Artist

Picture

So with no real idea for a blog entry today, I decided I would use this entry to show off the artistic skills of a friend of mine named Sam Reader. In my free time, aside from writing in my blog, I also write short stories. One of the characters from my short stories is Gordon Orson Dobson. The picture is of that character and was drawn by Sam Reader. Pretty good don’t you think? So this is just kind of a way of thanking him for doing illustrations for me.

You can find more artwork by Sam here.


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ChatRoulette

As you may know, there is in existence a website called ChatRoulette. If you are unfamiliar with it I’ll now give you a brief description of what happens on it. It’s basically a game where you are put into a videochat with a random person from across the world, if you don’t like them you press ‘next’ and get a new person (they can do the same.) Now, you might be thinking “Wow that sounds like a fun innocent game that everybody can enjoy” (which is true some of the time) but ChatRoulette can be downright nightmarish at times. Here’s a transcript (I can’t remember exactly what was said, I’m working from memory) of a conversation I had on there (remember, we’re both on webcam):

Me: Hello.
Random Female: Hey.
Me: How are you?
RF: I’m fine. Want to play a game?
Me: Oh okay! What kind of game? Word association?
RF: Not that kind of game… 😉
(The Random Female then took of all of her clothes, leaving her naked)
Me: Hmm, could you please put your clothes back on so we can talk normally? I don’t like this kind of game. Get dressed and we can play word association.
(Random Female presses ‘Next’ on me).

I was quite insulted by her pushing ‘next’ on me. I always see the ‘next’ button as what you press either when a conversation has reached a natural end or when you find yourself talking to a very strange person. Now, this conversation was clearly not over, so therefore she just thought I was a strange person. But she was the one who suddenly got naked; all I did was pull a face of shock while politely asking her to cover herself. But then I later reflected on the matter: in today’s world are the crazy ones the ones who DON’T join in with all these crazy things? Would the average male have replied “That sounds like a fun game. How about we each ‘enjoy’ ourselves while watching each other across the webcam!”? I don’t know, but maybe.

On the subject of males actually, the males who use ChatRoulette do represent their gender rather poorly. The majority of them have their camera pointed at a naked area between their legs while they’re ‘enjoying’ themselves. Then, if you say something like “Could you please put your clothes back on?” they get all rude at you. Now I don’t mean to imply that this website is entirely bad, I’ve had some nice conversations with some nice people on there. Sadly, given the chance, it seems that the majority of people on ChatRoulette (especially the majority of males), want nothing more from females but sexual satisfaction. In fact, the males on there reflect so badly on their gender, that I’ve had females ask me to prove that I’m wearing clothes below my waist!

I guess maybe I’m just in a very small minority and should just stop whining.

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10 Practical Uses for a Water Bottle

1. Opening doors. You see a push-door, but you don’t want to waste time using your hands to open it, so you pull out your water bottle and push.
2. Squirting enemies. If you’re ever troubled by a drunken fooligan, or have a terrible desire to get revenge for something. Simply point the nozzle of the water bottle whoever has offended you and squeeze. They’ll soon think twice before troubling you again.
3. Cleaning messes. If you put your hand into something gross, your hand gets cut open and there’s blood everywhere, or even if there’s just something gross on a table you want to sit at, just pull out your water bottle, aim at the mess and squeeze. That mess will soon be a clean spot.
4. Pushing people. Sometimes there’s just somebody being obnoxious, or you may have attracted unwanted attention on the dance floor, if this ever happens just pull out the bottle and use it to push them away. It’s surprisingly effective!
5. Putting out fires. Some maybe you accidentally started a fire, and some paper is burning up, or your leg is burning up. A quick squirt from the water bottle and there’ll be no more fire!
6. Pointing at things. Have you ever wanted to point at something but thought your arm was too short? Well if you hold your water bottle at it’s base, you can use it to elongate your arm and point at things more expertly.  
7. Cooling yourself down. After running a race, or spending a long day walking in the sun, just turn the nozzle to yourself and squirt! The water is a good refresher.
8. Getting out of awkward situations. You see somebody walking towards you, you kind of know them, but you aren’t sure if you’re supposed to say hello to them or not. If you are, and you don’t, you’ll just see rude, if you’re not, and you do, you’ll just seem weird. A water bottle gives you a good alternative, put it to your mouth and drink, maybe you would have said hello, but your mouth was full! They can’t get mad for that. Plus, this lets you see whether they say hello or not, then, judging by their actions, you’ll know what to do in the future.
9. Stress ball. Whenever you feel uncomfortable, or stressed, grab for your water bottle! Squeeze it as much as you like with the lid down, water won’t escape and it works perfectly as a stress ball!
10. Water whenever you need it. This is the best thing about it. You’ll always have water with you, so whenever you’re thirsty just pull it out and drink it. The perfect beverage. You should never run out either, cafes and restaurants have to give you free refills, and you’ll never be too far away from a water fountain!

