Tuesday 20 April 2010

Into The Wild Blue Yonder

So I am now employed, though I think that it is nothing more then a calculated insult by those who have requisitioned my services. Before I give you details first I'll give you a little background information so you know the deal. For about two years now I have been doing temp work at the Ordnance Survey, the map people.

I first chose to do temp work because I was horribly unemployed and have never done well at interviews. I look stupid in a suit and while things may go well at first I usually have to say something and things quickly go down hill from there. I am not very good at talking to people, or even just a person but I do try. Anyway doing temp work through an agency eliminated this step, I would give them my details and do a single interview and then they would do the rest, sending me off to do slave labour for the lowest bidder. This is how I first ended up at the OS, doing menial computer work on a buggy system that on a good day would only crash a handful of times. I did various things and met a large number of horrible people and a small number of interesting people, though I'm pretty sure that they all hated me in some way. As a result of the many projects I've had to endure I've been shifted all over the building and seen it's many wonders, things like the warnings of asbestos filled walls or the lift that never aligned with the floor it was meant to stop on, all things that you would expect in a safe working environment. I was also amazed at how incompetent the permanent staff there were, many of whom were unable to operate a computer in all but the most basic fashion.

Fast forward to the present and once again I am working in this cruel and unusual hell. This time however I am not doing any fancy computer work, there are no exciting projects for me to finish because the permanent staff have become bored with them, no, this time I am doing archiving. What this means is that I spend my time scrawling down reference numbers onto the back of paper maps so that they can be shipped off to the National Archive to be stored. Future generations will look at these maps and be perplexed by my illegible handwriting, asking themselves "What does this mean?"

While the job itself is mind-numbingly boring and requires little more then the ability to read, write, use a computer and possess a working music player to help fend off the insanity gnawing at your subconscious there are some perks. For starters I don't have to wear a suit, or even any form of smart clothing. In fact I'm pretty sure that I could get away with a burlap sack so long as it covered up my grotesque body. Also I get to listen to my mp3 player as I work, the steady stream of music keeping my brain from shutting down altogether. Not only that but me and the other guy I am to work with can do so with little to no supervision from the powers that be. We are left to our own devices and the hopes that one of us will kill the other, meaning that the OS only has to pay for one temp and can thus save money.

The most interesting thing though is the location at which we work. See, if you were to enter the OS from the front of the building and use the front lift or stairs you will notice that there is no second floor, both go from the first to the third floors. I however work in a warehouse that is situated on this hidden second floor. I dare not delve too deep into the Escher like construction of the building so I have yet to figure out how this can be, but I suspect that it may have something to do with portals. It does not matter how this place exists, it just does and so long as I am being paid to do next to nothing and listen to music I am content.

The aforementioned warehouse itself is quite pleasant place to work in comparison to some of the other floors I have had to slave away on. Though it is a large structure (I have a dislike for large open spaces) it is full of boxes, shelves and all manor of other boring items. The front and rear walls have vast windows in them that let in more light then I am accustomed to, though this does mean that I do not have to work under those annoying strip lights that frequently give me headaches after prolonged exposure, which is a plus I guess. I work at a small desk with a ageing computer with only one monitor, a downgrade from my usual two, situated behind a pillar that means I am hidden from anyone foolish enough to enter the construct. Again I class this as a benefit rather then a hindrance. As I mentioned the majority of the building is filled with shelves of various sizes that hold the paper maps on which I am expected to mark. Due to my repeated playing of many first person and third person shooting games I am all too familiar with the importance of large shelving units. They provide a good source of cover from attackers and allow one to sneak around and outflank their quarry if they wish to do such a thing. I imagine that this will be useful when one of the members of staff finally break and go on a rampage. Not only that but the variety of items stored in the warehouse will allow me to make many a improvised weapon given the prep time, something that I am thankful for. Other then this it is a dull and uneventful place. I hope that I manage to stay sane, or at least dispose of any bodies I do make to throw off suspicion, least I have to find employment elsewhere.

So there you have it. If I am left alone long enough I may try and take a few pictures, but don't hold your breath, you'll suffocate long before I return.

Friday 9 April 2010

Filler

I meant to write something today, but now it's tomorrow so instead I'm going to post this.

Sunday 4 April 2010

One step closer to the grave

Oh look, it's a post! After much time spent procrastinating I have stirred, and with good reason. You see today is a day of celebration, and I don't mean because of Easter, that bastard zombie Jesus stealing all the attention like the whore that he is, no, you see today is my birthday! You see 25 years ago to this day I shot from my mothers vagina like a pilot ejecting from his plane before it engulfs him in a fireball.

