No more a learner

OK, I would have liked to have posted up a picture of me actually setting my plates on fire, but since my sister is going to use them I won't be having that pleasure. Nonetheless I am pleased to inform you that I have passed my driving test. It feels good to have got it out of the way and I'm certainly glad not to have failed. I was never that fussed about driving, most of my contemporaries having long passed their exams, but it is a useful skill to have and being able to go to meetings and outings without requiring a lift or public transport is quite liberating.

It was an interesting day as it started in omen like fashion with the arrival of my Degree Certificate. I thought nothing of it at the time and still do not, but it was nice to have both areas of my life rounded of nicely in one day - a day for certificates it would seem. It also showed that I am no longer a "learner" in more than one sense. I have often joked that I'm "never going to learn anything else again now" but it would almost seem to have a sense of truth to it, now that I won't be having lessons of any kind for the forseeable future which is strange to think of and indeed I am finding it strange without the imposed structure on my life that learning provides. But nonetheless I am glad to have passed both my degree and driving test and to have recieved trophies for both.

And before closing I'd like to quickly apologise for being absent - it's been hard to choose what to talk about, but you have to acknowledge I've done faily well - I mean I did three posts in one day, that's gotta be a record!! more to come I hope, it's probably about time i did another Writer's Bloc and I have an idea brewing for one.

Word of the post: Modicum - noun

a moderate or small amount

Well whaddya know...

I was just playing around on Blogger Play again and, against my expectations, it turned up something familiar. I'm almost tempted to make this into a game - keep playing until you spot something you recognize - 1 point if it's from TV or whatever, 2 points if it's somewhere you've been etc and 5 points if it's someone you know or posted on a blog you read!! I think that a) it won't take off and b) if it did everyone would just be watching it all day and end up doing nothing else!!

Well anyway this is what I turned up whilst flicking along - an image of someone on the Logos 2, a missionary ship I visited a while ago.


We still get semi-regular updates on the work of the ship as it goes around the world stocked with books and manned by a crew eager to serve God. I recall there actually being a Logos 2 poster of some kind up in church so it's definitely something I'm familiar with, though I haven't seen the ship for a few years now. The blog is run by an American with connections to a mission organization - I had heard of neither before so it's quite a connection that a random image search should bring up something I visited in the UK.

Well it's not quite enough for a game - but it'll fill the odd rainy day!!

Word of the post: Truculent - adj.

1. Disposed to fight; pugnacious.

Is it just happening to me or...

is anyone else having the "Post Published" page come up in German?!!

Caption Competition anyone?

I was just ruminating as to how to encourage more interactive blogging when I came across this on the "Blogger Buzz" section of the homepage, announcing new additions to blogger. This latest one announces Blogger Play, a program that shows the latest pictures to be uploaded to Blogger in an unending slideshow. It can be quite fun to see what is uploaded the worldwide web each day, though of course it is done at your own risk. Blogger run all the pictures through a filter, but there is always a risk one might get through so use with caution. But the wealth of random images could surely lead to a wealth of caption competition type games.

I'll try and think of some game rules, but for now if you're reading this why don't you have a go at this beauty I found...

Anything strike you...do comment with appropriate captions or some such if this takes your fancy. Anyhow - here's the official post from Blogger detailing the site

"Today we’re pleased to launch Blogger Play, a neat little toy we’ve cooked up to show you photos and blog posts as you’ve never seen them before.

Image credit: kiwisweden

Shortly after Blogger launched photo uploading two years ago, one of our engineers whipped up a web page that would show us the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. The result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. We couldn’t stop watching.

Over the years we’ve kept this photo scroller as part of the Blogger offices, on a monitor or projector, as an interesting (distracting?) slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs. The fame of the scroller spread within Google, until one day we were asked, “so, when are you launching this?”

“Um...,” we replied. But we knew a good idea when we heard one. We got our UI people to come up with buttons and fadey effects and we got our engineers to make the whole thing fast and robust. A bit of work later, and now we can share it with all of you:

http://play.blogger.com/

Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.

A caveat: we use many techniques, including Google’s SafeSearch technology, to keep the images clean. Nevertheless, on rare occasions an image that you may find vulgar or obscene will slip through our algorithmic filters. Google does not pre-screen the images that appear in Blogger Play, nor is it responsible for their content. To report a terms of service violation, you may fill out this contact form.

— Pete [14/09/07 12:30]"

Feels good to do a bit of C'n P again

Word of the post: Feasible –adjective

1.	capable of being done, effected, or accomplished

Notices

OK, I'm just popping up and noting a few things that have been going on and what I have noticed whilst they were going on.

