I'll do this one in order.
Music
I'm seeming to branch out my music tastes a little more at the minute, rediscovering half the stuff I used to listen to as an immature little kid. It's worrying that half the stuff seems oddly shameful, yet I love it.
Missy Elliot. Yes, I used to own a CD of hers and I really enjoyed listening to it again.
Kylie was a bit of a blast from the past too, which was nice. I even used to have a live DVD of her. What can I say, I was a flaming straight, now I'm not either of those.
I picked up Janelle Monae's album too, which is greatly deserving on The Times's Best Albums of 2010 list. It's so varied, there's blues guitar, soulful vocals and piano and great soft RnB stuff. It's a joy to listen to. And Cee Lo Green is tremendous too. The Lady Killer is a great listen, which I'd highly recommend. Obviously Cee Lo led to Gnarls Barkley, which was the first ever artist I downloaded a song from. It's all still as fresh as ever, especially Necromancer, Gone Daddy Gone and Smiley Faces. I'm really glad I have gone on this kick, because it's nice to have a change from autotuned vocals and synth and guitars and double bass.
Other stuff that I really enjoyed listening to was the remaster of NIN's Pretty Hate Machine. It amazes me that Trent Reznor could have made a record 20 years ago, let alone one that sounds so amazingly modern and inventive today. Amon Amarth, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Anthrax and Cradle of Filth all got a lot of airplay on my Spotify too, especially Lord Filth's new album, Darkly Darkly Venus Aversa. It's blunt, but melodic at the same time somehow. Dunno how, but it's just such a good blend of harpsichord and growls. Noice.
Machines
By machines, I mean computers. They've done lovely and loathsome things the past few days.
Lovely things include my discovery of Crossover Pro for Mac. This beautiful piece of code meant I could load up Steam on my iMac.
What's that I hear you say? Steam is already on Mac?
Yeah, I know, but guess what? Only a tiny percentage of only the newest of bestselling games get ported for native use on Mac. Basically, I'm talking 75% of the stuff in the Black Friday weekend Indie Packs and most of the other sale items. The Pulse Pack was music game based, and had Bit Trip Beat, Audiosurf, The Polynomial, Rhythm Zone and Beat Hazard. Only Polynomial and Bit Trip work on Mac. And I had already bought Bit Trip the week before. Still got Polynomial for less than what i should have paid for it though, which is nice. I accepted this, but after investigation, it means that I can use Crossover to install Steam as a Windows program and have all my games playable! WAHOO! Audiosurf is very good, although I used to play it a lot on my old computer and I haven't tried the rest, but I'm sure they are good. That's the nice stuff.
Now the nasty stuff.
I CAN'T FUCKING DO BOOT CAMP.
I have no non ISO versions of Windows, and copied ones don't work. It's annoying because I'd install Steam on that partition and there would be no need for Crossover. Oh well.
Oh and because my computer messed up an order on Etsy, the secret Santa gift for my friend in chemistry will be late, which is bad because it's glow in the dark soap with the plutonium symbol on it. And it's smells REALLY good.
Self
Pretty weirdly, it turns out I hadn't taken my mattress out of it's plastic packaging for the past year and a half. You'd think I'd notice it but you clearly don't know me well enough to realise that I actually could be that stupid. Anyway, taking off the polythene makes a bed MUCH more comfy. And my sheets stay on a hell of a lot better, which means I'm sleeping a lot better, so I shouldn't be blogging as crankily.
Also, I'm making an effort to lose some weight, with a view to lose at least 3 stone by the end of 6th Form. Just for some reference, I am pretty damn fat. I'm not 6 foot, and my trousers are all between 36 and 38 inches, mainly because of my thighs being the same width as shoeboxes. I dare not weigh myself because I know I'll be horrified at the result, I know for sure it will probably be over at least 15 stone, which is NOT healthy, hence 3 stone. This means healthier eating, more excersise and less time spent watching Fringe, Criminal Minds and Bones. Foodwise, I'm cutting out fried food altogether, cutting chips to once a week, making my own school food instead of nipping down the corner shop and getting crisps and coke, and greatly increasing my fruit and veg intake. You know that whole 5 a day thing? I'm lucky to get 5 every fortnight if I'm being utterly honest. I'm gonna try and walk the first 3 bus stops of all of my journeys and do some running at weekends instead of spacing out in a comfy chair playing Rock Band.
In addition, I had a lovely chat with my biology teacher about my current studies.