Like so

I am now a full quarter of a century old, and I must say that I feel that this life has been wasted on me. Honestly, I have done exceedingly little with my life to date but have a plan and things will hopefully change. You see, while I was growing up I had many dream jobs that I wanted to do. As a child these were steam train driver, astronaut and deep sea diver. I wanted to do all of these things because they were awesome, but alas it would seem that the very world was preventing me from fulfilling my dreams. Steam trains had been replaced by diesel and electric ones so that was not to be and my faulty brain meant I had epilepsy, so that was astronaut and diver out the window. I can see who this would make me unsuitable for these roles, just imagine if the life support on the space station was down and I had to go fix it but at the critical point, just as I was about to save everyone's lives I had a seizure and while I was flailing and twitching in my space suit the other astronauts could just watch in horror before suffocating to death. This can also apply to diving if you replace space with water. Still, I found it unfair. So after a number of years of having no dreams for the future I finally found some that could not be thwarted by my crap brain. These were games journalist and hacker. Both of these careers were actually inspired by books I had read. Journalism was inspired by the great Hunter S. Thompson and his masterpiece Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. After reading this I wanted to be the maverick games journalist, writing crazy drug fuelled reviews of the latest computer and video games. The idea of being a hacker came about after reading the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson. These three books are equally brilliant and paint an awe inspiring dystopian future controlled by corporations where the lowly hacker is the anti-hero.
The first I actually took seriously, I studied journalism at university and even passed with an adequate degree, however it was in vain, for I was to be cast down again. You see in the journalism industry it doesn't matter how good you are at writing, all that matters is who you know. I literally spent years after I graduated writing articles and sending them in to websites, magazines and newspapers but nothing came of it. To pay the vast credit card bills I had run up in university I did temp jobs, all of which were crap and offered poor pay. I still haven't paid those cards off or escaped my overdraft but at least I have been trying. Anyway, with al hope of becoming a journalist failing I gradually became empty and just kept doing temp jobs like I enjoyed the suffering that they offered. I would work for a couple of months and build up a good stash of money, only for that to be drained in the following months as I looked for more work and then the cycle would start anew. This is no way for a person to live or even exist.
As I said though, I have a plan. You see I have one dream job left on my list: hacker. Now I am not saying that I going to be lurking online hacking into high security servers with a bunch of kids and saving the world from the evil businesses who wish to make a profit from creating a disaster, that would be creepy even by my standards (the hanging around with kids part that is). No, I am aiming to teach myself coding. Some say that I may be too old for this shit, but I don't care. I need to expand my skill base and something like this is perfect for me. I am use to sitting in front of a computer for extended periods of time and having little to no contact with other humans, so that aspect is covered. As for the actual learning of programming I have started to mess around with that and it seems ok, I reckon I should be able to pick up the basics fairly quickly so long as I don't get distracted and play games or anything. Of course now that I say that I'm going to get nowhere with it and fail on a major scale.

Before I go I feel obliged to point out that today is also International Landmine Awareness Day, so join me in handing out live landmines to all the good boys and girls in the world, nothing says awareness like a active landmine in the hands of a small child. Just be sure to tell them to hit it hard on the top to get the treats hidden inside!

Saturday 20 February 2010

Welcome to the Battlefield

In what seems like a lifetime ago EA release Battlefield 1942. At the time this game was a breath of fresh air into the crowded world of online FPS games. No longer was combat constrained to the squad based warfare of games like Counterstrike, now you could drive tanks or pilot aircraft onto the field. Online deathmatches could contain up to 64 players and things would frequently become hectic. Your position would be overrun by infantry so you'd send tanks into the fray. The enemy would combat this with aircraft and you feel obliged to match. Soon the skys would be alive with planes, the open roads choked with armour and troops on foot would haunt every building. I remember many epic battles taking place over a single point, each side would fight relentlessly to secure the map in a never ending struggle to win.

This was followed by Battlefield Vietnam. A personal favourite of the series it was the same style of warfare only this time in Vietnam (surprisingly). The weapons of war were updated to reflect the times, Huey's would buzz overhead dropping off troops and supplying ground support blaring out tunes from the era and Flight of The Valkyries, it was once again a battle were each game could either way. Napalm would light up the jungle and the ever present snipers were always lurking to dispatch those foolish enough to walk into their crosshairs. Despite the fact that it contained some major flaws it was still great fun and the larger battles would always make me want to come back for more.

Then we have Battlefield 2.



This is probably one of the best online FPS of the time. It came when everybody was stuck doing World War 2 games still, and in my opinion they had become a bit boring. As much fun as they were, I craved more modern guns, tanks and aircraft. Battlefield 2 delivered. Set in modern times it pitted America, Europe, China and the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition in a fictional war. the story wasn't the strong point in this game but it didn't need to be. It added a vast arsenal of new weapons, equipment and vehicles to the fray and quickly surpassed the original in popularity. The servers would be alive with matches every night and I have many stories of wins, defeats and near misses. Times when it looked like the situation was dire and then a perfectly times artillery strike would even the odds. At it's best battles were close fought with the winner be decided in the closing moments. BF2 also received multiple add-on packs that added yet more new maps, weapons, vehicles and destruction to the series. These would also spawn epic battles for control points. The one set on the Great Wall of China was deeply enjoyed and always gave a steady battle that would swing one way and then the other. Of note was the Armoured Fury add-on that brought the war to American soil and introduced the A-10 Thunderbolt II, a plane that I consider one of the best is existence and could destroy all in it's path.



