Thoughts of a Trying Atheist

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Saturday, 26 December 2009

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#50; A personal retrospective of 2009

First off, a very merry Christmas to all reading and I hope that you’ve had a fantastic few days with all your loved ones in the festive celebrations. My apologies for not being so active in this past month with blog entries on here, it’s been a very hectic combination of being at work with the Christmas food rush and doing university work and the avalanche of assignments I had thrown at me. so with this break of worries and woes I do wish you all the best with your festivities and a happy new year!

2009 has been a remarkable year for myself, and a very special year at that. There have been events that have changed my life without a doubt, and there have been events that have inspired me, moved me and just made me feel much happier about who I am and what my course of action in life is to be. It’s quite odd looking back at the past 12 months and recollecting the memories in a blog format as I do worry that it seems slightly self obsessive to be bringing up a wonderful 12 months for myself, but for me I just wanted to share with you why I’m sad to see the end 2009 going out.

There are a few major events that have occurred this year that have definitely been a huge positive boost; as of writing I’ve found myself part of a relationship with my wonderful girlfriend going on 8 months on the 28th and it’s ridiculous how much it’s improved my self esteem and confidence about life in general. I’m quite a shy person and, in comparison to some friends, I much prefer to keep my personal life ‘personal’ as such the term suggests. At the same time, I could happily scream out the delight and happiness being with Lou this year has made me feel, and there’s a good possibility she’ll be reading this later (*waves*), so I can’t thank her enough for actually finding some sanity in putting up with me, the fact that she’s the most wonderful person to have found in my life and for making things work because it’s been incredible, really incredible. At least that makes me look forward to 2010!

Away from the more personal feelings of life, as a Formula 1 fan it has been an incredible year of emotions and unexpected twists and turns. Coming into 2009 the team I supported found themselves struggles on life support after the pullout of Honda. Yet, by the end of October, they found themselves having a world championship driver and a constructors championship to be proud of. To go from drowning in worry to the sheer elation of victory was quite a turnaround and it’s been more than an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least! As if it’s not obvious now, I do love my Formula 1 and I get into the sport quite dedicatedly. The battle between my two favourite drivers at my favourite team was just sheer madness in controlling all the various emotions as the season went on but it was just amazing to see Brawn doing so well after the past few years of horrid performances from the cars Button and Barrichello were driving. Furthermore, the past 12 months have seen the world of Sidepodcast and it’s wonderful community become a big part of my life and to know there are F1 fans out there as completely mad as myself about the sport and unbelievably funny people at the same time is really fantastic and, going back to Lou, if it wasn’t for her re-introducing me to the wonderful world of Sidepodcast it’s quite staggering how different my year could have been. I also had the fantastic experience of visiting the Goodwood Festival in early July and it absolutely blew me away, as you can see in the link. It was a wonderful few days and a must for all motorsport fans of course. Will I be there in 2010? Oh without a doubt!

In general, 2009 had been an odd year in some ways. There have been a lot of deaths reported in the mainstream media, whether they be in sport, in general showbiz or other areas that the media have brought up over the past 12 months. One of the saddest and biggest losses in 2009, for me at least, was the passing of Sir Bobby Robson. The man was a footballing legend and much loved personality of ‘the beautiful game’ and it would definitely be an agreed statement that part of British football died with the passing of this legend. Other people who have passed away in the last year include Henry Surtees, who was involved a freak accident that ultimately cost his life, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and many others, and of course the many brave soldiers and individuals fighting abroad in various countries for us. To everyone affected in 2009 by the deaths in whatever way, I can only offer my condolences.

To move onto a more positive note, there has been much change over the past year. The popularity of the social networking service Twitter has exploded into the big time, with now millions upon millions of users using the service, it has without a doubt become a big feature of people lives over 2009. It made controversial changes at times, it attracted big celebrities names, it became a source of real time news and instant updates when necessary. Every year we seem to have a big fad grow into major popularity and it can be hard to argue that Twitter was 2009’s ‘big thing’. Onto a more personal level, 2009 saw Muse release their fifth studio album in The Resistance, a grand journey of music that for me took Muse to a whole new level with some of the ideas produced on the album such as the Exogenesis Symphony. I’m still undecided if it’s my favourite Muse album; it is brilliant to me but it feels wrong to place it over the sheer genius that is Origin of Symmetry or Absolution! Nevertheless it was new material from the band and a huge year for them, building upon a big album that was much waited for and with such events as the Eurasia treasure hunt it made the build up even more exciting. I know I definitely wasn’t disappointed with the eventual outcome.

Oh, and of course, a pigeon stole my ideas in the summer. Worrying times.

So what else can I say? It’s a shame that 2009 has to end because I’ve had an absolute ball of a time. But I can only look forward to 2010 with much anticipation and hope that it will be as brilliant as the twelve months have been. Of course, 2009 saw the introduction of this very blog as well as the recent creation of my Formula 1 blog over at Gridwalk Talk so I hope you continue to visit over the next 12 months, hope that I can continue to entertain you if that’s the case and that you all have an absolutely wonderful 2010!

