apart from the boring bits between going away... maybe i need more holidays... no can't afford them, damn.

So i think that probably accounts for my lost money actually. Not that thinking about what I've spent money on in the past will help me in the future where i will be scraping the barrel at some points, i guess i can always just forgo on food, that's much less important than blazers. The old frugal Sean will have to return i guess for summer, and i do like frugal Sean, but cutting back on McFlurrys and nerdy shirts could be a real difficulty. On the positive side though, i am going to uni soon and the frugal prep work might put me in good stead for then, i suppose.

Actually the title is probably a bit wrong in the end. Although my finances are not looking great, at least i have no debt, well apart from to parents... and friends, ok not that much debt. Also i know i can cut back on spending without fear of strikes or protests, unless i turn on myself... maybe there could be tension actually then, i don't trust that Sean character... sorry got a bit sidetracked, what i was saying was unlike the Greek crisis i can see a clear route out. Even if i have to cut back and scrimp my way through summer, at least it'll be an enjoyable and sunny few months of my life... actually maybe scrap the sunny part.

Mmmmm flatbread: 

http://jamieshomecookingskills.com/recipe.php?title=easy-flatbreads

The Great Metaphorical Sandwich

Yesterday i embarked upon the challenge to create my ultimate sandwich, a quest everyone should really consider doing. And it's harder than i first thought, there's so many different flavours that i would have loved to include into it, some have been long lasting favourites, others recent discoveries that have been in perfect harmony with my ever-changing pallet. Some flavours bring back memories that are more enthralling than the flavours themselves, whilst others are simply utterly delectable. But as ever the keys to any good sandwich, or other food, are simplicity and harmonic flavours; meaning that only a few ingredients could make a way into it.

A more important event occurred today though, making all this deliberation pale into insignificance. Today was my last ever school day, from now on i will never have another lesson or school lunch, no more teachers or form time chats. Yes similar things will replace them next year with lectures, lecturers and corridor talks; but it won't be the same. It's a bit unnerving thinking about it, that for the majority of my life i have been at school, and with more than half being spent at my current school, and so that means it's all i've ever known, and now that's all over.

So that gave me the idea for this post, maybe this two unconnected events could somehow be linked, might i be able to write down the hidden meaningful connection (something Dirk Gently would no doubt thrive in doing). However, whilst this sounds all fine and well, alas i cannot do such a thing, as far as i can see there is no connection or meaningful metaphors to draw between the two. So this is a challenge really, if you can think of any, then i will include them into this post at a later date, and unusually i will give you credit for it! Now you might think that considering i've given up on coming up with my own material, this post would end here... of course not i will endeavor to plough on nevertheless, and just hope that somehow along the way i'll stumble upon it all, and have a sudden abrupt enlightenment. So here goes...

First and foremost to any sandwich is the base, the bread. Sub it would have to be, no question about that, and as for type, why good old white bread of course, perhaps a link to what i consider a normal childhood. I say "what i consider" as i have only lived one childhood and so to me it was normal, however to you it may not. I grew up in the place i was born, Macclesfield and went to nursery, reception, and year 1 at a local school St.Brides. It was here that i met my friend who has been such for about 14 years now. What about toppings on the bread? That was easy aswell. Everytime i have a subway, i always go for the Italian herbs and cheese, and now was not the time to change that.

So step one was sorted, that was the easy part. Next what meat to go for? Bacon? No that was too normal for me. The meat would definitely have to reflect upon my second school (disclaimer: this was not an actually factor in deciding the meat) Well not my second school directly, but more of the time i spent in California, which i like to include in my life at all possible opportunities by embracing Americanisms, something which i have been ragged about considering i only lived there for a year and a half. So it had to be bbq what other flavour best describes America, and it just had to be minced beef, creating what is also known as a sloppy joe.

There was a key problem to this though. No minced beef in the freezer, well i had to settle for pork in the end, which in the end turned out awesome. And neatly this brings me to the King's, the place where for the past 10 years i have roamed the corridors (ok maybe roamed doesn't accurately portray it, but it sounds good)(oh and that's been at 2 separate sites, so the corridors haven't been consistent the whole time). You see for various reasons California didn't work out for my family, so we ended up back in Macclesfield (don't ask me why i came back to Macc, i seriously don't know)(disclaimer: the author doesn't have negative views on Macclesfield)

 However the whole metaphor thing falls down completely from now on (if it ever worked in the first place, 'twas worth a try though). In case you were wondering to finish off the sandwich i slathered it with coleslaw and threw on a bit of salad, there is a picture below in case you want to try and recreate the majesty of it. So  now the whole sandwich malarkey is out of the way, i can focus on the main event in my life.

I've watched many leaving scenes from tv shows, all of them strikingly emotional in their own unique way. However this has never really been replicated in my own life, having experienced a few farewells, they're always understated quiet affairs and i suppose before today that is mainly down to the fact that i was staying the same school, so most of the people around me were infact not going anywhere. But today would be different right? I mean this time i'm the only one going to Durham, so potentially this is actually farewell for good.

However after saying all that this is not actually the case, first we have leaver's morning, then exams, then leaver's ball and then results day, and maybe this explains the fact that for me this was yet again and understated affair. Surely nostalgia would play a part, i mean despite the fact that i might see people again, surely it being my final day ever of school would play some sort of part. I think this was the case for a lot of people seeing their responses to this occasion, but yet again for me... nothing.

Maybe it's not the occasions fault, maybe it's me then. I don't really know, i kid that i've got to the point where i'm happy enough to move, having been there for so long, but i'm not sure this is actually the case; i feel like if that were true, then i've been happy to move on throughout the entire time spent there, because that feeling hasn't changed. This would of course suggest that i never felt any attachment to the place or people, but is definitely not the case. So it's truly a mystery to me really, any psychologists out there feel free to try and explain it.

In case you were wondering (although i highly doubt it) my favourite leaving scene (probably because i've watched it the most) is JD's from Scrubs, and whenever i watch it i'm touched by not only his reminiscing of the past, but also his vision of the future. And yet here i am with neither one, don't get me wrong i'm leaving with some great memories but it doesn't feel the same, and as for the future who knows what will happen.

So sorry for rambling on about all that but i thought it was worth sharing, and indeed if you feel similarly underwhelmed by farewells please comment below. As for where i go from here, i'm going into the next 4 years blind and with little plans, so who knows where i'll be in a year; however, one thing i do know is that i will be having another one of those sandwiches.

The Pen-Ultimate Decision

So with exams around the corner and university beckoning (if all goes well), i've finally decided to embark upon the arduous journey of buying a proper pen. You know one which you refill instead of chucking away and moving onto the next free promotional pen. It time i made the next step into adulthood with the purchase of my very own pen. Now although this sounds like a simple and easy process, it is not for me, for whatever reason, i frankly don't know what the reason could be, but trust me there is one.

