Just don't know what to do with m'delf

So now what?

Who was I, before I was this entity that continuously worked, ever harder, ever more focused on the task to the exclusion of even the most basic ingredients of life gumbo? Before I began to erase elements of my life to make room for the all consuming Goal...

I'm scarcely sure.

You see, for last 30 or so days my nose has been to the grindstone, clouding my eyes with its grey, gristly spatter. I've put on weight from eating what I could when I could and pouring "energy drinks" down my malnourished, wizened caffeine-hole. My once-athletic body feels sickeningly sluggish and cumbersome. My bedraggled hair scrapes Jack Frost patterns on my sleep deprived eyes.

I've argued a lot with my lady, had panic attacks and only 3 or 4 good nights of sleep in a month. I've felt stupid, infantile, ill-prepared, hunted and scared. Waking at 3am with a head full of Java and aching, dry eyes is disconcerting.

BUT!! We delivered, we supplied total coverage as the Good Doctor might have put it. Through the minification of the self, cutting down to the lean meat, we were able to ACHIEVE THE GOAL.

I've done this level of work at three points in my life since leaving University.

A person can't keep it up for long. You'd die.

Sometimes, a challenge is set and I have a choice to make - to give it everything, and embrace either success or glorious failure, or to let the opportunity pass me by, and never know. This time, right or wrong, I chose to try. This time, I succeeded. Even if I hadn't, I'd know that I gave it my all. Unlike CapitulationBot, who is surely the worst robot ever.

I somehow fitted in coding apretty sweet game, AtakAChik, in the maelstrom

New game - Atak A Chik

Hello

Would you like to help to cheer up a giant? If so, Jonathan, Richard and I have made a game that you might like, it is rather jolly:

AtakAChik

Thanks,
- Gavin

Ridicularity: scientific study

Having observed a steady rise in ridiculousness in our society, we have been conducting a study into the nature of ridicularity. Associated symptoms such as clown rage, scamping and even mumblage are clearly increasing. This is perhaps a more pressing issue than global warming.

Before drawing any conclusions, it was incumbent upon this study to ascertaing a viable metric for the quantification of ridiculousness.

In studying the minds of people living with ridicularity (commonly referred to as "the ridiculous"), we discovered something incredible; there is actually a party known as the ridiculon that each person has. Ridiculons can be released by stress, anxiety, pressure, fear, happiness - in fact, the emotional trigger differs from sufferer to sufferer.

A ridiculon in isolation has little effect, but a concentration of ridiculons can exceed an individuals tolerance. Certain individuals have a high tolerance, notably Steven Gerrard is more or less immune to ridicularity. Other individuals are more likely to succumb and be affected by ridicularity.

So what hope is there for sufferers? Well, the primary technique is to avoid trigger conditions. If anxiety is your trigger, learn relaxation techniques.

In future, however, a more long term solution is desirable. We have found that the polarity of ridicularity can be reversed under certain circumstances. This is difficult to reproduce, but some individuals, such as the Beastie Boys, have managed to transcend ridicularity into a state of total awesomeness.

So, in conclusion, it seems that the true road is THROUGH, to embrace one's ridicularity, to be oneself. Perhaps, this way, an individual can overcome ridiculousness and embrace teh awesome.

Blackout Crew vs the Wu Tang Clan : Battle of the Century

VERSUS

Contributions to music

Blackout Crew

From out of nowhere, the Crew have inspired the North of England. Althought still teetering on the cusp of greatness, they have youth on their side, but it remains to be seen whether each member possess a unique, distinctive talent?

Score for this round: 6

Wu Tang Clan

The Clan changed hip hop for ever. No mistaking. Enter the Wu Tang is possibly the illest ish ever, to this day. Breakout stars Method Man (Tical), ODB (Brooklyn Zoo) and the GZA (Liquid Swords) have proved that the Wu Tang Clan has strength in depth.