After this we were given Battlefield 2142.



Set in the near future we were armed with futuristic assault rifles, tanks and gunships. While the popularity didn't meet that of BF2 it did quickly become a popular game and once again lead to many moments that made everything worth it. Many of the features were the same, take and hold control points on a map to claim victory, though they did add a new mode where you would fight to take down an enemy Titan, a huge flying battlestation that would dispense troops and firepower onto the field. One major improvement in the series with this one was with flying. It was easier to control the gunships and transports and this made playing much more enjoyable and much less frustrating. I became quite adept with the transport craft to the point that when I was actually accepted into a guild I usually became the designated driver. There were many a time when me and my squad would seize a control point from the enemy, me charging in at high speed, the guns of my squad blazing and cutting down troops, tanks and walkers left, right and centre. We would take the control point, killing all who stood in our way, toss out all our mines, and then take off before the enemy had a chance to retaliate. Instead on artillery strikes you had EMP strikes in this game, and I remember one time we were being chased my a gunship in our slow, lumbering transport craft. With nothing else to do to get ride of it I flew through a EMP barrage to see if he would follow. He did, and while we passed through unharmed he was struck, lost power and fell crashing to the ground. It was moments like that that made the game worth while. Equally fun times were had defending or attacking Titans. Once the shields were down a battle could be ended if you brought the opposing teams Titan down by destroying the core. This of course was no easy task.

After all of these the series left the PC and moved to the consoles with Bad Company. This added destructible scenery to the mix and looked brilliant, it was just a shame that I could not afford a Xbox 360 or PS3 and therefore missed out. Luckily we have Bad Company 2 out in March which returns once again to the PC, and from the looks of things I'm excited about this one.



God, that music at the end still makes me shiver with excitement!

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Yet More Notes

Look! I found more random scribblings!

Speedboats and dirt bike tracks

I have no idea as to what I was thinking when I wrote this down, maybe speedboats on flooded dirt bike tracks doing jumps? Who knows.

Sword Fight Health Plan

I do remember this one. The idea was to make exercise fun and dangerous, or more so then it is already. Each person in the event would be given a wooden sword and a small wooden shield or buckler to be attached to their off arm. Pirate hats are optional but encouraged. Then in order to exercise the group would just have a massive sword fight using whatever obstacles that present themselves to their advantage. The fight would continue until someone gets seriously hurt or all included are too exhausted to do any more. Any real violence would be discouraged, after all the idea is to keep the fight going, not end it with a wooden sword impaled in ones chest. Now reading this it may sound stupid but I bet that once you're kitted up and things get going you won't want to stop, plus all the jumping, running, swashing and buckling will make a good work out. I have yet to find a good place for supplies or any willing volunteers to actually try this out, but if they are out there hit me up.

The Hall of Mirrors

This is based on a dream I had a while back, it was a very vivid dream, one that left me more confused and disorientated then usual. In this dream I was in a vast castle, more specifically a long hallway with a bunch of antique mirrors mounted on a track system. I could move the mirrors along this track, they would appear or disappear into recesses which where too narrow for me to fit through. Each mirror portrayed another world or reality and I found that I could enter this just by walking through the glass. As I explored these new realms I found that they were not of my own creation but rather dream worlds created by other people. I would hop from one to the other observing peoples dreams and I even found that with a bit of practice I could change them. It was all rather bizarre. Now things got confusing when I woke up for the first time. I was unaware that I was actually still asleep at this point so I actively went looking for people who I'd seen in my dreams and asked them if they remembered what had happened in their dreams. Of course non of them remembered a thing and I returned more intrigued then ever as to what had transpired. It was after I went back to sleep (I was still dreaming in real life here) and woke up in the real world that I became really confused. The entire thing felt so real and yet I had no way to prove that it was. I even felt pain from where I had injured myself in one of these dream worlds. As I said this left me disoriented for some time and I have just put the whole thing off as some crazy dream, but still, it freaks me out a bit.

That's it for now.

