Typos

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Adam Randall
I want to apologise for the large number of typos on my blog. The majority of these entries are written at roughly 6:10am and after I finish them I want to eat my morning porridge right away. As such, I rarely proof read anything which is posted on here. I suppose I rather arrogantly assumed that I’d only occasionally make typos and that it wouldn’t really be much of a problem. This evening, however, I went through several recent posts and found that all of them, but one, had at least one error in them. I corrected everything I found, but there still must be other errors throughout my entries.
    Therefore, from now on I shall take more care when writing my entries, I shall reread them and be sure to remove any errors. Whenever I read something and find a typo, I always find it rather jarring, so it’s rather hypocritical of me to be so careless with my own writing. Hopefully my typos will be much fewer from now on.
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Knife Crime

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Adam Randall

A few years ago on a particularly warm summer’s afternoon I was out taking a walk when I bumped into somebody I knew. As I’m sure you’ll soon find out, this person wasn’t a friend of mine, but I did know him due to being in the same school as him. He was accompanied by a friend of his (I’d never seen them before) and the pair of them approached me from behind.

“Hey look it’s Adam Randall!” he said.

“Yes, it is!” I said, as I turned to face them.

“Who is he?” his friend said.

“Oh, just somebody I know from school…”

I smiled.

“…he’s really, really annoying.”

My smile dropped.

“He’s pretty weird-looking,” the other guy said.

“Well, there’s no need to be rude,” I hoped that I hadn’t been rude myself in saying that.

“Shut up,” said the one I knew. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Oh, I was just strolling into town,” I replied.

“What do you think we should do with him?” asked the stranger.

“Well,” he replied, pulling out a knife, “we could always cut him a little?”

“Yeah, let’s do that!” an evil grin appeared on his face.

“Nah, I’d rather you didn’t…” I told them.

“We’ll take him somewhere where nobody can see so that we can do what we like,” said the person I knew, his friend seemed to think it was a good idea. “Let’s cut his shins first, and then move on from there!” he waved the knife threateningly around near my face.

“Yeah, it’s really painful being cut there,” said his friend, “Plus it’d be easier to cut other places after that, since he won’t be able to walk very well.”

“Come on then, move!” the one with the knife ordered.

“Well, I would, but your plan is already pretty bad. Right now we’re really close to town and there are several people around. If you did cut me at all, I’m sure you’d be quickly captured and punished!” I said, smiling.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re gonna take you somewhere else!” he replied angrily. “Somewhere where nobody will see.”

“But how?” I asked. “You can’t hurt me here because there’re so many people, so all you can do is threaten me with threats I know you won’t fulfil.”

“Fine,” he said hatefully. “We’ll leave you, but next time we see you, we’re gonna get you. See you then.”

“Goodbye!” I said cheerfully.

And so then he was gone. Funnily enough I’ve not seen him ever again since then, so he was never able to fulfil his promise. I supposed the saddest thing about it, was that in playgroup, he and I had been best friends.

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Hello Day

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Adam Randall
Every year on November 21st, a very small number of people celebrate World Hello Day. On World Hello Day, what people are supposed to do is to say hello to ten random strangers. Apparently, it’s supposed to tell world leaders that they should use communication to settle their problems, but more directly, I imagine that the people who have had a stranger say hello to them will feel a little happy about it.
    Anyway, last year on November 21st I participated in the Hello Day activities. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, very few people have heard of this particular event; in fact, I only knew about it due to being told by my good friend David Tubb. I was with David and another friend of mine (who specifically asked me not to write this on my blog, so I won’t use their real name) and the three of us were just wandering around the university. When David told my other friend and I about Hello Day, the pair of us set up a little rivalry and the first of us to say hello to ten people ‘won’. Of course, we didn’t actually ‘win’ anything, we’d didn’t bet money or any other physical prize, so the only actual prize was smugness. We were doing fairly well, each of us helloing the odd person we passed and we were roughly at five all. Then, while David had to pay a little visit to the Steward’s Lodge, we waited outside for him. It seemed the pair of us both noticed that the bus stop was full of people at the same time.
    We ran over to it as quickly as we could and arrived at the same time, each of us shouting ‘Hello!’ as loudly as we could.             However, these people didn’t seem to be aware of Hello Day. Indeed, the combination of the looks on their faces and the very awkward silence suggested that they were thinking “Who are these two drunken fools?”
    And that was my first experience of Hello Day. I suppose the moral of this story is that you should always remember that not many people take part in World Hello Day.
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Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Adam Randall

PictureThe Fire Emblem games are a fantasy series created by Nintendo and they always seem to be overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda games, the majority of people, I imagine, only knowing about the game due to the Smash Bros. series. This is a real shame.