Score for this round: 10

Hardness

Blackout Crew

They're tough talking chaps from the North of England, probably capable of punching out the average man quite easily with a fistful of sovs. Left, right, left, goodnight!

Score for this round: 7

Wu Tang Clan

The Clan are exceptionally tough. Their kung fu skills are feared throughout hip hop. The Crew may be tough, but they can't hope to fathom the Mystery of Chessboxing. Round to the Clan.

Score for this round: 9

Bangin' donks

Blackout Crew

The Crew always come with a bangin' donk. All their tunes are pre-donked, meaning all you have to do is sit back and listen - no hassle!

Score for this round: 10

Wu Tang Clan

No Wu-Tang joint comes pre-donked, forcing you to supply your own, to literally put a donk on their music. This is not acceptable; salt-n-shake crisps went out in the 80's. A disappointing round for the 'Clan.

Score for this round: 0

---

Results

FINAL SCORES
Wu Tang Clan: 19
Blackout Crew: 23

From this, we can see that the Blackout Crew is clearly better than the Wu Tang Clan. A strong start by the Wu Tang Clan, but things became bleak for the hip hop heroes when the Blackout Crew harnessed the power of the donk to squeak out a victory! If only the Wu Tang Clan would embrace the donk, they could be truly immortal...




With apologies to Viz and the talented musicians mentioned!

Choose life

is there any way to stop Blogger switching to preview when I hit CTRL+SHIFT? It's making me want to punch a goose

Pretty full-on day for me today! I got up at 8 (which is earlier than I rise for my job - flexitime has ruined me for the larks!), and headed to church, where I had committed to play bass for 3 services (and 2 attendant rehearals). A pretty tall order! I've also just been assigned a major project at work which I am frankly quite concerned about, and am looking to buy a house. I guess you could describe me as "tense".

The afternoon break saw my girlfriend reading to me from an Adrian Plass book, The Visit. We're only half way through but it reduced me to tears with its picture of a dynamic, colourful, vibrant, amazing, challenging, off-the-wall and caring Jesus visiting a stuffy narrator, whose rigid "churchianity" gradually gives way to a living, exciting faith. It moved me greatly, it was a wonderful picture of Jesus, and reminded me of how much I actually want to get to "know Jesus" in this way that people talk about; my faith has often been somewhat arms' length in nature, I've always been to afraid to really try to get close.

The thing is with Jesus, when you think you've got him completely figured out, you haven't - there are always surprises, always the unexpected...

The two morning services were OK, but the evening service was something amazing for me. For some reason, I felt that something unexpected would happen. It came up in the prayers before the service too, I felt it really strongly. The music felt good, but the visiting speaker's message really resonated with me. It brought to mind the famous speech from the start of the movie Trainspotting (which is great but the book is even better):

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f--king big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of f--king fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f--k you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f--king junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f--ked up brats you spawned to replace yourself.

Choose your future.

Choose life.

This "life" the Renton character is talking about is the conventional life as he sees it, in a fairly shallow and despairing light. Of course, it's only his perspective, and I can speak only for myself, but for me I innately desire more from life than the things we're perhaps expected to want.

There's another quote about choosing life from the book of Deuteronomy in the Bible, which is what the speaker tonight brought up. It also talks about choosing life:

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed.

It was this that really hit home. If you've read this blog before, you may be aware of some of my fears about the future and salvation, and I felt like I had to choose life. I worried, as usual, that it was too late for me with God, that I'd had enough second chances. There was an offer of prayer, during which the band came back on, myself included. I couldn't shake the feeling, however, that I should go to the speaker. I watched as people came up for prayer to the ministry team, and nobody approached this man. On the verge of putting down my bass, I decided "if he's still alone at the end of the song, I'll go over".

The song ended, down went the bass, and I sprang off the stage, accosted the fellow and asked if he'd pray with me. I outlined for him my basic situation, and he agreed to pray with me. I don't let just anybody do this, but this guy seemed a calm, considerate, thoughtful, peaceful and wise type. He touched my shoulder, and I felt God's presence immediately and powerfully.