A little side-fact about my pen consumption up till now (and i hinted at it earlier) is that i've only ever bought about 5 pens in my 18 years on this planet, all the others have been acquired using various methods (legal methods i might add). My whole of high school was spent fluctuating between various (and probably quite impressively numerous) free promotional pens, and the ones from hotels (which are totally ok to take, just watch friends). For example looking around my desk atm, bearing in mind most of my stationary resides in various locations around my room which aren't my desk, here are the pens i have: P&O ; U.W.E. ; Edinburgh Castle (which i never nor has any in my family bought) ; The Lake District (same situation as the Edinburgh Castle) ; Holiday Inn ; H.R.M.C. ; Alton Towers ; the obligatory university pens ; and a lot more lurking under the definitely useful junk on my desk.

Once upon a time i used a fountain pen, which was one of the pens i've ever bought, although i did have 4 fountain pens at one point, only one i bought. Which leads me one to problemo uno, what type of pen do i want? Rollerball, fountain or ballpoint? Now having been forced to use fountain pens during my youth, they are a no goer, especially since although i can write cursive it is illegible, and thus fountain pens were ruled out very quickly.

Then there were 2... and tbh i didn't have any idea what a rollerball was since i have never used one before and so ball point was the choice. However it isn't now, ever since i found (yet another free) rollerball pen from L.A. International, and have been using it for some time now, and it is brilliant. So that was that rollerball was the choice. This was cemented at the discovery of green ink refills for rollerballs, as well as many other colours; that means my notebooks won't be filled with dreary black inked notes, but awesome coloured doodles!

Then there was just the frankly simple choice of choosing an actual pen left. How on earth can there be so many different styles of pen, and i don't mean across the whole pen choice, i mean just Lamy and Parker i'm looking at and my eyes have been swamped by so so many different styles and colours. But after some time was spent scrolling down the pics and picking out a few, then unpicking a few because of price (£50 for a pen anyone?), i've finally made the Pen-Ultimate decision (just thought i'd make a title reference, since i love title references) and it should hopefully arrive in time for my exams, as i don't think examiners will react kindly to answers in pencil (something i've resorted to lately, since my good pens have run out).

Now if you have a pen story of your own feel free to tell it me, but i can promise i won't be listening, and if you've read through this whole post and enjoyed it, maybe you're a bit weird. It's a post about pens for goodness sake, i've only written it because i'm bored waiting for the FA Cup to kick off. I mean what else could i be doing with my time...
*"revision"*
 hey shut up conscious, i said i don't have anything else to do.

Revision, Revision.... Pokemon!

So it's that time of year again, but this year it has a greater precedent as how well i do in the next few months will determine where i will spend the next 4 years of my life studying. Quite daunting thought and you would think that would put me into the right mind for some solid studying over the Easter holidays, indeed that is what i thought just two weeks ago. Oh how long ago does that seem now, because unfortunately even with best intentions in my mind, yet again as many-a-time before it has occurred, something (or as it normally turns out things) have shown a way out of the unpleasant task of having to face the fact that i need to get some work done. And yet again this task of potentially ruining my education has fallen to the ever-brilliant Pokemon.

Ok yes i know i'm 18 but who cares Pokemon is still as awesome as it always has been especially now i've managed to get it on my netbook, enabling Dratini to potentially be best ever starter Pokemon. Now for those of you who have never played Pokemon and are wondering what on earth i'm chatting about, there's one simple solution: get the game, you will not be disappointed (although like Star Wars stick to the original). Of course i've been off for a week now, so surely i can't have spent all that time playing Pokemon, could i?

Actually this time, surprisingly, that is correct. I haven't spent all that time playing Pokemon, i mean i'm not playing it now in fact... otherwise i wouldn't be able to focus on typing but instead be writing something along the line of: "Damn you and your hyper potion" (i mean seriously why do the gym leaders always use hyper potion, it's sooo annoying) or "Enjoy your bath" (as i use surf) or indeed other puns/ awesome Horatio Cane style phrases, i might get my sunglasses out to add to the effect whilst staring into the distance walking in some dramatic style (i have to admit that Horatio's phrases were the only reason i watched CSI: Miami, and i suspect this might be true for others as well.)

And just in case you're wondering, no i didn't spend the holiday watching CSI: Miami. I wouldn't waste studying time to watch some TV show. No i watched The Big Bang Theory, since that is not just some TV show, it is one epic show, although slightly irritating due to all jokes at the expense of engineering, but hey-ho at least for my final year project i get to build and test something (maybe even race it) instead of sitting around with test tubes or drowning in books and papers of theoretical physics. That is, of course if i stop watching TBBT and get studying for my exams, otherwise i won't be doing any of that.

Alas there has been a lot of other stuff going on aswell. Last week i stayed in Suffolk, which is filled with very old buildings and anglo-saxon stuff but more importantly 7% cider which was quite easily the best way to end the lent-water diet. Then of course the important morning lie-in, as studies have shown that a good nights sleep leads to good learning state-of-mind, although if the lie-in stops the learning occurring i'm not so sure it entirely works.

So here i am with only a few days left of the holiday with no work done, but plenty of it to do and 6 exams to sit in the summer (including for some reason still unbeknown to me, even though i agreed to doing it (my maths teacher should really be a salesman), a 3 hour non-calculator STEP paper; and the other worrying thought that i've self-taught one of them, so that may not end well...) It's going to be a long final 6 weeks of school, but at least i can be safe in the knowledge that i have study leave and all it's studying time to come. Which means it can be put to it's best use: completing my Pokemon game before the summer holiday.

The Great Shortnundrum

Spring has well and truly sprung, bringing with it the start of the summer weather. Yes i know that it is still a long time until summer actually starts, but let's be honest the weather at the moment is a great way to warm up for summer, which by the looks of things should hopefully be a scorcher. However this of course leads to one of the greatest problems of spring: when is it the right time to relegate the jeans to the back of the wardrobe and  bring forth the shorts (and in case you're wondering where all the other trousers go in my wardrobe, don't bother, all i have are jeans and shorts, because what else could possibly be needed)? 

Now this might not seem such a great problem to a lot of people, surely you wear shorts when it's warm and if it gets cold you switch back to jeans. And you know what that is a perfectly sensible and rational idea, however, i'm not rational or sensible and so i stick to the belief that once you've donned your first pair of shorts of the year, then that's that, there's no going back until the end of summer (but probably autumn, since the hot weather keeps encroaching delightfully into the late year). Surprisingly, if my memory serves me correct and not just making stuff up, i'm not the only one who shares this thought, so maybe i'm not so crazy after all (well at least not in this particular case.)

And this decision keeps getting harder each year, with spring getting warmer meaning the conundrum has to be dealt with earlier and earlier each year, and then of course in autumn (as mentioned) a similar effect is happening, meaning the decision of when to ditch the shorts also cause a major problem. The reason for all this warmness is of course the constantly picked on and despised climate change. 

