Writing is such fun

Writing is such fun. Like, really really fun.

But it does take me a long time.

It used to come so much easier when I was younger.. especially in my early teens. Now I just struggle though. I'm not sure if it's the drinking and smoking, or the loss I'm feeling as having to rewrite so much of what I lost.

When I moved back from Holland, I lost pretty much everything I had. The thing I miss most though was my Amstrad 6128. I wrote so many things on that when I was 12+, so many many things. Losing that was a crushing blow, and only now, 7 years after losing it, am I finally becoming able to write stories again.

AL was probably a big reason for this. Writing is so much like world building (and in this case, was the world!), and why make my own when I have such a rich background already living. "Because I want to" doesn't cut it when you're weak-willed and depressed - go for the easy option (or the harder one really).

But Arcip is finally coming together. I'm surprisingly becoming quite disciplined about it, though with mixed results. Sometimes I can write 3 or 4 pages, other times I'm lucky it I get a paragraph. I still feel loathe to go back and rewrite stuff as I'm still exploring the characters. I also suspect I will have to rewrite a lot, but ho-hum the flow of thought :P.

One thing I am glad about is that the years more wisdom have made me a better writer (in my opinion, but then I thought I was a pretty damn hot writer when I was 9!). So far, not one sex scene (the sexually frustrated version of Arcip only had one, but other writings at the time were littered) and instead a lot more (too much methinks sometimes) character exploration.

A private wiki is an amazing resource for writers I've found. I'm currently using Mediawiki at the moment, though that's only out of laziness - a smaller, lighter one would be better. Being able to draw links between characters and (especially!) dates makes it lots easier to visualise your world.

Anyhow. Off to visit friends in my hometown of Windsor this weekend. Wondering weather to take Bernard (my laptop) or go cold turkey. Ran outa smoke and not drinking either, so don't think I'd be able to bear it ;).

Pen island or penis-land?

How nice it is to be home. Though I haven't really spent any time at home yet. Been back two nights, and have yet to sleep on my weird 'cushions-on-the-floor' bed (I can't be bothered to pull out the futon, so it's just a load of random cushions I found).

First night I got back, I zoomed off to see Alex and his new house. Next night I went to see some (awful) gig at the Concorde2. Some Asian rock band. Dear lord, they sucked ass. But then I'm heavily baised cos I just hate gigs anyway.. too much noise and too expensive (though I managed to get in for free saving me £9. Score!).

Anyway, last night I ended up sleeping on my friends boat at Brighton Marina. Couldn't get this girl from the concert out of my head though. A hot chick just come out of a mental hospital and was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Why do I always get attracted to the nutters, and why BPD? Been there before, and the fun is much less than the crap and baggage.

Anyhow, things are pretty damned good. Having fun, still writing and life is good. Except, tennis is on TV. I hate tennis, but there's nothing else on. Back in 2001 I was stuck in a hospital bed for a month with a TV with 30 channels. 26 were Dutch. The three that weren't were constantly showing tennis. And I had super bad insomnia. I couldn't stand tennis before that. Meh!

Home is where the heart is

Finally back in Brighton. Finally back home.

I had such a good holiday. It was the first time in two years I got away, and
the first time in near on a decade I had a holiday I enjoyed.

Not only does Scotland rock, England rocks! When I had my flit to Holland, I
thought I did it because I hated England. I didn't. I just hated Windsor and
my life. How come it took 8 years to realize that?

I love Brighton. It's one of the few places that feel like home. My flat
doesn't feel like home, but the city feels like home. As soon as I passed
those big stone pillars miles out of town that say "Brighton", I felt like I
was home. Weird, innit?

I had the time of my life on my holiday. Went up West England, then up to West
Scottland and Skye, then back down the East coast. Except for a few excersions
to Yorkshire, Devon and Wales, I hadn't seen any of my home country other than
Sussex, Surrey and Berkshire. Just saying those counties makes me feel middle
class - wish I had the money to live up to that.

On the way back, I brought a sword. A short sword with a scabbard. It pleases
me.. I've always wanted a sword. No idea how to enjoy it without getting
arrested for it (my long coat is long enough to cover the scabbard!), but I'll
work it out.

While away anyway, I wrote 40 pages of my book (finally!) and.. did little
else. I just chilled. Hardly any drinking, a smoke or two to ease the long
journeys. I escaped life, and it was damned fun!

At the same time, I'm so glad to be home. I'm even more glad to realize that I
think of somewhere as home.

Google Favicon Rant

I've not written here for ages. Over 1 1/2 years in fact.. my my, doesn't time fly. I realized I'd had a gmail account for over three years the other day (my first email is from 19/02/2005).

I first found the internet fairly late. Was around 1999 or 2000. I'd read about it in magazines, but even with the rich populas in Windsor, I only new one person who had it at home (and damnit, his parents were minted!). Getting internet at school led to my downfall (in schooling anyway - I've learnt a lot more online than I would have had I stayed at school and onwards), but it wasn't until 2001 when we got our first internet cafe's in Windsor (a music store with 4 iMacs charging £1 for 20 minutes).

Getting off my point anyway. Like many other people, my internet aging grew with Google. It was thanks to Yahoo! mostly - I had my mail with them at the time, and used their search. I spent about a year using a 486 with (what was then) high-speed broadband. Could download Yahoo!'s page just fine, but computing it with whatever browser I was using was a grind. So I switched to Google, and stayed ever since.