I'm the biggest cynic going. I am not a credulous type, not easily carried away in hype. There is always a part of me on the inside looking out, observing, analysing. Nevertheless, I cannot dispute that this was God. As the messenger prayed for me, he touched on areas that I hadn't even mentioned I struggled in - the fear that I may have been cut off - and spoke such perfect words of reassurance that for the second time that day I cried, this time with relief and love. When the prayer came to an end, I took a little time outside, then bounded back to the stage and played, probably quite poorly, but with renewed passion and vigor. I felt that I could have played all night.

I'm writing this partly as a diary so when hard times come I can look back on it, but also to perhaps encourage those in a similar situation of doubt or fear to be brave, come into the light. You have nothing to lose but your sorrow and burdens.

Things I'm currently advocating

Donks

Putting a donk on things makes them sound bouncy and this is a nice thing. A bouncy little world in my head, thoughts squidging around like smiley, supercharged bubbles...

This week the power went out at the office, so the only tools we had were the new MacBooks, which comes equipped with a little package called GarageBand. It was probably the greatest morale boosting half hour of my working life as we made ridiculous music and filmed a short "donkumentary" about the making of. Team building exercises? Therapists? Weeks away? Stand up meetings? Bah to the lot of 'em. What you wanna do with it, right, is put a bangin' donk on it!

Software that doesn't require an install

I ran my last PC into the ground with the amount of software I had installed. I need more equipment than Batman for my day to day job - Visual Studio, Komodo, Cygwin, IIS, PHP, NetBeans, KDiff, Skype, Office, Word, Firefox, IE, Opera, the list goes on and on... I've taken to using apps that just run as exes with their config in a simple .ini file. I'm currently rolling with mRemote, winscp and FoxitReader, and all three work perfectly with no installation necessary - no registry clutter!

Samba Lucas

Man was amazing last night. Giants walk amongst us, people. Backed with an awesome band, Samba's louche charisma is finally starting to get the exposure it deserves.

Swing swords, cut clowns

Shaolin Sword

"I'll have it raining ice drops the size of automobiles,
Kill all the government microchips in my body" - Ol' Dirty Bastard

I recently got this from the no2Id mailing list:

+ STOP CLAUSE 152 +

Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill [1] - currently being
debated by Parliament - would allow any Minister by order to take any
information gathered for one purpose from anywhere, and use it for any
other purpose.

An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit
your information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across
government and the public sector - it would also reach into the private
sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across
international borders.

Your information, your family's information, arbitrarily used without
your consent or even knowledge. The very reverse of 'Data Protection'.

If you care about fundamental rights and freedoms, privacy and
confidentiality, the time to act is NOW.

Please write to your MP - you can do this at http://www.WriteToThem.com
- and tell him or her that you REFUSE CONSENT to having your information
shared under any 'Information Sharing Order', and ask him or her to vote
to have Clause 152 removed entirely from the Coroners and Justice Bill.

(Refusing your consent is the absolutely critical bit - we know that
some MPs have already had over 100 constituents telling them this, which
is the way we can all apply pressure.)

Please write to your MP now - AND TELL OTHERS. Friends, family,
colleagues, workmates. Spread the word. A 'Stop Clause 152!' facebook
group has also been set up to help publicise the issue:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54487688497

If you have already written to your MP (thank you!) then why not write a
letter to your local paper, alerting readers to the powers in Clause 152
and how privacy will be abolished if it becomes law. All it takes is 10
minutes and a stamp.

If we act now, we can stop this. If we don't, another fundamental
building block of privacy and trust will be lost.

It's up to us.

We're mad fortunate over here that we have things like WriteToThem - what a fantastic service for contacting your MPs in a no hassle scenario! Many peoples got no voice, so I'ma yell up, ya hear?

Wu-Tang Sword

Going to see the incredible Samba Lucas tonight, can't wait! One of the main artists to get excited about right now, maybe second to only to L'il Wayne.