Picked on and despised (i hear you say... well i imagine you say)? Yes i did mean that, and yes there are plenty of bad effects of climate change, namely rising sea levels and thus disappearance of low lying land. And extreme weather phenomenomnoms (not a typo, it just sounds better like this) that wreak havoc, but like everything you have to look at both sides and being optimistic at least climate change is getting rid of spring and autumn and replacing them with a longer and better summer.

Overall i admit that perhaps the negatives outweigh the positives, but we might as well make the most of it, even if it's just to annoy the pessimists by acknowledging their view that there's little we can do about it (although that's an entirely different debate) but then enjoying the positives of this pessimistic view, and then even if there is nothing we can do (again there probably is somethings, but i'll leave that debate till another day), we aren't left feeling completely sorry for ourselves, although the water up to the knees might dampen  the optimism (see what i did there? "dampen"... sorry awful pun.)

So despite that bit of a ramble, here is the problem i've been dealing with (and indeed deal with every year), should i commit early and possibly endure some very cold legs when the beautiful weather goes away, or late and endure the sweltering jean legs, quite possibly one of the worst feelings one can experience. So as ever i've decided to take the plunge and dive in early this year, now in case someone sees me not wearing shorts i might add that you can wear trousers late evening if travelling out a.k.a. going down t' pub. Hopefully though the weather should keep up allowing many short days ahead (although they would be long days in terms of sunlight.)

So long live this wonderful weather and let's hope for a super summer (well i know one of you doesn't share this wish, after admitting their hate for the sunny weather, you know who you are), and as for the great shortnundrum, it is over again for another year, and i'll keep my side of the bargain, weather it's up to you now, don't let me down...

The Universe Is Amazing

" 'Space,' it says, 'is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space,' " - Douglas Adams


This has to be one of my favourite quotes of all time, not only does it come from the genius that is Douglas Adams but unlike many other of his quotes (all of which are equally amazing), this has some real world direct application, because if you haven't noticed space is infact big, well hugely ginormously massively big. To be honest there's a very good chance that it is in fact infinitely big, either that or some inescapable howevermany-dimension shape that is too mindbogglingly complicated to even begin to conceive. And yet despite all of its incomprehensibleness, here we are living in it, amazing right (hence the title).


Why you may ask has this sudden spurring for writing about the universe come about, i mean it's not like it's going to disappear anytime soon (well hopefully it shouldn't). Well firstly i came about a video posted on science.memebase.com then, since i'm very thorough in my post researches (and not that everyday i do the same thing, this time was definitely for research), i looked on the bbc news webpage science section and voila, the first story was about the new data from Fermilab that support the current findings at the LHC that hint at the existence of the higgs boson.


OK, i know that the higgs boson is a fundamental particle, a building block of everything, and so is on the opposite side of the scale to the universe, but hey ho, it's my blog and i think that it's an entirely relative article, well relative enough to support a post about the universe and give a reason to write one. Now the hope is that by the end of the year we should know whether the higgs boson exists or not, and so by the end of the year will could very potentially be a little step closer to understanding the universe (though still very far from complete understanding, but definitely closer than we ever have been).


Imagine that, soon we could know the basic ingredients of... well... um everything, with the standard model of particle physics complete and concise. Of course we could also end up the higgs boson being disproved and in need of another model (well a adapted model, since the standard model is working quite well atm). But you know what's even better than the completion of the model, the fact that soon Prof. Brian Cox, will soon be back on our TV screens explaining all this to us, with no doubt some weird metaphor and some epic sweeping camera shots, and of course the obligatory trip to CERN.


Of course there is still a whole lot more to understand about the universe as previously mentioned, and tbh some of the universe could very well turn out to be completely incomprehensible without anyway of proving any theory or model thought of in theoretical physics. And since next year i'll be off to study engineering, and so in 5 years (if all goes well) i could potentially be working on the next big thing in science (depending on the stream i go into, other things i could be doing in 5 years includes designing cars, buildings or gadgets, or even just continuing with study because i can't be bothered to find a proper job). 

And on a slightly off topic note please have a look at this petition (and it would be helpful if you could also sign it, only of course if you agree,... or are indifferent, either is a good enough reason to sign it): http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/6271  

What is the next big thing? Well there's little way of knowing what progress science will make in the next 5 years, we could still be stuck pondering string theory and floundering over dark matter. But one thing is for certain and that is that there will always be something else. Something else to be discovered, proved or standardised such is the nature of the universe to always have something else hidden from our prying eyes.  


So all in all, what this post essentially boils down to, even if you're not actually interested in all the science involved, is that every once a while everyone should take a few moments to just simply think about the wonderfully weird universe we currently reside in, and hopefully will continue to do so for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future. And in case you still need a bit of help below is the aforementioned video, and another Douglas Adams quote:

"The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful. And … the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned."

The Land of the Free (but more Importantly the Grilled Cheese)

This post may be a bit late, since the Superbowl (the event that spurred me to write this post) happened weeks ago now, but frankly i don't care because at that moment i couldn't be bothered to write anything and now i can (especially with this delightful sunny weather that has not only made me very happy, but also reminded me of Californian weather). Yes, America is my topic for this post, a topic i've had in my head for a while now but haven't got quite round to ever writing it, until now of course.

Now despite the insistence of certain friends, i'm not actually American but English, because living in a country for just over a year doesn't mean i'm from there, even if i've brought back some of their culture within me. And in case you didn't know (even with the prior comments), i used to live in Concord California (which is near San Francisco) although i was only 7 at the time and even with my poor memory, i still hold memories of my time there. The one that is at the forefront of my mind at the moment is the glorious weather there (hence why today's great weather here in not-so-sunny Macclesfield prompted this post). It was never cold and rain only ever happened once a week for a half an hour downpour.

However i'm not here to talk about the weather (even though i'm English). I'm not even here to talk about my love of Southern jazz, Tex-Mex or the pickup truck (does mentioning that violate the first part of the sentence?) No, i'm here to talk about my recent discovery that will no doubt have a profound effect on my life, and could quite possibly be the most important (it's hard to see what could top it) of my life. I am of course talking about the epicly awesomeness that is the grilled cheese.

Before you start to wonder how on earth i've managed to make it thus far through life without the knowledge of the grilled cheese, let me explain that for years i've been making the toastie (or snackwich). Now i'm not sure whether i've made up some of these terms or whether they're actual terms and prehaps some people just don't understand the terminology at all, so let me explain what a toastie (or snackwich) is. Basically you get two slices of bread some filling, the classic being cheese and ham although i much preferred the cheese and baked beans, then making a sandwich out of them and putting them in a toastie maker, that seals the sandwich then continues to toast the bread and turn your fillings into a nice molten mouth-burning substance.

For years i was content with this method, even after several burnt mouths and a burnt throat (which is one of the worse injuries i've ever had), but recently i decided to try the American way of placing the bread in a frying pan, covering with whatever you filling is then placing the second slice on top and cooking on both sides. This not only resulted in a quicker sandwich but also one where the fillings were not near a plasma state, and had the ability to open up for final tweaks (e.g. sauce, and for those of you weird people, salad).