I do Biology and Chemistry at A2 (these exams determine your university, pretty much) and Drama and Psychology at AS (half of your A2 mark, but easier). Chemistry is a no go area really, as I've never got above a C in anything that actually mattered in it. I only really took it to spite my school arch enemy, as he had to do 3 extra AS courses, so I only took 2 to win the theoretical pissing contest. Drama and Psychology are pretty much guaranteed As at AS level and hopefully As at A2 as well because I love them passionately and they are really enjoyable lessons to be in.
Biology is the only one that actually matters to me, because it's what I want to do at university, and preferably a good university. I had a discussion concerning my AS grades and how they affect my prospects this year, as they are worth half the total score.
I got a C last year, which surprised everyone, including the teachers as I had never dropped below an A all year. Needless to say, I'm retaking an exam, and it looks like I will have a very high A if mock exams are to be believed. I asked what my chances of getting an A overall would be, taking into account my mock results and what she thinks of how I'm doing at the minute. I am statistically, the best in my class by about 20% in all exams and topics which pretty much points to an A in my upcoming A2 exam. She then drops the bombshell...
"You want an A? Oh. You'd have to retake another exam to get an A, and we'll only do that if you can get an A or borderline A/B in your next exam. Otherwise it's impossible."
-______________-
I now have to work my balls off to utterly guarantee an A in my Biochemistry and Control exam, or I can kiss an A goodbye. Let's assume I do get an A in the next exam. This makes me upcoming exam timetable like this:
January Exams in red, June Exams in blue.
Biology x 5 (AS Unit 1, Unit 2, A2 Unit 1, A2 Unit 2 and A2 Assessed Practical Exam)
Chemistry x 4 ( AS Unit 1, A2 Unit 1, A2 Unit 2 and A2 Assessed Practical Exam)
Psychology x 2 (AS Unit 1 and AS Unit 2)
Drama x 3 (Written Exploration Notes, Externally Moderated Small Cast Play and Assessed Monologue)
Yeah. Lovely.
Speaking of Drama, I'm going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Not just going to it, performing a 4 day run of an original play with a group of other drama students. Yeah, I'm crapping myself. Although, I am the only person on the trip allowed to legally drink.
You know, when in Rome...
Society
I love factual TV shows, especially BBC ones like Horizon and Panorama. This changed when Panorama made a big boo boo.
Try and guess what irked me...
"Are videogames causing addiction in kids and should we be more strict with games?"
Yeah, pretty much the whole thing. They completely biased it against the entire videogame industry, which incidentally is larger than the British film and music industry. They also have a presenter who covers pretty much every demographic area of the UK. He's a concerned black single (from what I could gather) father with a son and daughter who play videogames. He interviews clearly messed up individuals with addictions to games.
One is a World of Warcraft player who got kicked out of university because he played for 20 hours a day. One was a Modern Warfare "addict" who did nothing but play and another WoW addict who got violent when he was deprived of his sweet orc love. They completely glossed over the fact that there are tens of millions of gamers who aren't addicted and presented these people as the norm. They clearly had addictive personalities and had general lack of people skills which parents put down to the games. One mother was scared that giving her son the internet and a copy of WoW led him to being a violent person when it was taken off of him.
NO. Your son is just a little shit. Just because you are a perfectly aspirational middle class family doesn't mean you kids can't be twats. He's clearly got some kind of lack of social skills as he said he only played it because he was bored. What else do they expect him to do? The presented actually physically trolled the kid, by asking "Why don't you do things normal teenagers do? Get a job, get some friends, get a girlfriend, just do what normal people do!"
I think you'll find that this is just bullying a clearly underconfident teenager who filled holes in his life with things that could substitute friends, like games and quests.
Another gaping flaw was the MW2 guy said that his advice to other addicts was to go out and get smashed at the weekend with your mates. I'm seeing slightly bad logic here. If you feel the need to intoxicate yourself to replace something, that's not having fun. That's called withdrawal medication. If you need to be drunk to deal with a lack of video games, there's obviously a deeper seated addiction issue here.
The alcohol bit leads me on to the general gripe with society and us teengagers. We just can't do it right.
When we go out and get drunk, we get called yobs and chavs and sources of antisocial behaviour. When we stay in and do other things, like gaming and studying, we get called addicted to games and overaspirational with no social skills.
One of the heads of the British Entertainment Commission (or something like that), summed it up perfectly.
"Videogames are just vilified because people don't like change. Just like people looked down on energetic dancing in the 30's, rock music in the 50's and 60's and TV in the 70's. It will move on to something else in ten years and it will just be another thing that we got used to."
This man is smart. This man can use his breadbin instead of blindly labelling a whole tribe of people for liking something they don't understand.
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