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Notes

I knew I had ideas. Back when I was working I would routinely write down ideas that materialised in my head and draw things that are often quite disturbing. I should point out that I am really quite bad at drawing as a whole so don't expect any of these to be scanned in or anything. I can draw guns and other weapons pretty well though, so there's something. Anyway, here's a run down of some of my better thoughts:

Nukes

I have always had a fascination for weapons of mass destruction, of the nuclear bombs have got to be some of the best. The sound they make is wonderful and the mushroom cloud produced is a work of art, albeit a destructive one. There are plenty of videos on nuclear explosions online, all of them are quite pretty and act as a grim reminder at how man can do anything so long as we have a good reason, or a bad one, either seems to work. However special mention goes to Stargate, specifically Stargate Atlantis. For those who don't know the Stargate series is a sci-fi show where they always seem to able to fix a problem with a enhanced nuclear weapon. For example here they detonate a nuke above their base to convince the bad aliens they have blown themselves up, a noble idea. The best sequence though is this:



Now if I had one of those then this world would be a very different place.

The Murderous Mrs Fletcher

This relates to Murder She Wrote, a quite awful show about a writer, one Jessica Fletcher, who always seems to appear just before someone gets murdered and will inevitably solve it while the local law enforcement chase the wrong person. Considering how many people die in her presence am I the only one who suspects her to be a serial killer? Think about it, she arrives somewhere, someone dies and then she 'solves' the case. Coincidence I think not! Also her home town must have the highest death rate of the world, the shear number of people who meet their end there is just insane.

The Amazing Epileptic

This is something I came up with during one of the many boring days I had at my former job. The idea is a parody of superheroes and their many powers. See, in this case our unwilling hero has epilepsy and despite his best efforts at preventing crime it will always end with him having a seizure and freaking people out. Often the criminal will use this distraction to make their escape. The idea is in bad taste but since I do actually have epilepsy then it's ok for me to joke about it. Fun fact: I have made a joke about epileptics only to be told of by some random for making fun of them. I promptly told her that I was epileptic and asked what excatly she meant by 'them'. She promptly shut up.

Rock and Roll Airshow

Ahh, I remember this one fondly. During my work I found an airfield that held an airshow to classical music. This struck me as an awesome idea that could be expanded with the proper creative genius. You see the original idea used a handful of propeller driven planes doing stunts, but I say why stop there? My idea involves jets dogfighting to heavy metal, stunts being doing to fast paced electronic music, the loops and rolls in sync with the highs and lows of the music. The finale would be some F-22's doing a low flyby at high-speed, the lights following them as best they can. They would settle on the space shuttle which would launch at the peak of the song playing, the low rumble of it's thrusters providing the bass the end the night. It would be an epic even that would change the lives of all those who attend. Sadly the shuttle is to be decommissioned and replaced by something that is more useful but less cool looking.

A further idea that could be incorporated into this would be the birth of a Hind. The Hind is a Russian attack helicopter and all-round awesome machine. The Mil Mi-26 is the largest transport helicopter in the world and yet another awesome machine. I propose loading a Hind onto one of these Mi-26's and dropping it at it's maximum flight altitude. The Hind would then unpack mid-drop, start up and fly away. I have no idea if a Hind would actually fit in one, though if it could then the Mi-26 would be more then capable of lifting it. Also I doubt you could ready a Hind during the drop down and having it producing enough lift to avoid the Wile E Coyote style slamming into the ground. Either way it's an idea.

That's enough nonsense for now, and quite honestly it's more then I expected. There is even more to come and none if it will make sense.

The Beginning

Welcome one and all! Due to events that were out of my control I have become unemployed, again. Due to this I have quite a bit of free time on in which to do whatever I please. Mostly this has been computer games but there's only so many times one can save the galaxy or shoot astronauts (or cosmonauts if you prefer) before you need to take a break and return to the soul crushing depression that is real life. Now since I studied journalism and am finding that the 140 word limit on Twitter is just not enough I've foolishly decided to start writing stuff here. I have no idea what to expect but I can assure you that by reading it you will become less of a human being, maybe you may even devolve down to the cynical husk which I have become. One can only dream.
First things first, I'm sure the one or two of you reading this don't want to know anything about me, either you already know too much or nothing at all. I find that both of these are unacceptable. Let's just say that I'm a optimistic pessimist, that is to say that I firmly believe that humanity will reach it's best while doing it's worse, there will be more on this later. Other then this I am saying nothing, you will find out more as I go, assuming that I keep this up.

Now lets see, what should my first post be about in earnest? I know, the weather! Right now it's raining, something that is not uncommon where I live. As a small child I use to be scared of thunderstorms, however I got past that I now find them quite exciting. Alas it is too cold now for a thunderstorm but there is still rain. I must admit, I like the rain. I'm not a sunny weather type of person, my ideal conditions would be overcast at best, nothing too bright. As I stated I like the rain, just listening to it is something that I find soothing. I don't mind being in the rain so long as it is a comfortable temperature. Too cold and the enjoyment wears thin but a nice cool or warm rain is a good thing to be in. There's something about it that I just like. It's actually quite hard to find a solid reason, I just do.

Now this is starting to drag on and sound stupid so I'll end it here.