Ever since that revolutionary moment i've had many many grilled cheeses, with some general advice if you care to ever try making one. Firstly butter both slices of bread and these are the outside of the sandwich i.e. the side you fry. Secondly use whatever ingredients you think fit, i've had several different combinations all deliciously delectable (p.s. if you know any good ones, please comment below as i would love to know them.) Thirdly feel free to have one at breakfast and pour copious amounts of maple syrup onto it (might sound weird, but it really was nice, honesty).

So go forth into the kitchen armed with your frying pan, bread and cheese. Never again let you stomach remain empty or your tastebuds free from the cheesy grilledbready andwhateverelseyouputiny goodness. Oh and one last piece of advice, which i forgot before, don't be an idiot and put a whole chili in one sandwich, not that anyone would be stupid enough to do such a thing, especially not me...

Picture from http://www.closetcooking.com/ (an excellent place for grilled cheese recipes)

The Curious Case of the Carbon-Fibre Nose Cone

I know that everyone will, of course, know that its only 40 days until the start of the new F1 season, and as such its the time of the much awaited car launches, don't deny you're excited. Now don't worry although this post currently seems sports-related, i promise you that it shouldn't be, just hang in there. Now back to F1, something very unusual has happened to F1 cars this year, well not the whole car, more just the nose cone to be honest. If you haven't seen the new cars, then really what have you been doing, there's definitely nothing better to have been done with your time, but in case that is the case then below is the picture of the new Ferrari.

As you may have noticed it seems something has decided to cut a section of it off, now my reason for this whole long winded introduction it that it has brought up the old debate; one of those big questions (well prehaps not that big to be honest, but nevertheless a question), which is more important form or function? Now i know most objects try to have both, but there will always be conflict between the 2 and which one should be prioritized in these cases, it's obvious that in the before mentioned case function has won over form, unless someone at Ferrari has gone completely bonkers (probably not for the first time though), but there has been cases where the opposite is true (i really only mentioned this for a bit of apple-bashing) for example the infamous iPhone 4 aerial, where apple decided the phone's looks were more important than, well the actually phone part of the phone.

Now to get a better view of the people's opinions i've done some in depth research and surveying (well i read through the comments section of the above picture, but that still counts). The view i got from this is that a lot of people are not happy, they all think that despite an F1 car's nose purpose is to be as aerodynamically efficient that it should still look good, i don't know maybe they think if it looks good other drivers will slow down to have a look, or maybe they're just haven't actually thought about it much, but instead decided to type some barely legible comment, thinking that Ferrari might listen to them and come back with a different design.

If any of you readers share the view that form is more important than function, i would apologize but since i'm not sorry about bashing your views, then i won't. I mean i value your opinion (albeit not very highly), but i  still haven't had anyone explain to me a good reason for that view. Now most people who know me will put all this down to me not being a great fan of art, and the fact that i'm going to study engineering at university, but to be honest, and although i'm quite vocal against art, i do love design. I mean show me a Picasso and i won't be interested in the slightest; however show me a piece of quality architecture, or a new chair design and it's a whole different matter.

So really, although i definitely think that function is by far more important than form, things can still have form as long as it doesn't affect the function, and to be honest a lot of design has come about from the function, for example arches, which some people are completely obsessed about (having watched countless episodes of Grand Designs), but arches are at the base designed not for aesthetic purposes but because they're very good at supporting things whilst letting things through. 

Having said all that, if you think that you can persuade me to think differently (or just fancy an argument... um i mean a debate) then feel free to comment, email, im, text or even use that outdated method of communicating, you know that one where you move your mouth and noise comes out, talking that's what it's called. And as for the Ferrari, i actually hope that they don't share the same view as me, and that's it's not functional at all, but merely some guy trying to start a new style of design. The reason for this is that i hope that McLaren's design, with their more pleasing to the eye nose cone, is better and that in 10 months time i will be revelling in another world championship for JB.

Lights... Camera... Action...

Ever had one of those brilliant idea moments? You know the one where you sat around chatting with friends, and suddenly a utterly awesome idea to pops right into your head, whether it be starting a band, going on a road trip across America or, as it was today, making a film. Now before anyone doubts this idea, i should say i have made a film before (albeit for an economics homework and it being only 5 mins long), and definitely, unlike all the other great ideas I've had before this one, i will actually do this one. Well hopefully anyway.

But there are good reasons for my optimism (and when i say good reasons i probably mean just reasons, because they're probably not that good.) Firstly, what could be simpler than making a film, i mean all it is is coming up with a good story, filming some stuff on said story, then editing said stuff into a half decent piece of media. Simple right. Well unfortunately, from prior experience, the editing is not very simple and take a while to do, luckily it looks like most of my summer is unbooked with any kind of activities, meaning a lot of spare boring time, so what better than trying to extract quality from what will probably be not very good clips.

So problem solved right, well not quite. After coming up with the brilliant idea, we found the brick wall that was the story. I mean we could do something simple like horror, or murder-mystery, but that's all been done before, and if we're going to do this we might as well be overambitious and try to think of a totally new original idea for a story. And of course the story has to keep in mind our tight budget (namely nothing), meaning any effects are out the window unless it can be done in editing, but i like to keep to the motto, Keep It Simple Stupid, so no effects can be really used. So if anyone out there has a great plot for us to use, feel free to comment and i will make sure all credit for it may go to you.

Another great reason for such an endeavour, is the fact that as a group we are going away for a week in a rented house and so we will have a location and actors readily available. Well maybe actors is a bit incorrect in this context, however there will have people there, who will be willing to take part (and if they're not, i'm sure edible bribes can be used.)

So that's all the those details sorted, and i can honestly see this happening, maybe out of sheer boredom but nevertheless it can, and should, be done. Especially so it can make up for all the other failed ideas that never really got any further than the planning stage (i.e. as soon as actually work had to be done, they fell apart), and maybe buoyed with the success of seeing an idea through to the very end, i might one day return to those great ideas, or maybe new even better ideas. So hopefully in about 7 months time i will be able to show you all what will no doubt be a masterpiece of average homemade cinema. But first i should probably get some sort of video camera, because apparently you need one in order to shoot a film, who ever knew?

Question 1)

If a ball of mass 2kg and velocity 3 m/s collides into a stationary ball of mass 3kg, with e=2/3, then the 2nd ball proceeds to hit a wall with e=2/5 then continues to collide again with the 1st ball, which then proceeds travel off the end of a 2m tall surface, at what point will i give up on revision and decide there are better things to do with a day off school?

Yes it's that time of year again (although each year there are two of these times, so it's one of those times of year again technically), Christmas has come and gone, the New Year has rolled in and *BANG* exam time. With barely enough time to get settled back into school mode, and remember all that stuff that has been inevitably been forgotten over the festive period, you're expected not only to recall it at will but fully understand exactly how it all works. However during any other time at school that would seem like a simple task to perform, however as soon as revision starts everything seems so much more complicated and basically the whole course has to be relearned over again.