Recently I’ve managed to play through this game and I’ve honestly really enjoyed it. The gameplay is a combination of turn-based strategy and RPG. In every level you are put on a map featuring several enemies and buildings and you are given an objective. Unlike most strategy games, however, you do not just hire hoards and hoards of unnamed soldiers, instead you can only use the characters you meet throughout the story and if they die, that’s it, they’re gone. The fact that characters can actually die gives you more motivation to win every level without anybody dying and, trust me, every time one of the game’s heroes does die, you’re going to feel quite guilty about it.

The storyline of this game is probably one of the most developed stories of all the games I’ve ever played, so I’ll just say that it all starts with a peaceful continent being thrown into mayhem when one of its nations invades another. In fact, the story of this is so long and well thought out, that it’s probably just as deep as some novels I’ve read. There are several very long cut scenes, all of them containing a lot of dialogue to read. This could potentially be a downside to some people due to the possibility of it getting boring, but I, for one, had no such problem. Every character has their own backstory and personality too, my personal favourite was a girl named Lute and she doesn’t even have a big role in the story, so I guess this shows how well they come across.

So, on the whole, as you take control of Eirika and Ephraim (the game’s two main heroes, if either of these die, it’s game over) you are embarking on a truly epic quest! When the game ends, you’re free to wander around the map and fight roaming monsters if you like, and as well as that there is a huge task called the ‘Creature Campaign’ to do where you have to work your way up a tower, which sounds boring but is actually a lot of fun and you are rewarded with some worthy unlockables. It found it to be a very engaging, compelling and rewarding game.

Rating: 8.4/10

Buy it here.

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Adam Randall

Perhaps I’m biased due to hearing a lot of English Literature lecturers’ views on this, but it seems to me that the Harry Potter series of books has a reputation for being some bad series which only people who don’t read enough will enjoy. Frankly, this view seems to be quite snobbish to me, there are plenty of things to enjoy in this book and I feel that it has been very well written.

One thing which Rowling seems to be particularly good at is creating really beautiful looking fantasy locations. Often, in book form, it’s very hard for an author to describe really beautiful scenery without it just becoming really boring, but she manages to do this very well and it flows into the adventure quite nicely. It makes for very pleasurable reading.

Furthermore, the storyline is really rather nice; you’ll find all different kinds of fantasy creatures here, goblins, trolls, ghosts and so many others, all of them integrated into the world’s society somehow. The childlike way in which it suggests that there’s more to the world than the average person knows gives the book a real sense of adventure. Let me expand: as a child, the world seems such a huge and exciting place, but as you get older and you learn more about how things work, the world, though still nice, begins to look less and less exciting. But in this book that feeling is recreated when Harry discovers that there is a whole ‘magic’ part of the world which only the magic community knows about. His adventures after joining the magical Hogwarts School are all very enjoyable to read. If you’re interested in reading this series, but are unsure, then read this, the novel is very self-contained and it’s sure to be a nice experience for you.

An excellent fantasy story: 8/10

Buy it here.

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A Post by Gordon Orson Dobson

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Adam Randall

Hello. Today’s blog post won’t be written by the usual author of this blog, instead it will be written by me: Gordon Orson Dobson! Let me introduce myself, I’m just an average guy, an average guy who’s saved the world a few times and has power close to omnipotence, that is! I don’t mean to sound boastful, but those things really are true. But mainly, I just like to wander, I’m always eager to have a nice stroll!

Anyway, I’m sure you must be wondering why I, of all people, have hijacked this, frankly rather obscure and uninteresting looking blog! I will explain why I’m writing on here in a little while; I just need you to keep reading for a little bit longer first! What do people write on blogs anyway? I suppose I should have read some of the other entries in order to get a feel for blogging. Is it like social networking? Am I supposed to start up a friendly conversation with you? How are you feeling? and what are you doing today? (all those kinds of things.)

But yes, I suppose I’ve been talking to you for long enough. First, let me explain my apparent boastfulness earlier: I just needed to make my credentials clear so that you trusted me. I mean who would you trust more? Some guy who randomly hacks blogs? Or some hero who’s saved the world before? I’m hoping you’d choose the second option.

Anyway, by writing this blog post, I’ve actually saved the world once again! My evil double (Bernard Adams Dobson) has placed an extremely powerful bomb in your brain (yes, I’m speaking directly to you if you’re reading this). These Brain Bombs were due to explode sometime today, most likely when you first became bored and they’re so powerful that they would have wiped out all life on Earth if they’d exploded. Luckily, when the Brain Bomb’s host is distracted by something strange for a short period of time, it weakens them. After the bombs had been weakened, my telling you (the host) that you had a Brain Bomb in you meant that your natural defence systems were able to deactivate the bomb. I suppose I was just lucky that the small selection of Brain Bomb hosts which Bernard chose all happened to read this blog (and so would have visited here when they became bored!) Ah well, the world is safe once again!

