flu, schmu.

been offline for a few days having suspected swine flu. well, i called nhs direct but there was a load of messages to listen to about what to do and they would probably diagnose me over the phone. so i hung up and went to the chemist. it’s probably just boring flu.

should be back up by the weekend.

cheers, newzar.

teach.

i'm done.

i got back around 4pm yesterday, slept for 2 hours. slept in this morning.

yesterday was my last day at school, last day of my course. i’ve got my certificate and i’m finally finished.

i’ll update this with a few highlights in the next few days but atm i’m looking forward to a long coffee and some bacon n’ eggs.

my first 419 scam. ish.

[updated]

speaking of moving out, i’ve been looking for places in pomo. i went onto gumtree found a few i was interested in and emailed for more details.

i got this back:

listen to this.

i assumed i had posted this ages ago, but apparently not. if you want to hear a couple of guys that used to write for pc gamer talk about games. its a regular for me, a nice sunday afternoon thing.

fuck.yeah.

superkamiokande

“the sun as you’ve never seen it before: this picture was taken at night! it was taken looking down through the earth! and it was taken not with light but with neutrinos! neutrinos are ghostly subatomic particles produced as a byproduct of the nuclear reactions that that generate sunlight in the heart of the sun . whereas light takes about 30,000 years to work its way from the centre of the sun to the surface, neutrinos take about 2 seconds. eight minutes later they arrive on earth. so neutrinos show us what is happening in the sun now.”

cheers, dr. karl/marcus chown.

lame.

robert strange mcnamara

my favourite documentary is the fog of war.

mouse baby.

mouse infant to be precise.

over the weekend i got two mice in the traps. i had nothing for ages then all noticed it when i was cleaning the floor. i replaced the trap and within an hour got another one. i thought at the time it was probably the mouse spouse wondering why his/her partner was taking so long bringing back that sweet peanut butter from the suspicious looking block of wood.

this morning i was dragging my feet across the floor and saw a tiny mouse being a dick and just running around in circles near the door to the kitchen. unsure of what to do i went into the kitchen picked up a big bowl with the plan of trapping it until i could think of a suitable execution/release method.

i assumed that this was a now orphaned infant mouse trying to make it in the world. by the time i put on the gloves and got the bowl the mouse had disappeared. which means that as a type there is a rogue mouse shitting, starving and generally being an arse in my flat. i imagine he was going around in circles because he ate some of the poison i leave around but waiting for him to die and then stink out the place so i can retrieve his body is an annoying thought. i checked again when i came in and found a poo, but nothing else.

i can’t wait to move out of this place.

be interested in this.

“you know how bad a terrible sunburn can feel. the atomic bomb flash can burn you worse than a terrible sunburn.”

armscontrolwonk has a nice list: “the best one-liners about the bomb”.

read the comments for more.

play.

light 'em up

i’ve spent most of the weekend playing the arma 2 demo. the demo itself is massive and i have to say this is one of the best i’ve ever played. i’ve always been a war sim fan, but this is a new level of excellence. for some reason none of the shops around chichester have a) heard of it or b) can tell me when it’s coming out (even though it is). so i had to order it from amazon, damn the wait.

rps has a great review and also links to this. dslyecxi is hardcore. reading his tactics guide reminds me of all those army manuals i used to read from globalsecurity when i wrote a bit for defensetech. it should give you an idea how seriously these guys take it (although not all the time), and i can’t wait to get an internet connection that works to join a fire team.

unfortunately i’ve had all of 10mins connection and i’m disconnected as i write. it was connected when i started so that should give you an idea of how much my internet is pissing me off this weekend. its worse than ever this month and i won’t be able to download my 15gb allocation because i can’t fucking connect.

listen to this.

manha manha

worth it for track 4 alone.

cheers, bb.

dream of dreams.

salvador dali - atomicus

a strange thing happened to me a couple of months ago. i wrote it on my to do pile but feel like crossing things off this morning.

i had an incredibly vivid dream, normally only reserved for when i get ill and i wake up sweating in a contorted position, the plastic buttons that duvet in control having been kicked apart during the night. the last time i think was when i puked all over the floor of my bedroom during half term. my dreams are never bad, in fact i’m almost certain i’ve never had a nightmare. i may have had one when i was an infant or something but similarly i don’t recall ever having had a recurring dream. if anything, the worst kind of dreams i get are just mundane ones.