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The Flow of Time

I’m getting towards the end of my time in school; I’m in Year 13 and now only have to come in to do my exams. Of course, technically I could have left school in Year 11 and gone to a college or simply started working, but I didn’t do this because, firstly, I would like to have a good education to be able to have a reasonable job in future. Also I wouldn’t have liked to be apart from my friends (though now this will inevitably happen soon anyway).

My time at the Corsham School (which is the name of my secondary school, just in case you were unable to figure that out) seems to me, to have been incredibly long. So much has happened in my life that is particularly significant while I have been in this school. In my seven years there I have been on countless trips to places I never would have gone otherwise, met some many people who I’ve really cared for, had my Dad die, learned to actually enjoy reading books, discovered that water is the nicest drink, been to countless parties and ended up in many uncomfortable situations that would later be hilarious stories when I told them to people. It seems like such a long time.

Anyway, I’d better get back to the main point of this entry rather than spending too much time talking about irrelevant things. When I was in Year 12, I took part in a small Paired Reading scheme where I had to help a boy with his reading every afternoon. Today I saw that boy and said hello to him and I was rather surprised when he reacted as if it was very strange of me to say anything to him. I, initially, was confused, but then I realised, I did paired reading with him over a year ago, I knew him when he was just starting in Year 7, now he’s almost in Year 9. In a period of time that, to me, seems to have gone by very quickly, but for him, he’s gone through a significant portion of his time in the school and it must seem like ages since I last spoke to him. When, in the past, I was told that time passes faster as you get older I never really believed it and, until today, still didn’t. What summed it up best for me is that I was sitting in my friend’s house earlier today and saw a poster he got for Christmas and thought “Oh yeah, that’s his new calendar!” but the calendar is six months old, it’s June and I was still thinking of it as being the start of the year.

I can’t really think of a good way to end this entry, but I’ve just been feeling very nostalgic lately.

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Creepy

Picture

So I picked this doll up (the one in the picture) at the Bath and West Show recently. Her name is Martha Mae and she is supposed to be a female African slave. Of course, it looks very offensive, but that’s because it was made to resemble the dolls of the 19th century. She’s also kind of creepy looking as you can see.
    So when I got home I sat Martha on top of one of my bookshelves in a position so that she was facing towards my bedroom window. Then one night afterward I decided that I would stay up a little later than usual and do some writing. When I was done writing I looked away from the screen of my laptop, yawned and stretched. But when I did it, I noticed that Martha was not sitting in her usual position, instead she facing me. Initially it made me jump, but then I realised there would be a rational explanation and just moved her into her original position. But still, at the time it seemed to be pretty creepy!

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Rumours

The next entry I had planned is taking a little longer than I imagined, so I decided I would take this oppertunity to talk about how bad rumors are. I had a good friend who was emotionally destroyed by rumors, which is very sad, but luckily he’s fine now. Now recently another rumor was spread around amongst the people who I knew, and, again, somebody has been left upset. So I just took this oppertunity to say that I will not ever post anything on my blog that I don’t know is 100% true, and if I post oppinion or speculation it will be clearly stated. I’ll never be reduced to those rumour spewing fooligans who are the bane of the world.

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The Immortality of the Human Race

People often talk about how humans will eventually no longer exist and that reality will eventually just become an empty black void, thus making everything we do in life meaningless (or if you want to put an optimistic spin on it, we’re incredibly lucky to exist at all thanks to the brief window of time in which life can exist within the universe being just that.)
    I think that, actually, this would have been an inevitability (assuming that religions featuring an ‘end time’ are wrong) as the Earth and the Sun will not be here forever (nothing will). But another thing that is often talked about, as something which is just around the corner (in regards to technological development), is the ability to upload human minds onto computers and have them existing in some kind of cyber space, never ageing or dying. But surely this cyberspace world will exist forever? Thing such as radio waves will exist forever and continue to float around long after everything in the universe has ceased to exist. I don’t exactly have a very in depth knowledge of the science and technology behind this cyberspace which has been said to someday exist, but surely it would be similar to that? So, after it is created, many people will be ‘uploaded’ into cyberspace and be able to live there forever (overpopulation and such being impossible). Then, once the final star in the universe has gone  supernova, this cyberspace will become the primary place of existence for the human race (probably even sooner than that, as habitable planets and actual life will probably be gone long before the last star has gone). As this place would be unending, then humans would live there forever, having achieved immortality for themselves…
    Now, I don’t actually know how credible the whole cyberspace afterlife concept is (perhaps it is, and will always remain, theoretical), but if it is, indeed, achievable, then surely people need not worry about the end of all things.

