Sex pirates

Sorry I haven't posted much lately; my life has divided into boring things, and things I can't tell you. So to summarise: My housemates are mental, my friends are geeky and awesome, my ukulele playing is coming along well (I've written a song!) and my self-esteem is fluctuating wildly. I'd also like it noted for posterity that I coined the term 'sex pirate.'

Here's a video for you, if geeky ladies are your type! The link is, as always, going up on the left.


Geek and Gamer Girls Song - Watch more Funny Videos

OH! Also,an awesome thing has happened. If you watch Felicia Day's web series "The Guild," you might be interested to know that I emailed Cheesybeard's restaurant and got a response! The conversation is included below.

to   cheesybeards@cheesybeards.info date   15 September 2010 00:55 subject   Hello!

Hi! I'm expecting auto-reply, but if there's a real person dealing with these: nice work. I do love an effective social media presence (and ARGs, for that matter). All the best!

Anna

from   CheesyBeards Restaurant to date   15 September 2010 16:51 subject   Re: Hello!

Auto-reply? YOU MEAN I COULD HAVE SET IT SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THESE COMPLAINTS MANUALLY??? I wish I knew this before.

Thanks,
CheesyBeards Management
--
CheesyBeards
http://cheesybeards.info
http://twitter.com/cheesybeards
http://facebook.com/cheesybeards

Secret places

I had a pretty good childhood. My family got on okay, and I lived on an island with fields and beaches and forests... life treated me well. But there was something missing from my youth, something that I've always longed for - I knew, as so many children do, that there are supposed to be secret rooms.

I'm sure you know what I mean. We've all read the books, haven't we? The ones where a tapestry conceals a hallway, or moss hides a door. Narnia's wardrobe, Harry Potter's platform 9¾... fiction is littered with secret doorways to unusual places.

It even happens in real life - there's Anne Frank's bookshelf; Queen Victoria's wardrobe in Osbourne House that leads into other rooms. I remember going into her room on a school trip as a child and being amazed that the Queen of England would employ such subterfuge. If I was queen, I would do the same.

Why have I never had a secret room?!

It's what I longed for when I shared my room with two other sisters, and it's still the most common dream I have. I dream of being somewhere familiar - my home, my church, my school - and finding unexpected passages, or a gap in a fence, or a big wall hanging beyond which lies a secret space that nobody knows about but me. I can't count the number of times I've had this dream. It used to be flying, but now I dream - sometimes as often as five times a week - of these secret places.

Perhaps that explains my love of exploring.

It certainly explains my love of Ben "Yatzhee" Croshaw's games; I've only played one so far, but secret rooms feature heavily. OH MY GOSH SEAMLESS LINK! Maybe some of you have seen his amazing game reviews (I don't care about gaming, but watch his reviews obsessively), but I want to recommend his own games. They're honest-to-goodness, point-and-click, pixel-art masterpieces. You can find them linked at the top of his site. (Where it says The Best Stuff.) The links will go, as ever, on the left.

Also, just for fun, I made a picture of myself in the style of Jeph Jacques (artist and author of the epic Questionable Content). What do you think?

Interesting Things

Listen guys, I keep accumulating neat things to tell you about and forgetting to put them in my posts. So here, for your delectation and delight, is a list of Interesting Things.

First off, we have the delightful FaceYourManga, a simple, fun and versatile facemaker. This is me:

But to be honest, creating these was much more fun!:







Second we have an amazing little flash game called The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2. The physics of it feel natural, and it's charming and original. I absolutely love it! One mini-level is an homage to sonic, and despite the simplistic graphics you could almost believe it was made by the same people. Watch the backgrounds too, keep an eye out for the batmobile!

Thirdly I'd like to recommend Forumwarz. For the internet savvy among us, the terms 'emo kid', 'camwhore' and 'troll' conjure up familiar archetypes. Well now's your chance to play as one of them in the beautiful game that is the internet. By the time you realise that you're addicted to a roleplaying game it'll be too late! I'm a level 7 camwhore, and my only gripe is that you get limited activity per day unless you pay for more.

I think I'll leave it at that for now, but remember I do honestly enjoy sharing this stuff with you. Let me know if you check them out, and tell me what you think!

A birthday in pictures

I've passed! HOORAY!!!!











Not pictured: Gavin took me out for an incredible sushi meal. Delicious!


I'm getting better at Guitar Hero.



I've had a completely incredible day, I'm looking forward to tomorrow so much! YAY!

Work, play, toys, tales, pity and pictures

Well well well. Where to start.

I've got a job. Just for a month, some simple office work, but it will be my First Proper Job. I'm not too nervous, actually; I've got a kind of "just do it" attitude that probably means I owe Nike royalties. In honour of doing this remarkably grownup thing, I've been making the necessary phone calls and running errands and finding paperwork and all sorts of impressively organised things. Mostly without hardly being threatened at all.

A friend of mine has bought a wii. This is, naturally, the perfect excuse to all go round his house and play that strangely addictive sports that involves odd limbless people that look almost, but not quite, entirely unlike you. I'd like it to be known that I absolutely kicked ass until we started playing a proper game.

I miss the days when I used to rule the world at DOA3. Out of sheer sudden cravings for that game, I started playing on Gav's Soul Calibre 2. Methadone.

I had a very detailed dream last night. The best way to remember dreams is to repeat them to yourself out loud in the morning. I thought it all through in detail, figuring that's more or less the same, and it hasn't worked. Booooo.

Gav had his hair straightened, and it made him very happy. He looks really good too, so we've bought some straighteners to share. Hooray!

Gah - remember my crushingly embarrassing bikini story? I had the opportunity to tell a rather lovely person the whole thing, and our mutual friend told me that she'd read my blog post on the matter at work on a rubbish day and that it cheered her up. I mostly write this blog for me, but that kind of comment truly brightens up my day.

Also, my toe hurts. I tripped over the carpet last night. I hopped about for a bit looking pathetic before remembering that there was nobody here to feel sorry for me. That's why I'm telling you; I figure I'm karmically owed sympathy!

Some of you know about the cartoons that I made. Well my creative splurges now extend to graphics tablet doodles. Let me know what you think!

So, in summary, life is good and moving forward, and my addiction to Boots meal deals continues unabated.

Wii are the champions!

So today I was lucky to enough to play on my friend's Wii. (Ok, snigger, now let's move on.) And I have to say, I love it! For those who don't know (but by the time anyone reads this, everybody will), the Wii is Nintendo's latest gaming console and it is super-clever and most probably the forerunner of a new type of gaming console.

I got used to the Wii controller pretty quickly, because the movements are pretty intuitive. Tennis in particular was really fun to play because it just felt so natural. And the whole idea of making "Miis" (mini representatives of yourself) is genius, that was a lot of fun.

My friend, being a purebred techie, had to do it properly of course. Not for him the standard plug-it-into-the-telly setup, ohno. He had to have a projector attached to his living-room ceiling and a 70-inch white screen on the wall to play on. So I reckon I probably got the best playing experience possible. And it was gooood...

I think probably it will be improved. Like, little things like the resolution, the games available etc. But the general concept of the Wii controller will probably be adopted by Nintendo's rivals sooner rather than later... or they'll have to find another way to compete. Especially since it's affordable in comparison to the PS3. (About £350 cheaper... that's quite a bit.)

So the future is looking rather spiffy. The only complaint I do have is that it can't always tell if you're moving the controller forwards or backwards, which can be an issue in golf.

My completely non-professional opinion: 9/10, and they'll be working on the rest in no time :)