The first notice I must make is that SAM of The Great Gig in the Sky is the triumphant winner of my Blogger's Challenge with a magnificent score of 7 - well done to you sir!!

And back to me...I made my first attempt to escape the void yesterday, as expected it wasn't as easy as I'd have liked and nowhere near as productive. My methos involved walking into shops, standing around for 5-10 minutes and seeing if I could stand being in there all day - if so then I'd hand them a CV. Constant loud music and busy queues put me off a few and lack of vacancies denioed me other - in the end GAME was the only one that I liked and that had an opening so I duly handed in a CV, whether anything comes of it we shal see.

Whilst not very forthcoming in the primary goal it did succeed in both secondary and tertiary goals. The secondary goal was to get me out of the house and let me do something productive in my afternoon, the tertiary goal was for me to get the latest Star Wars Legacy issue from town (see my SF Blog for more details) which it achieved well and gave added justification for travelling out to get it. I made one other purchase, a rare impulse buy - even rarer a book which I know nothing about, a book whose title and cover drew my eye instantly.

The book is Ringworld by Larry Niven and it struck me because it's name, premise and cover are very reminiscent of the computer game HALO. Doubtless I'm not the first to notice this and I'm sure Microsoft managed to wrangle out of any legal problems as soon as they arose, but it is interesting that a computer game I remarked at being so original should have such a close paralell in this book.

The last thing I noticed whilst reading Alan Bennet's diaries is the term bric-a-brac. For some reason (possibly the "a" in the middle) the term seems inherently Welsh and hearing it used in English conversation seems almost odd, though the term is English...or possibly French. I might look it up some time, but for now I bid adieu.

Word of the post: Mezzanine - n.

1. A partial story between two main stories of a building.

The Void

So I done me coursework, got all graduated and now I'm left in what I have decided to term the void, more commonly known as unemployment. This new state is only just starting to become a reality in my mind. This is partly due to having a fairly full and varied summer, had my time been dull and samey then by now I would be crying out for an occupation, but as it is I still sort of feel on holiday with a vague sense I should be doing something.

Another reason I'm not suprised at being idle is because I've been idle for quite some time. Uni was never demanding in terms of time consumption so I'm already used to having lots of days in the week to spend on myself. Had I been on a more demanding timetable no doubt this new state of affairs would be more of a shock to the system.

A third reson for my lack of unease is distractions. Empty days can while away much easier when you've got Facebook, a new series of Battlestar Galactica (series 1 so no spoilers you who've seen further!) and four series of Red Dwarf freshly purchased. These activities each demand at least 30 mins of your time and put together can fill a sizeable chunk of the day. This combined with some slightly more noble pursuits such as reading (currently Alan Bennet's diaries which makes my blogging feel very inferior) can help make those clock hands swing faster.

The last reason is that I'm not completely idle. I have been given a lot of responsibility by my church, some of it already existing, some if it completely new and not a little bit daunting such as running the youth work with a few friends that are the same age as I am. It's going well but we still have a lot to learn and there's a lot of preparation involved which helps give a sense of purpose.

But still I have reached a point where I see the need for work and a structured day (especially after buying said TV series!!) and so I will put my efforts into finding work of at least a temporary nature from hereon in.

Word of the post: Albeit - conjunction

although; even if: a peaceful, albeit brief retirement.

Squirrels!!

Well I was gonna start with a more common picture of a squirrel but when an image search turned up this beauty I just couldn't resist posting it! I haven't done a rant type post or talked about life in general for a while and this post struck me as an opportunity to do both without being too dull or aggressive - we'll see how things go.

Squirrels are a common feature of my life, given that one or two will visit my garden on a more or less daily basis. They gain access via a tall tree which connects to a tall hedge which connects to some small apple trees which connect to our lawn - all easily traversed with a squirel's natural agility. So common is this intrusion that it's hard to think of life without it and odd to speak to more urban folks who don't have bushy tailed visitors like we do.