As many other people have noticed, Google recently changed their favicon. Finally, Google have explained why:

Last Friday, Google changed their favicon and it caused a big stir amongst Google users. We asked Google why they made the change and they replied that it was to reflect the "simple, playful and unique brand."

Here is the official response from a Google spokesperson:

We recognized there was a need for a Google icon that would better work across multiple applications including web, mobile and client applications. We felt the small 'g' had many of the characteristics that best represent our brand: it's simple, playful, and unique. We will be looking to improve and enhance this icon as we move forward.

First of all, the colours are wrong. After a couple of hours browsing, I can easily up 30 or more tabs open. The red/green/blue/white white square of the old Big G were always easy to spot. Now I have to read the title of each tab. Though a different shade, a single blue colour I have come to mentally link with Facebook.

Secondly, it's lower case. Google is one of the biggest (if not the title holder) internet companies in the world. It's a big G! One of the comments I read in another blog referenced a study where capital letters suggested pomposity. Maybe this is true, but there's no point changing now, which brings me to my third point:

The Google favicon we've been used to for the last god-knows-how-many-years means Google. If another site used it, we'd notice it as Google. What with internet security the way it is nowadays, any symbol or logo of a company we trust is an important thing. Casual users might not notice it right away, but I've had a couple of less experienced computer user ring me thinking their computers were hacked. Why? Because that little Google logo wasn't the same. This should have been part of a much larger brand change, or at least a prominent announcement made. In the long run, this may be better for the Google brand, but in the short run, it seems like a not well thought out idea.

What to do if inside of girl gets wet

Confused virgins? I wasn't sure when I saw this on Google Trends.



Yep, that's right. The number one query for the US on June 3rd was "what to do if inside of girl gets wet". Sadly, the data for the trend no longer exists, but it was flat-lined until 6am that day, when it suddenly spiked into the 1000s.

A friend suggested it might be the "Did you mean" for "what to do if inside of grill gets wet". You know what? I really really hope that was why.

Google sleeping with the fox?

Ooo.. could google and firefox really be spying on my news feed?

Better still though.. why should I care? I dunno. The only downside I can see is more ads (surprisingly, I found out about the above from a slashdot article about an investigation of Microsoft ad service). But I don't read them anyway. Most of them I block, so who cares if they are targeted at me?

They got my pubes with all their other services I use, so who cares :P.

Woes of the fox

Seeing as pretty much everyone is out sailing with their their latest boat from this years Browser Wars (even the big guys, thought I still think it was with more style in the past), I thought I'd stick out my oar as well.

I've had no problems yet. I didn't like the the new theme, so I went back to the old one (that's why they have the bloody themes section). I do like the x's on every tab, so left them there. There are plenty of ways to change things back, or simply improve, so I've little idea what all the fuss is about.

I can understand some niggles, but teething problems are expected for it to be a fully rounded product. Less bitching, more fixing! (Meh.. yeah ok, but I'll defend my loves against others!)

Suicide Ain't Painless

Came across an interesting article today, talking about how the suicide rate in the UK is falling. Most interesting bit was, what I hope was a typo:


"The latest figures we've seen also demonstrate that one person takes their life every 90 minutes, and we hope that continues to fall because it's still the second highest cause of accidental death in the UK after road traffic accidents."


Accidental death? Surely if there's one thing that suicide isn't, it's not accidental. Misguided maybe, but then who's to say? We have the right to life, but not the right to death?

The Suicide Act, 1961 decriminalized the act of suicide, though raised an interesting legal loophole.


A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another, or attempt by another to commit suicide shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years".


So basically, the person wanting to die gets off scot-free (though probably with a section - assuming they fail), and the abettor ends up 14 years in the clanger. Laughable! Has the added advantage of being able to kill two birds with one stone (almost literally) if you can coax someone in to help with whom you hold a grudge.

Reader niggles

Bah! Been messing about with Google Reader today, and found two pretty big niggles.

The first one, is that the reader tries to eat up ALL of the feed! I've no idea if it does this every time, or (knowing, Google's love of privacy policies) stores it all their side and gives you the updated version. Either way, it just makes no sense! Information is all good an' all, but why do I need to have year old forum posts there? All it does for me is worry about how much bandwidth I'm stinging AL's server for every time I just want to catch up on the latest forum posts.

The second one, is their share option. I've also got into del.icio.us this week, so can see the value of social bookmarking, but I don't want my real bloody name so associated with my google account and little way to change that (other than changing my name in the account). Is only first name, but still.

I've no problem with a beta tag, but yet again, I except these things all shiny when released. If not, at least some give me some control over how the service works for me.

It just doesn't add up..

Quit out (and promptly forgot about it) of AoD in a drunken fit last night, so spent most of the day waiting for my nursemaid to log on and give me all my stuff back. Given me lots of time to browse, and came across this great watch blog.


This has to be one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. Yet Sinclair still managed to shift 10,000 Wrist Calculators! The bastard things don't appear to have even had a clock! Pure madness!

Now that's what I call a bug!

That's what I call a bug! Too funny to even find many words for it myself - go look at Google's latest flop for yourself.

More about it on news.com.com and blognewschannel.