this dream was so good it’s worth me writing about. unfortunately because it was a while back i don’t remember the specifics, but it’s testament to my brain that it remembers anything at all. let me explain.

the best way i can describe the dream was a ‘greatest hits’ or ‘clip show’ of other dreams going back months and a few years. in the dream i was able to passively receive other aspects of past dreams. e.g. i’d be walking along in the dream and people or places i consciously knew were from older dreams, popped in for a few seconds.

the best thing happened the next morning. i woke up feeling great and couldn’t get it out of my head and as i went about my business, triggers brought to my mind the images/sounds in my old dreams. i realise that i’m using the word dream a lot. what i mean is that i’d hear something on the today show, a laugh or something and this would make me remember an old dream where it happened. it was also smells, sounds of doors opening/closing and seeing things as i drove/walked about. it lasted for most of the morning until i stopped being conscious of it.

it was strange, but even now looking at ‘dream of dreams’ on my to do list makes me think it was something rare.

teach.

my story mountain

i feel sleepy. its been a long, average week but today i had my last ever appraisal and got my grade for the entire course. you’re reading tired words from an o.g. with the highest grade you can get for a pgce and one who got a masters level grade on his dissertation. motherfuckers act like they forgot about dre.

pron

its a rare headline.

cheers, bb.

twat.

either, both.

cheers, bb.

be interested in this.

before the eruption

check out the aftermath.

go vegetation.

cheers, wiredscience.

“yeah, you’ll eat ‘em”

catchy.

cheers, bb.

onewordreview

the wave

disappointing.

gomorrah

interesting.

life and times of tim season 1

great.

cheers, imdb/wiki.

teach.

andrew's story

two weeks left, or to be exact, 9 teaching days.

i’m starting to breath easier, see an end in sight for this pgce and look forward to the next year. new town, new job, new stationary cupboard to abuse and hopefully a new laptop from school. plus the whole reward of ‘teaching’ etc.

play.

few to catch up on:

zero punctuation mentioned project natal the other episode but here’s an interesting article to go along with it from ex-pc gamer and current rps writer jim rossignol.

also:

a reason to salivate over arma 2 (”…is down”)

sweet video of the new arma2 and trackir experience.

little wheel

is a nice lunchtime game. play with sound.

cheers, offworld/rps.

ridiculous movie plot of the moment

freezer burn

“a brilliant scientist falls for his wife’s 14-year-old art student and, using the technology from his research, he figures out a way for them to be together.”

it’s like a reverse california man. but with a paedo.

and did i mention “genre: comedy | drama | sci-fi“

cheers, pbay.

be interested in this

i’ve got a bunch of things bookmarked that i didn’t get around to posting about. this is one of them.

cheers, kottke.

teach.

yep.

had to teach a group of year 3’s followed by an interview. dominated.

i start in september.

deserves this. loudly.

will catch up on posting over the next few days.

[pause]

just for a while until i get a job sorted.

then its all brown and water.

teach.

this one's fake

zomg i’m so bored. i’ve spent this week working. monday was hours of writing three weeks worth of poetry planning, yesterday was two weeks of maths planning and the next few days are going to be filled with writing my dissertation. i thought i had a couple of thousand words to write, but rereading the hastily put together formative assignment (which the dissertation is based) it looks like i should rewrite quite a bit. on the other hand i might just fuck it off.

i had actually collected good data from the last school but somehow lost all the questionnaires so had to make them up from my limited memory. the main problem is the guidance we’ve been given is from a man who is so vague you can interpret anything he says in practically any way you want, so you’re not really sure what to write to get a passing grade. e.g. in a tutorial i had with john, one of the problems i wanted him to clarify was “is this an academic study or a opinion based essay”, i’d rather the former because i know where i stand. instead john gave me at least three other significant questions to consider: ict coordination for policy, what preparations should be made before introducing technology in class and whether teachers have a duty to understand the effects of technology in the classroom.  that’s a ton of extra reading that i’m really not prepared to do.

one good thing, this is the first half term when i haven’t been ill, but the pain and duvet time seems like a nice holiday right now.

its free right?

there has to be some use for that.

photojojo has a nice list of where to get free photos.

cheers, bb.