While the squirels are very cute, especially in photographs, nature documentaries and Grosvenor Park(?) in Chester where they gladly come and eat nuts out of your hand, they do represent a problem and can be something of a pest. In my younger years I was an avid reader of nature books and attended various clobs which taught how the common greay squirrel has drive the much more attractive red squirrel into near extinction in our isles - something which needs to be addressed. The problem they represent in our garden is that they view the bird feeders as a ready source of food. Why these feeders should remain exclusive to avian visitors is not quite clear, but nonetheless squirrels go for them and are often particularly aggresive when they do so, mauling the containers open and scattering the precious grain to the floor. It is notoriously difficult to make things squirrel proof as they are seemingly born to be able to break into things - there seems to be nothing they can't climg up, swing down, hang upside down off or stuff their little faces into!! I also noticed recently that they produce a noise which seems to represent Daffy Duck being strangled to death and not the cute squaks you'd expect. All this makes them a dominating and annoying figure in the garden and they need to be warded away.

Which is where the fun starts! A cry of "Squirrels!" will drive our dog into a frenzy of speed unlike anything else. Commands like "Walkies", "Outside", "Biscuit" or "Hooshagabooshywa" will certainly increase his pace and have him barking and jumping around. But "Squirrels" puts him on an alert level and sends him scurrying into the garden at speeds no other command can produce. This is always amusing to see, especially when he heads for the base of the large tree (the common source of squirrels) and misses the nearby squirrel completely!! He has never caught a squirrel yet and we doubt he'd know what to do if he did, but it's good to watch.

So Squirrels: a cute pest that can be very amusing!!

Word of the post: Murine - adjective

pertaining to or resembling a mouse or rat

Edit: The word of the post is a random choice, picked from a list I add to as an when words take my fancy, given my negativity towards squirrels in this article this posts's word is a bit of a coincidence!!

Writer's Bloc 3 - American Studies

OK so still not a word more written, but plenty of thinking done and plenty more thinking to do. I'm starting to feel that I can probably wrangle together a complete first chapter (or prologue as it may turn out to be) without going to in depth and then correct all my grievous errors later.

Regardless some research needs to be done, particularly on America and it's government as they are the focus of my piece. Though of course the piece is set in the future it needs it's roots in reality. And as it's set on Earth and not a distant planet and in a future where not too much has changed besides some key technologies the governmental structure and tradition needs to correlate very closely to the real thing.

Herein lies the problem. Most of my knowledge of the American government comes from 24 and Splinter Cell, both featuring imaginary branches of the government both dedicated to stopping large scale terror, albeit with different methods and aims. Both are excellently written and I'm equally captivated by watching Jack Bauer beat the clock to stop a virus as I am to control Sam Fisher as he seeks to hunt down a guerilla leader across several countries. The two have slowly started to merge until I'm half expecting Bauer to don the tripple green goggles and hide in the shadows and wait for Fisher to disagree with protocol and demand his daughter's safety...oh wait he does!!

Anyway, these sources are my best information on the American government, 24 moreso as it focuses on the President and his campaign - I wouldn't even know that there was a California Presidential Primary if I hadn't heard Jack's voice say it over and over in series 1! But since neither CTU nor Third Echelon exist it looks like I have my work cut out to get things accurate.

I'd best get back to it, if nothing else writing this piece has given me stuff to blog about!

Word of the post: Harangue –noun

1.	a scolding or a long or intense verbal attack

Writer's Bloc 2 - First Page

I've held off this article mostly to let the Blogger challenge get noticed, I've had two takers so far, one dropped out on reasonable grounds and another who'se blog is apparently to high brow to stoop to my level! The challenge achieved it's main goal, which is to get people to actually read and comment on this thing, and it got at least one participant who was completely new to my blog. The standing record is Seven - if anyone is interested read the previous post and see if you can beat it.

The other reason I've held off is because I've not really written much and it's kind of embarrasing - but honesty is what these articles are about so I've decided to press on regardless. In one sense a first page is a meaningless thing, it's just a tiny fraction of what will be a large piece and by the time the whole thing has been written, rewritten and edited no two words will remain the same.

But on the other hand it's a big step and a good sign of things to come. Writing the first page means taking the idea from your head and actually putting it on paper (or screen to be accurate) and making what could be into what is. This can be an ugly and disillusioning process and can serve to show which of your wild imaginings that seemed genius at the time simply don't work. Writing it down means testing your writing skills as well as your imagination, putting the project onto a different playing field. Working through the first page, which took me well over an hour, made me face the reality of writing a book and reminded me of the seriousness of the task.

I've got a long way to go, but the first step is there to spur me on and while starting to write shows the greatness of the task it also shows the goal ahead and the pleasure of creating new work. I've currently taken it as far as it can go without more research so expect to get more snippets of information in the near future.

Farewell for now

Word of the post: Exemplar - noun

1.	a model or pattern to be copied or imitated