So to answer the question posed at the start, about an hour the answer seems to come out as. So far all i've managed to handle is one past paper before the distractions kicked in, and as you may have guessed currently that distraction would be this post. However the other big distraction at the moment is the constant refreshing of the cipher challenge's webpage, as today is the day that they release the final results, which could potentially make me a bit richer by the end of the day. As well as that my James Bond boxset has been sat by the TV now for over two weeks and i've only managed to watch Dr.No, but luckily so far i've managed to escape that temptation, meaning if i keep it up for the rest of the day, i might get another past paper done.

This would mean that in total, having had a whole day off, i will have managed about 2 hours of revision, and the annoying fact is that this module is the one i find most fun (can i use the word "fun" in this situation? not sure), and so i can't begin to imagine how much i'll manage on the other 4 exams i have to do, which could end very badly as there the ones which are going to require more (and definitely more boring) revision. Which will perhaps explain why for June, instead of learning S3 with the class, instead i shall be self-teaching the much more logical (and thereby more exciting) M3.

Well i'll keep it short, as i'd better get that 2nd paper done, where hopefully it'll all make sense otherwise there could be some very frantic and last minute look over notes/textbook/google for help on understanding what on earth the question is on about, and realising that infact after relearning it all, i still haven't got a clue what's going on.

My Cubic Dream

So it's new years eve, the last day of 2011, a weird and wonderful year that saw many incredible events occur and much to talk about. However i shall not be talking about any of that "important" stuff, instead i would prefer to talk about the events of the past week and when i say events i really mean two that were the accumulation of  the week. 

The first is my new (not so shiny because it has more of a dull finish) gadget which i received on Christmas morn, a Kindle! Now i must confess i'm not very big on the whole reading malarkey, i have a few favourite authors and i rarely differ from these. The unfortunate problem is that most these authors became my favourites when i was young and so have little interest for me now. However every year without fail i will inevitably be given waterstone gift vouchers, which has lead to me having a pile of several books all of which i've got part way through before my computer tempted me back.

So considering this inherent, not disliking but more of can'tbebotheredness, when it comes to reading, you might be wondering why on earth i was left a kindle under the Christmas tree. Well it turns out that this lack of reading does not stem from reading itself but from the medium of the book, as as soon as (3 'as's is correct, so don't come and tell me otherwise) the book is put onto a gadget with a screen and wifi, reading is so much more enjoyable.

I suppose that it might also be down to the fact that all the great classics are free in ebook format and other books are just as cheap with prices around £1, appealing to my frugal (yes frugal, not cheapskate) nature. Also let's face it the Kindle is just awesome, especially when you discover that you can send pdfs and documents to it via email and it plays music and has an internet browser and minesweeper and this weird game where you have to get 5 crosses in a row, i mean that is the definition of awesome. All this means that for most of next year i will be probably be immersed in my Kindle and probably my new found favourite "The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes" (which cost just 86p!), (well when i'm not watching The Complete James Bond Collection, which i got for just £22, and the reason i now love the boxing day sales)

The next event that occurred started when my cousins came to visit for Christmas. One of them is a massive minecraft fan and wanted to play it all the time, and so being a kind cousin (and because then i could continue reading Sherlock) i let him wallow away the hours playing minecraft on my computer. Now being the curious mind that i am i decided when he had left to see what all the fuss about minecraft was about. Needless to say a few hours later and i found myself building a fort on top of waterfall. Then a few hours later i was at the digging a mine in the search of gold and diamond. Then a few hours after that i was constructing a skyscraper that was taller than all the mountains. 

As you might have guessed, i enjoyed playing minecraft, hence the title for this post, and as it suggests it has pretty much taken up most of my spare time in the past few days. However since i am fully aware that in a few weeks i will be sat in an exam hall staring at a piece of paper with some nasty looking equations on it, I've realised that my time might be better spent doing some of this thing called revision. This has led me to the conclusion that in the new year i shall not spend anytime playing minecraft, and any other game until at least the end of the January exams.

So that is how i shall be spending the first few weeks of 2012. Well hopefully anyway. And as it turns out it might be easier than i originally thought as the minecraft my cousin downloaded has stopped working and to download another i would have to buy the game, which i'm not going to do (remember frugal not cheapskate). So here's to a Happy New Year, let's hope it's just as eventful as 2011 and that this time next year i will be struggling to fit everything i want to write into a single post rather than blabbering on about some words on a screen and a game filled with cubes.

The Seaneid

This is the tale of how one man went on the search for a new home for the next 4 years (and during term times only), and his other quest for search of Christmas presents. In case you have little classical literature knowledge and are wondering what on earth my title is talking about then go and read the whole Aeneid by Virgil, in the original Latin of course, none of this cheats English. Or you could just wiki it and prove to yourself that it exists and i haven't gone truly and utterly insane. Or maybe i have and just haven't realised yet, i may currently be sat in an asylum typing this on an imaginary computer in my little own imaginary world. I'm a bit worried now, is there a way to check if you're mad and have created an imaginary world to live in? Hang on why am i even asking because then you'd be imaginary too.

So anyway, leaving my slightly crazed ramblings aside, back to the Seaneid. In truth the tale began two years ago on a long and dangerous trek into the south. I know a dangerous place to go right, where the pies have vegetables in them and fish & chip shops aren't found on every street. So there i was journeying to Southampton (it even has south in its name) via Cambridge and tbh i can't actually remember what really happened but after two expeditions to the north this time (where i can confirm the pies are free from vegetables and the chippy is as common as the pub), i was only slightly clearer on where i would go.

All this jibber-jabber is essentially trying to explain why i found myself first going to Oxford, then Lincoln (actually this was nothing to do with Seaneid, but was occurred at the same time), then nearly going to Lancaster (although i thought better of it and didn't go in the end, just so i could partake in the epicness that was cipherfest '11, more on that some other time though) anyway today i traveled down to Loughborough and tomorrow i will be going to Manchester in the epic quest for Christmas presents (yes i know it's less than a week until Christmas, but i've only just started feeling Christmasy enough to buy them (plus a Taco Bell has opened in Manchester!)).

So as you can tell i'm glad i've nearly finished all this traveling, and soon my search for uni will come to an end, with pretty much all my uni's contacting me this week about offers :s, and with Christmas on Sunday the quest for the presents will be pointless (it might not be quite finished though i'm expecting late presents might be the case for some). So it's could be quite a momentous week with the next four years of my life being decided, although i have a feeling it still doesn't matter at all with my view of whateverhappens,happensandifyoujustgowithitandyoullenjoyyourself, and the awesomeness of my time in Oxford and the great people there (bit of a shout to my fellow St. John-iens (?) if you're reading this)

In case i don't write again before Christmas, Merry Christmas, and if i don't write before New Years, then shame on me because i won't be doing anything next week, apart from maybe contemplating my future...
and revising for January exams...
and finalizing my DofE...
and probably buying people late Christmas presents...
and something else which i've forgotten.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Yes it's that time of year: the carol sheets are out, the Christmas tree taking up half the lounge, and the weather is truly dreadful. Now i do like Christmas time but the shops think that it gets earlier each year or that people forget that Christmas happens every year leading to adverts and the Christmas specials to be stocked months beforehand. So when can one start to blast out the Christmas jingles? If you do it too early people think you're just a weirdo (well one of the reasons they probably think that) and too late and... um well i don't think there's any convincing argument i can write but for me i would like for there to be a specific date to work with.

