30 Days of writing: Day 30

Yay! I made it.

-RodeoClown

Oh, maybe I should add a little extra text under here . I’m planning on keeping up writing things, but I’ll probably not be posting every day. But I’ll try and keep posting things fairly regularly, as they come to me. Goodnight.

30 Days of writing: Day 29

One more day to go and I made it all the way to thirty days. Hooray for me finally finishing something. Wait, better not start crowing too soon or I’ll break all my fingers and be unable to type tomorrow .

So, I have noticed (and so has Jen) that I am starting to get a bit chubby around the midsection. And I re-discover fairly frequently that I am very unfit (normally when running for the train in the mornings…). I’m not sure how to get out of this dilemma though, because I don’t have much time to go walking or whatnot, as when I’m home I want to be around Jen and Mat (who goes to bed at 7) and not out wandering the streets.

I used to go walking at lunchtimes while at work, but then I found myself getting back and being all sweaty and stinky and wanting to go to sleep and not work (not that that is too much different to normal but…). So what do I do about it?

I’m kind of starting a diet, with eating less snacky foods during the day, and smaller serves of food at meals. This is cool, except I don’t really eat too many snacks anyway, and Jen cooks really nice food…

We go for walks when we can, and hopefully as it gets warmer we’ll get to do more of this.

Any suggestions as to how I can lose weight and get myself fit again would be greatly appreciated. Any cheap ways to do it while not having to work-out or eat less would be even better.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 28

OK, so I did one of those crazy tests. This one is on your humour style. I am a ham.

yep.

The Ham
(39% dark, 65% spontaneous, 22% vulgar)
your humor style:

CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | LIGHT

Your style’s mostly goofy, innocent and feel-good. Perfect for parties
and for the dads who chaperone them. You can actually get away with
corny jokes, and I bet your sense of humour is a guilty pleasure for
your friends. People of your type are often the most approachable and
popular people in their circle. Your simple & silly
good-naturedness is immediately recognizable, and it sets you apart in
this sarcastic world.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Will Ferrell – Will Smith

My test tracked 3 variables — How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 17% on dark
	You scored higher than 90% on spontaneous
	You scored higher than 21% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

Oh, and if you like ham, check out MciverCork. They like Ham too (check out their demos… Their album is pretty good too).

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 27

Hooray for babies!
They are so good. I love just watching them sleep, and grow, and play, and laugh, and learn. I can’t wait till we have another one. One is great fun, but I’m guessing two will be better (not that I’m sick of Mat, he’s great, I love him so much!).

Why all this baby talk?
If you haven’t guessed: we’re having a baby!!!
In March/April next year. Hooray!!

Pray for us, and the unborn. I can’t wait to meet him/her.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 26

OK, This morning I found my first comment spammer. Gah!

I’d somehow disabled the first post moderation feature. It’s now re-enabled, so the first comment anyone posts needs to be approved by me, after that it’s plain sailing (or mailing…).

Sorry about the inconvenience. I don’t know why people want to post comment spam on completely unrelated messages. Do these annoyances interrupt people’s conversations at home, barging through the door and then shouting “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY AT A CASINO. MAYBE YOU WANT ‘ENLARGEMENT’. ETC ETC ETC”. What’s wrong with them? The only good use for spam is spamusement. Maybe one day we should make spamming a capital offense. Maybe tomorrow.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 25

So, yesterday I discovered that Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is trying a new financial model, one that involves allowing people to play for free (rather than paying a monthly fee) and only needing to pay money should they want to become an officer or purchase rare in-game items. A financial model that suits my meager entertainment budget quite well (I haven’t paid anything yet, and I’m not sure if I will.

Puzzle Pirates is a Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMAarr!PG — their joke, not mine ), that consists of friendly cartoon pirates sailing the puzzley seas. Walk up to another pirate and challenge them to a swordfight. Should they accept, you are treated to a tetris-like puzzle game, where the winner of the puzzle is considered the victor of the duel. I am already rated ‘Legendary’ for my swordfighting abilities throughout the entire Viridian ocean (as I should be ). Sailing a ship consists of solving puzzles in order to increase the ships speed. Ship-to-ship combat consists of multiple puzzles being played by various crew members on both boats. Once the ships are in boarding range, a multi-player swordfight breaks out to defend the craft or lose the booty.

It’s great fun and has an extremely friendly atmosphere. I hope their trial of this new payment model works out for them. I like the idea of not having to pay large monthly fees to play a game like this. Check it out.

Bonus Pirate Joke
A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says “Hey, you’ve got a steering wheel down your pantaloons!”. And the pirate says…
“Aarr! It’s drivin’ me nuts…”

-RodeoClown

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/contest/and-the-finalists-are-113975.php

That’s Me and Mat at the bottom (zelda baby).
Please vote for us!

