Author Archive for Dan

Two days. Three men. One prize.

This is the sound of me blowing my own trumpet!

PARP.

Why you may ask? An excellent question my curious reader. I shall tell you right now, what I heard this very morning from my comrade in arms Mat. Nothing short of a towering triumph has been achieved! At last the odds have been beaten and the sweet taste of victory is ours - by a whisker!

Two weeks ago I engaged in an activity which can only be described as me, sitting in a room with 30 other men at computers tapping away at keyboards to produce madness. Pretty much like my new job actually, but thats besides the point - for it turns out that some of this madness was in fact close to genius and that madness was ours.

I run ahead of myself. We were three! Three warriors with the keys to glory and quick to draw with our mice:

  • The Man King Mannion - Thumping algorithmic bullets from his massively mighty code launching cannon
  • The Four Fisted Force Forrington - Nicely dicing problems thrice, like the nifty Nick based ninja he is, he covered our stealth bases in a cloth of shadow!
  • And myself - Modest, manful, melchior, munchies, musty smell in the fridge - I really should clean that out…

We strove, struggled, stripped, stroked, swore, slid and slode through 48 hours of punishing endurance. Much was sacrificed, tales were heard of one man who didn’t sleep for a whole night! He was never seen again… until the next day! We molded, deliberated, argued, fought, trapped and killed a bear with our bear… I mean bare hands and then we were ready. And ready we did!

A game was made, prisons was its setting, freedom the goal - its aims noble and putting one in mind of Nelson Mandela - that famous prison escapee. And we looked upon it and it was good. There a few ways it could have been better. Due to limited time, the hunt the monkey mode had to be cut, which is a great loss. Never will the general public know the true meaning of fear… is actually monkey. Well now they know because I’ve told them, but they won’t know. You know?

In short we finished it, we uploaded it A guy at IBM judged it and we scraped into victory. Thanks to the opposition you all did good, and in a way you all won. In a way.

Seriously I love you all. It was gooderer than good things like a morning mint. Never again, and same time next year?

E.T. Phone Restaurant?

PhonesLast week, for the first time in my life I booked a table in a restaurant; something that most would find an inconsequential act. For me, however, it marks a milestone step forward down the path of adulthood.

There is something in the fore planning required to book a restaurant that smacks of life experience and the super sensible. It’s a discernable shift from the turn up and hang about paradigm of the student or the let someone older deal with it carelessness of childhood.

For me, though, the restaurant is more sacrilegious still. The truth I sometimes tell people is that I often prefer to prepare my own food due to the often-woeful vegetarian options available in the eateries of England. There is another truth though and that is that I’ve never really enjoyed eating out all that much; I’m picky about the things I put in my mouth, always have been. If I haven’t hand prepared it with my own delicate mandibles then it is to be treated with the utmost suspicion.

So booking a table should have the approximate joyfulness level of a naked acid bath with a troupe of racist squirrels. Yet instead I feel satisfaction of a well planned evening ahead and the lazy joy that someone else will be doing the washing up. I’m definitely getting old.

In fact I’ve spent a lot of time recently conversing with people down the phone, mostly without the sinking feeling of dread that used to accompany the thought of such activities. I’ve pleasantly realised that getting over this fear allows me to do business in my pants, an agreeable situation to all who can’t see me doing so. Maybe getting over this feeling is partly wisdom and experience but it’s probably also realising that most of the people on the other end are just folks like my good blogging compadre Moses.

The alien has become the familiar. Not the kind that follows you round in D&D though. Though, thinking about it, that would be awesome; can I get an alien familiar for christmas please?

America!

Well America then.

I’d still like to go there even though much of it seems to be all wrong I think that much of it must also be good. Floods, Hurricanes and War.

Its a place full of extremes. Good comics though.

war

Euphemisms

A large list of willy words

Was feeling rather immature this morning and was put in mind of this monty python classic:

Isn’t it awfully nice to have a penis,
Isn’t it frightfully good to have a dong?
It’s swell to have a stiffy,
It’s divine to own a dick,
From the tiniest little tadger,
To the world’s biggest prick.

So three cheers for your Will or John Thomas,
Hooray for your one-eyed trouser snake,
Your piece of pork, your wife’s best friend,
Your percy or your cock,
You can wrap it up in ribbons,
You can slip it in your sock,
But don’t take it out in public,
or they will stick you in the dock,
And you won’t come back.

Excellent.

The Sandman

Morpheus

Before The Matrix This chap was the Morpheus foremost in in the minds of graphic novel fans. Also known as the Sandman or the Lord of Dreams, he is a creation of the ingenious mind of Neil Gaiman, one of Britain’s great geek talents. Continue reading ‘The Sandman’