– Gordon Orson Dobson

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Brawl in the Family

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Adam Randall
Brawl in the Family is a rather hilarious webcomic which features many jokes related to Nintendo characters. I imagine that everybody who enjoys playing video games will probably find something to enjoy in this comic. Plus, while it is mainly Nintendo characters that they use (the title itself being a reference to Super Smash Bros. Brawl), they do also use characters from the likes of Final Fantasy and Sonic the Hedgehog, so the appeal is probably fairly wide within the spectrum of video game fans. I think it’s definitely worth checking out, you may find it just as funny as I do. It’s never explicit either; it’s always good clean, innocent, utterly hilarious fun.

Link

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My ‘Original’ Joke

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Adam Randall
I think I may have thought of my own original joke (then again, it’s so obvious that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it has actually been thought up before now) and so I’ve decided to write it here in order to preserve it.

What do you call a man who over-prepares for everything?
Justin Case.

😀

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Change is a Crucial Part of The Waltons

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Adam Randall
When people talk about The Waltons (or reference it in any way) on TV, they’ll usually just mention the first season of the show, or refer to aspects which mainly occur during Season 1. Also, the main criticism that seems to be raised about The Waltons is that as the years go by more and more of the original cast members leave. To be precise, by the ninth season of The Waltons five of the central characters from the first season are gone.
But I want to argue that the fact that characters come and go is actually a strength The Waltons has and is something which really adds to the show. There are so many great moments in The Waltons that wouldn’t exist if the cast had remained intact throughout the whole thing: John-Boy’s quiet ‘goodnight’ to the family from the episode when he leaves (The Achievement), John’s loneliness after Olivia’s absence and then his extreme happiness when he enjoys a brief phone call with her (The Legacy), Ester’s return to the show after having been gone for over a year due to illness (Grandma Comes Home) or the moment when the whole family says a little goodbye to Zebulon after he’d died, which was due to the real life death of actor Will Geer (The Empty Nest). The absence of some of the characters even means that their mere appearance is something to look forward to in future episodes, meaning that you’re really made to appreciate every one of them.
The fact that things change so often is, for me, one of the show’s main appeals. In real life you can’t stay with the same people forever and the time will come when you have to say goodbye to them. The Waltons, for me, is one of the few shows which accurately represents this aspect of life, eventually a time will come, in all relationships when you have to say goodbye to the other person, or when there’ll be a significant change to your everyday life; both things happen several times in The Waltons and this is just one of the reasons I count it as one of my favourite TV shows. 

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Why do Some Christians Object to Homosexuality?

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Adam Randall
This question is something which I generally fail to understand. I do know that the Bible does speak out against homosexuality, for those who don’t know, this is what it says:

Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a man as a woman, that is an abomination.”
Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
Romans 1:26 – 1:27 “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men,and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

    So that’s only three times when you’re told in The Bible that homosexual inclinations are immoral. Now, the majority of Christians living today do not follow every single rule in The Bible, their viewpoint is, I imagine (I don’t know all that much about it), that there are several true and important moral laws given by God in the Bible, but that they’re lost amongst some laws of ancient peoples which no longer apply. Since the Leviticus quotes come from so close to one another, you could easily count them as being a single thing, you basically only have two points where it is suggested homosexuality is wrong. Two references hardly seems enough for this rule to have any significance. If two references was the amount needed for something to be identified as ture moral laws, eating figs would be even more immoral:

Romans 1:26 – 1:27 “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.”
Jeremiah 29:17 – “yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten.”
Matthew 21:18 and 21:20 – “Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.” 

    I wish I could say I’d made this observation myself, but this point is not my own. Another thing which is definitely not widely accepted by Christianity is God’s lack of omnipotence, though following the idea that two mentions means it’s true, God certainly does have one very big weakness:

Judges 1:19 “And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
Joshua 17:17 – 17:18 “. But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.” (which isn’t explicitly saying that God cannot defeat them, but Joshua seems to be mentioning the fact that God had previously had a problem with iron chariots).

    So, as you can see, it’s rather hard to understand why some Christians have an issue with homosexuality. This seems especially true when you consider that God seems to condemn all kinds of sexual activities that do not directly produce babies, which the majority of heterosexual intercourse does not, yet there isn’t such large objections to any of that. Indeed the Bible even features the characters David and Jonathan, two people who’re very close indeed, often telling each other how much they love each other, kissing, hugging etc, and several people believe that these people are supposed to be gay, but there relationship is not once condemned. So if God’s hate of figs, God’s iron chariot weakness, the command to kill all people who do not worship God and to kill those who work on Sunday (I apologise for not quoting these, but this is already a fairly long entry and the quotes are hard to find) are all ancient laws which no longer apply, why is God’s hatred of homosexuality still believed today? It seems to me that The Bible seems to reveal things about those who read it, a good person might read it and become very kind, charitable and try and follow all the rules for loving other people, while a bad person might read it and harass all the groups of people The Bible disagrees with.

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