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 24

CityRail gives the impression of being run by the most inept people possible. I think that no matter who is in charge of anything at CityRail, they are almost certainly the wrong person for the job*. Almost every aspect of the NSW rail service is terrible, mismanaged and begging for someone sensible to step in and provide a few pointers. Someone like myself.

I believe I am completely unqualified to make any sweeping pronouncements regarding how to run a multi-million dollar public service, but I have been travelling every day on said train service for the last decade and have therefore seen some of the things that should be common sense for anyone running these things.

Let’s start small; if a service does what it is supposed to do well then people will forgive the little things. If it cannot, then the little things start to build up.

1. The new train information monitors installed at Central Station today. They look great; plasma screens are the perfect medium for displaying this information. However, when replacing something as important as notifying passengers which train travels to which destination and when they depart don’t hide the monitors behind the station’s support structures. They need to be visible. This really isn’t rocket science people.

2. The information sticker that drives Sim to distraction constantly.
   “Help us keep our trains clean.
   Please take your rubbish with you.
   Report unclean carriages by
   phoning 131 500 and quote the
   carriage number.”
   You’d think that before putting hundreds of these stickers into production They’d get someone to proofread the text for grammar. Someone needs to explain that you shouldn’t use two different tenses in the one phrase.

3. That last problem actually brings me to my next point. Rather than relying on people phoning in to report ‘unclean’ carriages, why not provide bins. It seems like a fairly sensible thing to offer.

4. While we are on the topic of bins, who’s great idea was it to remove all the bins from stations? I can understand the logic behind removing them during the Olympics for ‘security reasons’, but perhaps someone should put them back now that the Olympics finished about five years ago…

5. People who can speak intelligible English should have priority for any public speaking roles. Such as announcing timetables and the like.

6. A fundamental issue when running transport services should be getting people where they want to go as quickly and efficiently as possible. Running on time is a big part of this, along with letting people know why their train has been delayed, along with how long the delay is expected to last. Giving an explanation wouldn’t go astray either…

7. Oh, please stop putting up ticket prices every time I have to get another ticket.

Anyway, that’s enough complaining for tonight

*There are of course a few notable exceptions: Chris Parr, ex-Station Master of Woodford, and Dave, Station Master at Hazelbrook, are both excellent representatives of the group of people who should be running CityRail. These two guys are fantastic – say hello if you ever run into them. Oh, and the train driver who gives the fantastic speeches every so often: “…please, enjoy your meal, but please, please, remember to take your rubbish with you.” That guy is fantastic too . Everyone else should be sacked.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 23

Channel 7, how do I hate you?
Let me count the ways:

1. I hate that everytime you get a show you hype it out of all proportion.
2. I hate that the show you have hyped changes timeslots.
3. Many times.
4. I hate that you now have the cricket, and schedule it over the top of a show I would normally watch (after weeks trying to find what timeslot it has been relegated to).
5. I hate that you have ‘recap’ episodes, purely to prolong the top rating shows you have.
6. I hate that you start shows at 8:40 instead of their scheduled 8:30 purely so you can count the previous show’s ratings as the new shows.
7. I hate your ‘news’, and I hate that when a show I want to watch happens to coincide with a bomb blast that hurt nobody, you stop the show I want to watch and cover the non-news event for 3 hours.

I hate you channel seven. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!*

Anyway, that’s enough vitriol for tonight. I have to see if I can find a channel 7 TV show that I want to watch, but via some method that doesn’t involve inconveniencing me, or playing ads over the top of the show I want to watch…

*note: I also hate channels 9 and 10, but the majority of the few shows I watch are on channel 7 – hence they are the target of my attack tonight.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 22

Jen and I just finished watching The Village. My verdict: fatastic.

Before you read any of the comments at the IMDB site (the one linked above), watch the movie first, they all contain spoilers. Yes, this is another spoiler-type movie. It’s not a horror movie, as the packaging and advertising suggest. I feel very sorry for M. Night Shyamalan, ever since he made The 6th Sense, he has no hope of ever being able to just make a ‘normal’ movie again. Everyone is expecting a twist, and a big one at that.

This movie had a few twists, some were pretty predictable. Some things I first thought were mistakes, I’m now pretty sure were intentional clues. I’d been told what the twist was before I watched this movie, but I was still surprised as to some of the others.

I don’t think Jen liked it too much. It is a fairly slow movie, building up over time before finally releasing the goods in a very short burst. Exactly like all M’s other movies (I wonder what M stands for anyway…). I’m a big fan of movies that are well thought out, and I think this movie fits that description well. The characters all seemed believable, and developed throughout the whole movie. And when watching The Village, try and forget that the movie will have a twist, it does, but it’s not the huge 6th Sense sledgehammer-type twist, it’s more subtle and thought provoking than giving any kind of “Oh! I get it!” kind of response.

Anyway, I really liked it. It’s hard to write without giving away the ending and the whole movie relies on the ending so I won’t ramble any more. I really did like it.

“Thankyou for the time we have been given” – Edward Walker (William Hurt)

-RodeoClown