This year i went for the 1st week of advent, that didn't go down well with some people who questioned why on earth i was playing 12 days of Christmas whilst giving them a lift, but surely that's the most accurate date to use, the only other real way is to start when December starts, or just to be a total Ebeneezer and just never start to celebrate Christmas but instead mock people who do.

This is of course the least of the worries when it comes to Christmas; probably the biggest is buying gifts for people (surely if people wanted something enough they would have already bought it for themselves) which leaves two options: an effort to find something that they don't know about but would enjoy, or just to find something hilarious to give them. Now i have tried to do the prior occasionally but all it has ever done is made me find myself wandering around Macc the week before Christmas, staring blankly into shop windows without a clue of what to buy. This conundrum is especially apparent with the dreaded secret santa, which if you try to find something thoughtful is going to take way too long, especially when someone like me will have your name, and will buy you something cheap and weird (like a potato in a terry's chocolate orange box).

Then i haven't mentioned the truly most annoying part of Christmas, which is the accolade easily won by the terrible winter weather. No, i don't mean snow, i frankly love snow (as long as i'm in a coat, scarf, gloves, boots and many other layers of clothing), i'm talking about that inbetween weather, which isn't quite snow, but is more of a mix of rain, hail, sleet and snow. It's cold and makes lots of sludge on the ground which is just frankly horrible.

So that's Christmas for me, well so far, i think, if i can remember correctly, that it does get better at some point and the Christmas cheer finally shows itself, and when it does i shall write a more positive Christmas-y post, which was my intention to start with but i realised that it was easier at the moment to do the opposite. So "Bah-Humbug" for now, and a future "Merry Christmas" for when it finally feels like Christmas.

It's a bit Chile outside. No wait, it's Switzerland.

To describe Geneva using 3 words, i would have to say: cold, expensive, but beautiful. (And as a side note, if you don't understand the title, don't try to it's nothing more than a joke from the trip.) However with a little bit of student living it is very easy to get by on a small budget, as i found out having only such a budget. Nevertheless a pizza and a litre of iced tea for 10CHF tastes just as good as any restaurant meal, although worrying since it came from a shop inbetween a kebab store and a corner shop and the iced tea could not be found anywhere else.

So don't be put off about going to Geneva because bargains can be found (well bargains for Switzerland, normal price for the UK), and it truly is a beautiful place and having a wander round Geneva with no sense of direction but instead a "that looks interesting, let's walk down there" attitude worked out very well with something to be found round every corner, and it's quite hard to get lost since a simple walk downhill to the lake and you've found your bearings once again. And if you just stay by the lake then you'll still be in for some for great views especially around sunset, sitting at the end of the walkway in the middle of the lake.

Enough about Geneva though, since the whole purpose of the trip was to see CERN. For those of you who don't enjoy science then you probably won't understand how exciting it is for one of us science lovers to visit CERN, but believe me it was amazingly awesome. Although for me it wasn't the particle colliders that excited me most but Tim Berners-Lee's computer, which was the original world wide web server, and without i probably wouldn't be writing this now.

But i understand that most people would be more impressed with the actual purpose of CERN which is of course to collide particles in order to understand the fundamental physics of the universe, but it's nice to think that during this quest, one of the most important inventions of the last century occurred and because it was invented at CERN it was free for the public to use, perhaps making it what it is today.  Now most people will know all about the LHC (large hadron collider) but infact there are 6 accelerators and a decelerator, luckily for me as the LHC and many of the other accelerators are currently out of bound, so we were only allowed to see 2 of them (the decelerator and a linear accelerator).

The great thing was that also whilst we were there they were actually accelerating lead ions, although unlike most people think we didn't actually see any particles colliding, just some graphs showing the energy levels of the ions (so not that exciting actually). Though they did get the particles up to about 99.9% of the speed of light, so of course i started to think about the question of how much would a lead ion at that speed hurt? I tried using some equations to find out the force of such particles but they got reasonably complicated and to be honest the only real way to find out is through experimentation, so i'll contact CERN to book a slot with the accelerators, now i just any volunteers so please respond if you want to take part.

All in all then the trip was amazing, and a must do for any fellow geeks. You never know you could be there when they discover the higgs boson, imagine how amazing that would be. Hopefully i'll be able to go back some day as well, maybe as a visit or perhaps to work (doubt it'll be to do with the previous mentioned experiment though).

It's Been a While...

Sorry about not posting for so long, but for various reasons i have been busy over the past few weeks (amazing since i normally have nothing to do). So although this post is the restart after the temporal lapse, it won't be a traditional post and more of a collection of thoughts and things that have happened over the blog's downtime. I will hopefully be able to bring back the regular single-track posts later this week (hopefully), but definitively next week, as i will be in Switzerland this weekend for a trip to CERN! So if all the hype is correct i should have plenty to write about.

Where do we start then? Well i suppose with the most major event in the past few weeks (not the oxford entrance exam or UCAS submission, i'll get to them later), after the complete failure of my computer where not one but both my hard drives failed simultaneously leaving my computer totally befuddled as it tried and tried again to find windows, but alas it was in a dark windowless place. But as they say out with the old, in with the new and so i have brand new computer, shiny and all!

For those tech-nerds out there it's an acer with terabyte of hard disk space and a core i5 processor and soon i shall buy a suitable graphics card to replace the inbuilt one. For those who aren't tech-nerds, it's a shiny black computer with a curved front, and all that mumbo-jumbo i just talked about is the stuff inside, don't strain yourselves trying to figure out what it all means.

The only problem i had with this sudden change is that i was working my way through an extended essay and since for a few days i had no idea whether it would be able to be recovered and so it this state of limbo i took a well earned break, leading to a frantic few days of trying to complete the essay before the deadline. Luckily it was recovered as well as most my other data, which has unfortunately deprived me of the opportunity to have a nice slate-clean start from all the thousands and millions of useless bytes of junk that have accumulated over the years.

Now let me mention the other big event of the past weeks, that is of course the previously mentioned UCAS submission, and subsequent events that followed. To put it simply i'm very glad i've finally managed to rid myself of all this UCAS stuff, now it can be a joyful thing where i can see my university choices roll in (or not as the case has so far turned out to be). And the entrance test (which annoyingly was introduced for the 1st time this year) followed by mock interviews have taken up most of the other time i found.