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The Latest Crazy Scheme of the Government

Recently the idea of banning gay people kissing each other on television before 9 p.m. has been bubbling away in the minds of the government. Apparently this is more ‘sexually suggestive’ than heterosexuals kissing one another, but, thinking about it, this is the opposite of true. Now, this may sounds a little offensive, but I hope it doesn’t: the majority of people will not be homosexual, if they were the population would be much smaller. There are still a significant number of people who are gay, obviously, but I’m pretty certain it is nowhere near as close as the number of people who aren’t. So imagine two scenarios, in one a child selected at random (and due to numbers they will most likely be heterosexual) sees a homosexual couple kissing one another, and in another situation a different random child sees a heterosexual couple kissing.
    Now because, as I said, there will be more people who are heterosexual than homosexual, more children will see the heterosexual kiss and think “Oh wow, that looks like a fun thing to do, maybe I should try it on that member of the opposite gender I like” than any who would see the homosexual kiss and think the same thing (except with ‘member of the same gender’ instead of ‘member of the opposite gender’). This is also assuming that the young child already knows thier sexuality, in actuality children probably will not know their sexual preference before around the age of fifteen, and most younger children (who would later turn out to be gay) will just think that they like females because heterosexuals are more abundant and will be seen most often by the child. So logically this plan fails.
    This plan also fails morally, there’s quite a double standard in claiming that homosexual kissing is sexually suggestive but that heterosexual kissing is not. If it happened, it would be a clear step-back. Assuming there is anything wrong with gay kissing but not with hetero kissing is a very bad assumption. Then maybe ten years along the lines people will think “Hmm, gay kissing, that’s not allowed on television until late, why’s it allowed in public at all hours?” and slowly snowball down that hill of immorality.
    I realise it is unlikely that this crazy law will come to anything, but I think it needs to be pointed out just how stupid the idea is.

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Top 10 Episodes of Jake and Amir

I couldn’t really think of a blog entry for today, so I decided I’d use today’s post to advertise one of the funniest series on the internet, specifically ‘Jake and Amir’. The series is about two co-workers in an office, one of them is (mostly) normal (Jake) and the other very unintelligent and obsessed with the other (Amir). Recently their videos have become a little over the top and aren’t quite as funny anymore, but they’re still very good. If you have a spare half an hour or so, you should watch them, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it! They’re only 2-5 minutes long each. So here is my personal top ten list of episodes of Jake and Amir:

10. Photographs
From 2007, I think this video shows exactly what each of the characters are like, and it’s also very funny!

9. Moment of Silence

8. Ransom
Released January of this year, this episode is one of the more ‘over the top’ videos that they’ve made recently, but I still think this one is of very high quality.

7. Cup Trick

6. I.M’s

5. Amir’s Birthday
One of the longest single part episodes. It was made in 2008 and is definitely one of the best.

4. Karate
Their most recent episode as of today (May 17th 2011), it was released on Thursday and has some very good dark humour.

3. Girlfriend (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8)

2. Lunchtime

1. Sick Day (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9)
To me, this nine part storyline  is just the absolute pinnacle of Jake and Amir videos. I hope you enjoy it.

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Literature Bubblebath

In my opinion, writing is one of the most amazing things that people can do. It’s just so fantastically incredible that people can just reach into their box of thoughts and show everybody what they have in there. To make an analogy, I view literature as being akin to a bubble bath. Literature itself is the entity made up of millions of tiny bubbles. Now, occasionally you’ll find a huge bubble floating around on the surface, and these huge bubbles are things like The Bible or the plays of Shakespeare, but the millions of other bubbles are all the other writers in the world. Some people may feel disheartened that their writing is little more than their own personal hobby, which nobody knows about. But in my eyes, everything ever written by all of the authors in the world is of equal.
    For whatever purpose you write, be it to create your own exciting fictional world, to document the life you lead, to immortalise the important people in your life, even if it’s just for fun, you should never stop writing it is one of the most amazing things about humans. Even if you’re a writer who doesn’t have any readers, feeling that a writer needs readers in the same way a chef needs eaters, you still shouldn’t be disheartened. It’s almost guaranteed that you will find at least one person who will gain pleasure by reading your writing, and that one person should make it worthwhile. Without the power of foresight, there is no way to know that your writings are unimportant. The young H.P. Lovecraft burned many of his short stories because he considered them to be terrible, today there will be millions of people who would love to read them, but Lovecraft never even became a success within his own lifetime. Jane Austin wrote as a child, things which she probably considered to be utterly worthless, but now volumes of her childhood writings have been published, and think about (arguably) the most significant writer of the 20th century, Anne Frank, she merely kept a journal, unaware that her writings would ever be anything more than that, but they would eventually become one of the most famous books in the world.

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