#49; Apple Know How to Make a Man ‘Appy

Friday, 27 November 2009

It’s been nearly 2 months now since I purchased my iPod Touch, a purchase that to this day I still find myself dazzled with bliss and happiness because it has provided many hours of, well, awesome! If you remember back to when I first got it, I blogged about it here on ToaTA as an after effect of the happiness at finally getting an iPod Touch. Of course, one of the biggest factors of buying this device was the Apps that Apple had released for this and the iPhone, so here’s my favourite apps and games I’ve bought and loved since my purchase… (although you soon may realise these will be balancing more towards my favourite games rather than apps, but still!)

Beneath A Steel Sky
Price: Currently on offer at 59p
Genre: Point and Click adventure game

If you love Broken Sword, Monkey Island or any of the old LucasArts adventure point and click games then this is an absolute must for you. I’ve loved the game way before it was on the iPod Touch and have played it many times on SCUMMVM but it’s a perfect companion for the Touch/iPhone. You get a distinct feel of 1984 and the whole dystopian vibe of a new world from the game, and the voice acting and addictiveness of it is second to none for me on the format. I think this was the first app I actually purchased and I certainly recommend it to all who enjoy these type of games. It works well, it looks fantastic with the Dave Gibbons cartoon cutscenes and the voice acting is absolutely spot on. If you want a game that makes you think in order to solve a problem, then you should give it a whirl too – just be patient and think smart. Such a great port of a great game.

Fling
Price: 59p
Genre: Puzzle game

Here’s one for the more casual gamer out there who wants a quick puzzle game to drive them mental but still be brilliantly addictive. Fling seems you, wait for it, flinging little furballs off the screen so you work it out that you only have 1 furball left. It sounds easy but it’s far more difficult that you imagine at times and will get you thinking! It’s a great little app, have several modes to keep you amused, all whilst being ridiculously adorable and fun at the same time. The impressive thing about it is that it stores thousands upon thousands of puzzles so that you’ll probably never get the same puzzle twice! It has stumped me plenty of times and it’s just a great little app. If it does drive you to the edge of desperation at times it does provides hints but handily pops up with the message ‘are you sure you want to cheat?’ – fantastic way to send me on a guilt trip and making sure I end up not cheating!

Canabalt
Price: £1.79
Genre: It’s a game… but… I dunno what genre?

Yeah, explaining the genre for this is a good start. Ignoring that though, Canabalt is brilliant. It is evil, and so frustrating, and it gets on your nerves, but it is fantastic. It’s basically an app port of a free browser based PC game and even though it’s not free it’s still well worth of the price. Your goal is to get the little guy who is running across falling buildings as far as possible, by tapping the screen to make him jump. The further he gets, the faster he runs, so from time to time you will need to slow him down by running into obstacles. It will drive you nuts as you start getting really far then mess it up by misjudging the timing of a jump but I love it nevertheless! also, recommended you play with headphones on as it has a wonderfully made soundtrack that gets you really into the game. Not sure what’s with the robots in the background though…

TheTrainLine
Price: Free
Genre: Train App

Look! an actual app! And it’s free!! Moving away from games on this format, the Trainline app is immensely useful if you find yourself on the move via trains at all. It’s able to check train times for you, save journeys, search journeys, search stations, tell you the nearest station based on your location, etc… basically, for a free app, it’s been an immensely useful tool to have in my pocket just to reassure me in strange, unknown stations. It’s probable more beneficial to iPhone users with a 3G connection rather than iPod Touch owners depending on wifi such as myself but I’ve still depended on it when I’ve had such wireless capabilities at certain stations. When you consider the official National Rail app comes at a hefty £4.99 I can’t see why you’d at least consider this if you need one for your journeys.

And finally, of course…

The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition
Price: £2.39 until Dec 1st
Genre: Point and Click adventure game

Oh you thought I was going to get through this without talking about what is probably my all-time favourite game on the iPod? No chance! What can I say about this genius few hours of gaming? It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s so well written and it deserves it’s status as being a legendary game to those that have played it. Sure, it has a bit of a hefty price (buy now whilst it’s on sale!!) but my word is it worth it. You control Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™ in his battle to become the Caribbean's most famous pirate! I don’t think I can actually say anything bad about this game. It’s ridiculous, I know, but it even works well on the iPod/iPhone. Its only right I end this section by saying ‘You're no match for my brains, you poor fool.!’.

So this is my roundup of what I’ve really, really enjoyed or found useful on my iPod Touch so far. I’ve got quite a few more games and apps than this obviously, but these are definitely the stand out in what I’ve used the most over the past few weeks since purchasing the Touch. I’m surprised from a gaming point of view how well it works as I was definitely a critic of such a format being a gaming handheld but, look at how many games have gotten into this blog entry. I think that says enough to me.

And yes, that was the best I could think of for a blog title. I’m sorry. As my regards, please be nosy and look at what actually takes up the contents of my iPod Touch…

#48; Fail.

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Whilst I’m struggling to fight through this C++ assignment I’m working on, I find myself easily distracted today by the Fail Blog. Now we all probably know what the site is about and the whole internet meme of ‘Fail’, but it still makes me laugh ridiculously at times in terms of what you can find on there. just wanted to share some of my favourites.

Using Photoshop so much makes me appreciate the amount of fail in that even more so.