Right now that 's all i can remember of the last few weeks, but i assure you there was definitively more which i simply just can't recall at the moment. And the next few weeks seem to promise to be just as busy, however again i'm not sure how busy, as i can't recall any of my future events i have planned either. Luckily, with time the way it is, i currently haven't found a problem with solely living in the present, oblivious to both past and future, and frankly it's more fun this way.

A Little Birdy Told Me

Ever had that feeling where you're not sure whether a post is worth posting on facebook, because it's too short; completely inane; or something which people frankly just won't care about? If your answer is no, i don't believe you but i'll let you live in your imaginary world, but for me i'll happily admit that i've felt this. So why you may ask have i posed this question, surely i wouldn't ask something without wanting to write about it. And you know what, you'd be right and i of course already have a preprepared solution to this problem which you may have guessed from the title. No prizes for the answer then, because of course it's Twitter.

Yep, i have finally joined Twitter after several months of differing and dallying about whether people would care about everything i care to share (which in case you haven't seen my tweets, is pretty much anything). But you know what apparently some completely random strangers do, which i find very weird and quite an unusual phenomenon of the modern digitalised age. First of all why would anyone feel the need to share every little detail about their life? And secondly why would anyone want to read any of this info?

Well you would expect me to know the answer to theses question since that is the situation i find myself in, however thinking about it, i'm not sure how to answer this question. So if anyone would like to provide some input then feel free to comment below and then maybe i'll be able to do a sort of full length feature on it. But my first instinct is that all that has happened is the moving of inane conversation from face to face talking onto the internet. When i think about why i started this blog all i can think is that it was to fill in spare time and to share my random world views with others, where perhaps i wouldn't in everyday life.

And there it is i think, there is the reason, the internet's two effects. The first obviously being the the wide reach it has (in fact world wide reach, hence the world wide web name), and that can be seen in the stats for my blog where it's seemed to reached the USA, Germany and Russia. As a side note hello global blog followers whoever you are. The second of course being that it provides a sort of invisible barrier between you and the outside world, whilst i'm not anonymous (an idea i did ponder) i still feel that i can say things on here which i wouldn't ordinarily.

Anyway that's all for that psychological study, i may do some more research into it, but i highly doubt that i will. Currently i need to go back to my sick computer, and try to figure out what's wrong with it, and get round to fixing it, but it's already sounding like a good post idea. But if i don't have enough for a post at least i can now tweet all about it.

My Big Day Out

Being home alone for a week definitely has it's advantages, you know, being able to do what you want, when you want, sounds like an exciting time. Except it never is that good, or anywhere near that, all it ever turns out to be is days of sitting around doing absolutely nothing. Now i like to think that my inability to actually do anything was down to having to look after 3 dogs at the same time, thereby, in my mind, incapacitating me. I think, however, that the actually reason that i found myself sitting staring blankly at a wall which the paint had long since dried, was just pure lack of motivation, but i don't think this is just applicable to me, i think that many people when told they can do anything will just stand there because it's the easiest thing to do.

However this time was different, as if finally found the motivation to actually do something, and just anything but go to Alton Towers. Well when i say i found, it was really the fact that my friend had some 2 for 1 vouchers, but nevertheless i was going to Alton Towers, something i haven't done for at least 2 years, despite being one of my favourite places.

Of course it wasn't ever going to be that simple, for starters we only had 5 people who wanted to go, and we needed six, then the night before one of my friends got back from holiday and said he would come, problem solved. But wait, then we discovered that only 2 out of our 3 vouchers were applicable and so now we didn't have enough vouchers, but (and rather weirdly) i found another voucher on my desk (how on earth it got there i have no idea, and as my desk goes i will probably never know).

So two problems found, two problems sorted, off to Alton Towers we go. of course i wanted to set off at 9 to get there for opening and i needed to get a bit of house cleaning done since my parents were back that day, but didn't see the need to set an alarm or anything, since the before mentioned 3 dogs had woken me up at 7 on all the previous days, despite my desperation for a proper lie-in (something that has eluded me for a while now). You can probably see where this going now, and if you can't then continue reading . Of course on this day when i wanted to be woken up at way too early hours of the morning, they didn't and at half eight i drowsily awoke from my slumbers, looked at my clock and bolted straight out of bed.

Anyway i did get to go to Alton Towers, albeit later than i wanted to, and the great thing was that it was relatively empty for Alton Towers, leading to a day packed full with every major attraction which can be found there (well apart from the one necessary broken down one). Which puts me in a very good position to be a critic (although i doubt a very good one, since my world views seem to be different from others), but anyway here it goes:

One thing i can positively say is that the new ride 13 is good, even with the twist known (which i won't tell you about), whether this was due to the negative reviews that i have read bringing down my expectations or it actually being good i won't know, however i do know that it's still not as good as corkscrew, the ride it replaced, which had previously been my favourite ride. As for the other rides, i had already been on them before and having taken in views from my friends they all have different positives, such as Air giving a unique and wonderful feeling, which i would definitely agree with. However my new the ride that takes over as my favourite has to be Sonic Spinball, just because like Corkscrew it just throws you about, which until now i didn't know that that was what i liked from a rollercoaster.

But after all this trouble and cost in going to Alton Towers, i have drawn one reasonably surprising conclusion, that despite all the money they spend on designing these rollercoasters and thrill rides, they don't actually scare me anymore since i trust the engineers and designers, thereby trusting that i won't come to any harm, which does take away from the experience. Unlike for example the situation i found myself in yesterday, stood on top of a 5m high fold-able tower, which for whatever reason (probably because i had put it up) wobbled when i moved.

Now that gave me the feeling that is missing from Alton Towers, and a feeling that Blackpool Pleasure Beach has got due to all their rides having a tendency to sway in the wind and wobble due to the coasters movement. So here's my advice for Alton Towers, don't bother with making the coasters stable, let them sway in the wind, and not only will people have a more thrilling experience, you'll also save a few quid at the same time.

View from the wobbly tower

One Thousand/ Tausend/ Mille/ 一千

So i've finally reached it, the magical 1000 views (or 1 kiloview). So as i sit here drinking my celebratory can of red thunder, i thought i'd throw out some facts about 1000, so of course i've hit the internet and found some "interesting" facts (to be honest it's quite hard to find any facts by googling and frankly i'm not going any further than that, so this is your lot).

For starters if you don't know what 1000 is then here is wikipedia's (basically the oxford english dictionary) definition: "1000 or 1,000 (one thousand) is the natural number following 999 and preceding 1001." So that's that cleared up then, in case you want to know what 999, then feel free to click the link, but all it says it that it's the natural number that follows 998 and precedes 1000, and this keeps on going for a while so if you're really unsure what a number is don't ever use Wikipedia to find out what they are. 


