Is there anything more frustrating than being locked out? And knowing that the things that would stop you being locked out are less than a metre away? Except you can’t get them because there’s a rather large wooden door and a hard brick wall in the way?

Yes, I forgot my key on Wednesday. And I wouldn’t be able to get back in the house until my mum came home, at about 7.30. So there I was, outside my house, with the prospect of waiting for three hours.

I thought I might as well make it worthwhile, so I went up to the Co-op and bought a copy of PCGamer. I read that for about an hour.

Meanwhile, over the road, loads of people were filing into a garden for some kind of fireworks spectacular. I though, why not? So I joined the queue (nobody knew me), and wactched the show. I left before the end, taking some bbq food with me. =]

Still over an hour to go. So I went for a walk. Back up to the coop, and bought a small tin of sardines, and a bread roll. Back outside my house, I made a (fairly messy) sardine sandwich.

Was good.

I just completed it =D

I would now go on to say how awesome it was, but if you know what Portal is, you probably know that already anyway. Atm, I’m downloading Portal: Prelude, and the Flash Map pack, both of which I’ve heard good things about, so that should be fun.

Rik.

I’ve just had the horrible and utter realisation that what I’ve been writing for the last few months, is, to be honest, complete and utter balls.

Some of it I seemed good at the time, but then I just realised that I didn’t like it at all and around twelve to fifteen minutes later, hated it. I didn’t do anything until now, because until just now, I’d thought that having a blog was about volume, not about the content.

So, I’ve made another resolution, in addition to the one I made twelve to fifteen minutes ago: I’m not going to post crap up here anymore.

I’ll probably regret this one in… twelve to fiteen minutes, but I’d better stop typing now because the full effects of my earlier psot are just starting to hit home.

But I’ll be strong.

Rik.

I’m that kind of person who regrets most of their decisions around twelve to fifteen minutes after making them. It’s either something I’ve done, or said, and then I suddenly realise what I should have said at that point to make what just happened seem a whole lot less awkward.

I’ve narrowed down the problem to two possible sources: (a) I think too much. Maybe I should stop thinking about things I’ve just done and focus on what I’m doing next so I can pay full attention to what’s hapening around me and avoid the next awkward situation, rather than being distracted by what I can’t change. (b) I’m not quick enough. For example, someone would say something. I would then say something back, which would not be something I would say if I weren’t trying to avoid talking to them (This is also a problem, which I shall come to in point (c)). Now, since I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying, I would say something which, is not something anyone else would say. I realise, just after I’ve said it, or when I do want to next talk to them, that I’ve just said the most stupid/arrogant/ignorant thing that someone could say at that point. I then proceed to metally abuse myself, which distracts me from stopping me doing it again, which just leads to further distress on myself.

This is why I’ve resolved, suddenly at 4.15am, to stop doing this. Maybe it will make be a better person. Or maybe it’ll just make being a bad person a whole lot less awkward. Either way, it’d be good.

Rik.

(I’ve just realised that I’ve forgotten to explain point (c); perhaps I’ll come to it in a later post, to talk about it now would ruin the effect of what I’ve just said. Which I’ve probably already done, by putting this.)

My ne laptop finally came. On Tuesday, but the Vista CD I ordered didn’t come till Friday so I couldn’t really use it until then, as Ubuntu didn’t like any of my hardware, and refused to install drivers. Anyway, it’s working now; I spent most of today trying to download and install TF2… until I was informed that I could copy my game files from my old computer and use them… this turned out to be infinitely quicker (though it ws a little annoying that I had waited over nine hours for Steam to download it (It consistently reported ‘5 Hours remaining’)).

TF2 is soo much better when you have a decent PC (Dual core 2.7GHz, Nvidia 9600M, 4Gb RAM) to play it on. No fps lag, instant control, and a better sense of being in the game. Oh, and the fire is beautiful. ^_^

All in all, my laptop is great. Well worth the £650 I paid for it.

Now for other stuff… remember that engineeering scheme that I talked about in the unusually long post earlier that nobody commented on? I didn’t get into it. I was a bit gutted, tbh.

Also, lots of my friends have gone on this expensive trip to Vietnam that I couldn’t afford to go to. (£1800!!) Though I was kinda happy that I’d saved £1800, I really did want to go on it. Seeing them leave school early, with their custom Vietnam themed shirts was a bit disappointing.

