[2004-07-10-later]
Dad liked his birthday presents. I think there's a theme going on with
me and him.
At Christmas, I gave him a set of lockpicks. He gave me marine flares.
For his birthday, I gave him one set of average throwing knives, and
one really really nice throwing knife.
Definitely. I have 5 months until next Christmas to work out some more
completely irresponsible gifts to give him.
[2004-07-10]
Forgot to say yesterday - there really is a platform 9 3/4 at London
King's Cross. Part of my trip home involves going through it ["it"
being King's Cross, not the Hogwarts platform :-)], and I happened to
see it.
It's just a sign on a random brick wall, and it's not between platforms
9 and 10 [there is no "between" platforms 9 and 10], but it's close.
[2004-07-09]
Virgin Atlantic demonstrate flagrant capitalism at it's most offensive:
I arrive 4 hours early, as per usual, so I can scab an exit row seat by
dint of being first in the queue, and asking nicely. It's what I usually
do, and it usually works.
"Can I have an exit row seat, please?"
"Lemme check for you... Yep, we have two left."
"One for me, please"
"That'll be seventy five bucks"
Uhm. Fuck that.
What the fuck... I mean, I turn up with a valid ticket for this seat
[exit row is still cattle class, remember?], and they won't let me have it
without paying more?
Yes, I had a really shitty flight. The seats fit people comfortably[ish]
if they're skinny and 4'5 tall. I think we can safely say that I'm
neither particularly skinny, nor, at 6'3, am I at or below the requisite
height. I failed miserably to get any sleep at all, and the movies were
all ones I'd seen before [excepting Shaun of the Dead, which I can VERY
highly recommend]. Bleh.
Nowadays, I kinda find it offensive. You know that, at the cost of
inconveniencing a couple passengers, you'll still be able to make 75
bucks for each and every seat, because there are enough people that /are/
prepared to pay for it.
So you do it.
It'll piss off lots of customers, but it doesn't matter because they've
already paid for the flight. And in a way, they can't /really/ complain,
since it's just as if there were no seats left when they got there.
Ugh. All people that make decisions like this should be forced to sit
in seats for people a foot or two shorter than them for 12 hours. Starting
a couple hours before bedtime, so they'll be really, really, tired,
but still unable to sleep.
[2004-07-06]
I finally beat Zelda Wind Waker. Really, Really, Great Game. Pretty much
warrants the purchase of a gamecube on it's own merits, so that's nice.
I bought Grand Theft Spiderman, so that'll probably keep me busy for
a while.
[2004-06-26]
I think we can safely say that Farenheit 9/11 isn't likely to improve
Bush's campaign.
And I'm lit up like a Christmas tree.
[2004-06-25]
Finally!
http://icculus.org/~chunky/coifLast night, I finally got that together.
I think I need to shoot the photographer, though.
Now I'm working on a stainless steel bikini set, in a looser weave,
and it's infinitely easier.
I think I can safely say that making a substantial bit of 6-in-1 titanium
maille is really quite a lot more effort than a bit of 4-in-1 stainless
steel.
[2004-06-23]
Mario Kart Double Dash still very much rocks. Great fun, and am still
working on it in co-op with the rather lovely girlfriend, who rather
conveniently actually enjoys computer games.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-12-14I think I've passed "the test" with flying colors.
Currently, we have Gold in all but three of the cups.
Couple minor-ish points, though:
1) Fucking game fucking cheats. It's deliberately engineered to let you
get away with some stuff sometimes, and not at others. But to the point
where it's annoying.
For example, sometimes it just decides that no way are we going to win
a specific race, and goes out of it's way to descend weapons onto us
until a couple computer karts have gone past, just at the finish line.
Kinda annoying when we're about to win a new cup, or something.
2) Mirror mode is possibly one of the filthiest hacks I think I've /ever/
seen in a computer game.
They literally gaffered the 3d part of the engine in backwards, reversed
the left and right controls to make up for it, set the computer on
cheat-as-much-as-you-want mode, and hoped no-one would notice... Uck.
Of course, it's still GREAT fun, and I'd really recommend that if you
have a GC you pick it up. Doesn't really come into it's own until you
play with other people, but very, very, cool, anyways.