In other numerical forms it takes on many different forms, here are just a view: Roman - M ; Greek - ,α ; Tamil - ௲ ; Binary - 1111101000. Anyway i won't bore you with all the different forms for there is a lot, but as i've stated before there real isn't that many facts about 1000 which i can find, so this is all you're going to get. I mean the only other things wikipedia lists are as follows, just in case you're interested: a millenium is one thousand year; Moby has a song called "I feel it/Thousand"; A grand is slang for £1000, in the USA dimes are $1000 in gambling; and finally and prehaps the most interesting thing i've found is a art project by a swiss artist called one thousand paintings.


http://www.onethousandpaintings.com/blog/ is the website in case you're interesting in buying a piece, but essentially it's just a canvas with a number painted on it, but frankly that is art nowadays. I''m not complaining, just in case you're thinking that, i mean the guy is a genius and a rich one at that since he's selling each painting above $1000 on average, which in case you're not good at maths is over $1 million. That is truly a genius idea, and also proof that art is little more than marketing and has nothing to do with actual skill, but hey-ho i'm not going to start an argument on this celebratory post.


Anyway as you may know i care little for art and much prefer the medium of automobiles, and after a quick search on ebay, if i had a £1 for every view on my blog then i could be the proud owner of a Mercedes E430 Elegance or a BMW 520i SE or a Jaguar Sovereign. So maybe i should start charging, although i highly doubt any of you would view it then, and frankly there is a greater problem, that of the dreaded insurance which for the latter car would cost £5000 a year, which would mean i would have to get a lot more views.


So there you are, this is the end of my magical mystery tour of one thousand. I hope you've enjoyed yourself, if not then at least you've added an extra view to my count, and i'll see you all next time when i've reached my next target of 10000 views which going at this rate will be in approximately 18 months time, which should hopefully mean i can get some proper facts together for that one.

From Blog to Vlog (potentially for a limited period)

I've finally realised that to write about something, something has to have happened to make it at all interesting. This wouldn't be a problem for someone with an exciting life or for someone who has the ability to review various different media, but as it turns out i posses neither of these. So whilst i may be able to blog on the occasional event or thought (which i deem sane enough to post), i cannot blog about absolutely nothing
(and believe me, I've tried and it doesn't really work), and since i find myself in the predicament of being on half term with lots of work not to do, i know that blogging will help me keep whatever is left of my sanity.

So as you can see this is my problem, even a paradox if you will, for the next 2 weeks i have precious little to keep myself occupied with so blogging would be a way to quell this boredom, but because I've got nothing to do, i have nothing to blog about. So i got thinking and i came up with a solution, why not do a bit of vlogging? Whilst it may be hard to write about nothing, it's not hard babbling on about nothing, a perfect solution. Apart from one problem i don't own any sort of video capturing device, so my laptop's webcam would have to be used, of which it's quality is unknown.

The second problem is that i'm not sure whether i'm the right kind of person to vlog, blogging is one thing but vlogging is something entirely different, and after doing some research (i.e. google) and finding the following page: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Make_a_Vlog , my suspicions were confirmed. Whilst it could be argued that some of the points made are true and therefore vlogging an appropriate activity, i still am not convinced.

So this is what propose (is it still propose, if you have no say in it?). Over the next few days i will attempt to do some vlogging, well just recording at this stage, and then from the collected footage i will assess whether it should go public or get relegated to the depths of the recycle bin. If the prior option is picked then i will collect the feedback, either directly from people or through the medium of the grapevine, then i will know how well it has gone (or not, as the case may be), which could potentially lead to future vlogging in bleak boring situations.

So watch this space because frankly even if i don't vlog i will still try to find some random stuff to blog about (or at the very least scour the internet for reasonable material). In the meantime, if you find yourself in a similar situation to mine, then here's another blog for you: http://sec-c.blogspot.com/ . And if you don't like that, then go out and get a life, or failing that start your own blog.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

There's plenty of songs that follow a similar pretense but still many skeptics (which are frankly numerous in number, or maybe just very outspoken in their negativity) will argue that this optimistic view does nothing for life and is simply wishful thinking. But you know what, i wouldn't have written a blog post about mere opinions, and this is defiantly true in this case, give this a read http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15214080 or simply just let me explain the general gist of the article.

Basically, if i have actually understood the article fully (which might not be the case since I've literally just read it, and haven't spent much time doing so, because frankly what's the point of reading it, i'm sure i can understand it from the title alone) it explains how a recent scientific experiment has shown how people who have a optimistic view on life, their brains reject negative thoughts.

I don't know if you realised what that means, to put it simply optimistic don't just try to find good in every situation they actually sub-consciously refuse to acknowledge certain negative information, making the already positive outlook even brighter. I don't know about you but i find this truly amazing, i always knew our brains were amazing things but now this is just mind-blowing (metaphorically that is, otherwise it wouldn't be that great).

Although there is one downside (but if you're optimistic, then feel free to ignore this, if you know that you're doing it) that is of course that optimistic people have skewed view on the risks of certain events occurring, whilst this can also be a positive event in certain cases since the way people view events can affect the outcome, it can also be very risky (see what i did there) business.

However i do actually a question for this researchers, what about pessimists? Do they reject certain positive events keeping their dreary bleak worldviews in there original greyscale condition? If so then they would also  sub-consciously reject this experiment aswell, meaning there would be no need in their view to do my experiment, or maybe i'm just making stuff up in order to make this post seem ever longer, justifying the need for it in the first place.

I hope you feel enlightened and feel free to adjust your life views as needs be. As for me i will consider my views, that is after watching TV and playing civilization, which of curse are much more important things to do, than simple life changing philosophy. But you know what i would consider myself an optimist anyway, i mean i might as well enjoy my life since statistically it will be of little importance and about 78 years long.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy (actually not that easy)

As you may know i am one who likes cooking, and so again i will be posting another one of my recipes (although this is the first time I've cooked it, and we'll have to see how it turns out) Anyway if you're not into food, then i have a music suggestion instead and if you like both then feel free to take both. So over the last few days I've revisited the music of Bat for Lashes, i found their music a few years back whilst watching Jools Holland and haven't regretted that moment since. I don't know what more i can really say about it though apart from it is quite a uniqu-ish style so instead of me trying to explain, just give them a listen, you never know you could actually like it.

Lemon Fried Chicken

1. Marinade chicken with soy sauce (either light or dark or even a mix of both)
2. Make the batter with an egg and roughly a tablespoon of flour, then add water until desired consistency (can't explain what this really is but hopefully you can decide for yourself) (optional chinese five spice can be added at this point)
3. Chuck all the chicken pieces into the batter and cover thoroughly, whilst warming some oil in a pan.
4. Once the oil is hot, chuck the battered chicken into the pan, and break up the pieces from each other
5. In another pan add chicken broth, lemon juice, lemon slices and sugar, simmer for some time
6. Serve the chicken with rice or noodles and pour the lemon sauce over.

Yeah, after making it the sauce really didn't turn out well. However fear not for the recipe still works as fried chicken, or infact any batter fried meat/vegetable/object you wish, and i will work on the lemon sauce to make it work or at least taste reasonable.