Add to that, my grades weren’t good. Straight B1s, except a B2, B3 and a C2. Hopefully, my mum won’t find out. >_>

All in all, not the best week ever. Really the only highlight was being able to play the games I already owned properly for the first time (Playing as a heavy on my old PC was lag lag lag lag shoot lag shoot bang lag lag shoot lag shoot die lag lag doctorrr!!), which was nice. ^_^

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I spent in excess of £80 today. This not something I normally do, so I’m a little shocked by it.

£20 was on presents for my Mum, as her birthday is tomorrow. I got the usual stuff, bath salts, chocolate, a card etc - it was a bit more difficult choosing which bath salt this year because I had to remember to 2 years ago if I had bought those bath salts before (last year I got her Russell Brand’s Booky Wook) - the same with the card. I hate buying cards only to find out that the person you’re giving it to already received that exact same card with the exact same message last year (Once, this happened with my Grandma; she had kept the old card so it was even more embarassing >.>).

Anyway, the other £60 was on Vista for my new laptop (which is arriving tomorrow after six weeks of waiting) … unfortunately that doesn’t arrive until next week so I’ll have to install Linux and then install vista again just so I can use it. Great, three hours of my life wasted.

What?

Seriously, what?

If you don’t know what happened, go here: 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7636821.stm

What?

I don’t get it. 

Why would a simple argument about Advance Wars Tactics between a moderator and a lesser member provoke  the lesser member into flying over 1000 miles, going into his home, and stabbing him? Was he that angry, that he didn’t cool down in the five or six hours it took to get there?

Seriously, some people, are fucked up. 

And, no doubt some of the media are going to completely misunderstand this and blame in on the ‘violence in the games of today.’ I’ve already heard BBC news infer that Advance Wars was a violent game, calling it a ‘war game’, and showing scenes of the trailer which show vehicles exploding and infantry flying back… Advance Wars is basically chess. Just as violent, just as tactical. Are the media blaming knife crime and murders on chess? No. I don’t understand why the focus is on games specifically - the guns etc found in games are exactly the same as those traditionally given to small boys playing ‘war’. 

I don’t get it.

RIP Matt Pyke - I never knew you, but I kinda wish I had.

UPDATE:

Apparently the guy was jealous of Matt’s girlfriend. I suppose this makes more sense… but still.

Remember me? Yeah, I used to write on this blog. 

I’m going to try and write more from now on. 

I LOST MY IPOD.

I lost my iPod. Thursday at breaktime, I think. I was putting it into my pocket, and that was the last time I remember I had it. I suppose someone could have taken it from my jacket when I was in the sports hall, but… anyway, it’s unlikely I’m going to find it. 

I have asked everyone I could possibly ask… but nothing. One teacher did say he’d found an iPod but it wasn’t mine.

WEB DESIGN

I made a web design site, and I’m making custom designs. the link is sorrelmedia.co.cc, if you’re interested. I’ve emailed a couple of local businesses to see if they want a website… hopefully they do and I can start saving for a new iPod. 

I also redesigned rikkit.co.uk, if you haven’t noticed… as well as changing the layout of the VOX archive. My next thing to do is customise the layout of this here blog, to match it.

HOMEWORK

Graaah. I’m doing Further Maths for A levels - it’s split into mechanics, pure and statistics. I’m finding mechanics quite easy, and pure is ok too… but statistics is mind boggling. It doesn’t help that I have a teacher who teaches at twice the speed of light, and shouts at/embarrases you if you ask a question. At least I’m not planning to do economics or accounting.

ENGINEERING

There’s this thing called the Engineering Education Scheme at my school - basically, you are put into a group of four and are partnered with an engineer from a local company (such as e.on, or British Gas), in order to solve a porblem they have. At the moment, there are about twenty people who want to do this - so I have to fill in a form online and sit a couple of interviews… the first real interviews I’ll have ever done, so I’m a bit nervous.

The reason I’m doing this is because I’m interested in engineering (obv.), but this would generally look good on a UCAS form. I chose my subjects to cater for either engineering, architecture or physics at uni (maths, physics, art), so for now, I don’t have to decide.

GENERAL SCHOOL

I’m doing five AS levels. That’s one extra than most people in my school - I’m doing Italian as an extra subject. I have to do it before school though, so I only get 1 1/2 hours a week; I get about five in my other subjects. >.>

That’s it for today, I think…

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