After a very quiet Friday (which was the actual day itself), with just a trip down to the bar in TGI Friday’s in the Centre for some bar food, cocktails and watching the Dutch dump Brazil out of the World Cup; I met up with a few friends for most of the day on the Saturday, with some general hanging around and doing whatever came to mind. One thing of note was the odd trip to the Asian market grabbing some very cheap Pocky, which I unfortunately munched through rather damn quickly after getting him, seeing as it’s so damn addictive. I really need to make some plans to go get a crate of so of them and start stocking them up in the wardrobes before Eirtakon…

Speaking of that, I really need to go sort out my plans for Final Form Sora now that I have time – and money.

Dinner with family later on that night was a massive affair – sixteen of us in all squeezing into the restaurant part of Ho Wun here in Dunboyne. It was a great night, getting everybody together for a night out to celebrate not only me, but my aunt Paula as well (whose birthday was the day before mine!), before heading home for more drinks and cake. And unfortunately no dog seeing as a couple of my aunts have some issues with canines.

Felt great the next day after a great 24 hours prior to it – and maybe a little bit because of the “personal ATM” feeling I had in my wallet following it.

So, what’s left in the summer? Well, finding a damn Blackmagic Intensity Pro somewhere in this country would be a great start, as I want to get into streaming my 360 online and maybe doing a Let’s Play of something on it – specifically Naughty Bear, which I was given on my birthday itself and I haven’t yet played it because I want to LP it blind if I can…

Despite the fact that my sister’s father kind of fills the father role (despite not having to), I still wouldn’t consider him my proper father.

That’s really all I have to say about that. Now, back to making the bear popular.

So, there are a few things that I want to do, and hopefully get as many of them done before Sunday, which is the final day of me being in this country for a while. I probably haven’t yet mentioned it (mainly because it’s not exactly the most interesting of things for you guys ), but we’re – and that means me, my sister, and my mom – are heading to Center Parcs in Longleat for a week starting this Monday. It was a good deal, she pay for the stay, and I pay for the flights and car given that I do have an income and I’m not exactly still living at home anymore.

Except that in order for the car company to charge me, I had to have been the one driving it. Oh well, it’s such a shame I didn’t have to pay for that(!) Although quite frankly, Ryanair were a fucking rip-off. As we were going to be staying Monday-Monday, we have flights for Monday morning. At 6:35am to be precise. It was either that or 2pm, but flying in the afternoon means we’ve wasted our first day, and given how expensive the stay is, it’s better to be tired on the first morning, rather than arriving fresh as a just-delivered pizza yet everyone being closed owing to it being so late.

Anyway, for the flights for the three of us there (Dublin – Britsol): €33. Flights back the week after: €3. That made me think “Oh!” when I saw how cheap it would be. Then came the annoying extras. Two checked in bags – one for me and one for the parent with Aoife splitting her stuff between the suitcases – €40. Fuck sake. If I wasn’t going with my mother I’d probably have been able to get away with my laptop bag with one change of clothes stuffed into it. But I can’t, because generally I’m not allowed to live like that in her company. *sigh*

Then came the next big bombshell – handling fee. Also known as the “charge for trying to pay with anything other than a Visa debit card”. Thirty fucking Euros, you sonuvabitch. And then to top it all off, I was asked to get priority boarding as well. Eighteen more euros. What originally started as pocket change (in my terms) now became a fully fledged shopping list (in my terms – although even then that’s only a week/week and a half long shop). Fuck. You. Extortionate. Bastards.

So yea, heading up to Dublin… hopefully tomorrow. Was originally going to be today, except I kinda went to bed at 6am after a long night of web space related bleh, being in my usual Americanized personal time zone, and the general lack of having anything ready. Which is why today I’ll be getting stuff ready and heading back tomorrow. Or if all else fails, heading back on the 8am bus Saturday morning, going straight into meeting up with the Eirtaku folk and tagging along to the next cosplay photoshoot – and then to Dunboyne.

While I’m on that subject, this Saturday afternoon is yet another cosplay photoshoot. I say yet another in the way that they’ve been happening about every two weeks now. I would have gone to the first, which fell quite conveniently on my birthday which meant I would have had even less of a day to put up with an over-enthusiastic sister (sorry!), only it was cancelled due to the bad weather. The second one fell on the exact same day as the worldwide photowalks, plus I would have had to get said 8am bus. And now there’s this one. If bad weather strikes again, I swear to fuck… *throws bear across room*

I also really need to go record some more footage for my Platinum LP as well. If I do end up doing it, it’ll probably be tonight and then I’ll spend most of Sunday, when not getting ready to leave, editing it into a few videos and then uploading them all very early Monday morning. It’s the editing part I’m worried about, what with it generally taking one and a half hours apiece. Uploading won’t be an issue thanks to 9.6Mb upload (when I last tested it) on Magnet’s fibre network. Hell yes, seven minute video upload as opposed to four fucking agonisingly slow hours. And then at the end of those aforementioned hours, it decided to come up with an unknown error and make me start over again. Fix your shit YouTube. And while you’re at it, either remove the 10:59 limit, or gimme to capability to upload more seeing as I joined back in 2006 when the Director function gave you unlimited uploads which you then revoked and now only give to partners, but all the oldies still keep their functionality! *sharp inhale*

Related to that, I have a new server roommate Samantha. I blame raocow for introducing us. To cut to the point, Sam had no money to renew her webspace soon, and I had webspace available in spades. Seriously, I’m only using about 1.5GB of my disk, and never anymore than 4GB of my monthly bandwidth – so sharing some of my Minimus excess is pretty simple. Once I get shit figured out that is…

And lastly I wanted to start doing vlogs at least once every… well, I say week now, but it’ll very likely end up becoming two months based on a combination of laziness and nothing to talk about. But we’ll see. It’ll have to wait until I get back from holidays because starting it now is probably a bad idea. Plus I’ll probably have a bunch of video content taken while over there, and maybe at the cosplay photoshoot, to edit once I get back. How everything eventually falls back to some common factor.

Wow, I could talk.

Tuesday

The main thing about this week had to have been the SU elections for next year. Unlike last year, there was quite a bit of a contest for most of the high-profile spots (i.e. the sabbaticals!) leading to a lot of canvassing. This meant campaign t-shirts for all those involved; the creation of posters, some with fancy Photoshop work (Andrew the “Anchorman”), some just plain and boring (humanities guy); the guillotine was overworked for the first time in forever, chopping up all the pages into leaflets; and an insane amount of lollipops, sweets and other things filled with sugar that would have made all the ladies from the health fair look on in disgust.

Not to mention the fact that I apparently wasn’t in the database this year and so wasn’t able to vote – thank you again, you fuckers in the Registry… :angry:

Wednesday

The second day of voting for the SU, thankfully saw the place quietening down a bit. Posters were already torn down and the place was turning back to normal. At least until Clubs and Socs days next year :S

The afternoon was one of the more hectic ones, with both Airsoft and Games Soc having their AGM’s on at the exact same time. After hanging around with Games Soc for a bit until after 2 (AGM hadn’t started as for the lack of quorum), so for a quick run down to the Airsoft one, take a few show of hands votes, give Ordinary Member a shot and not win, then leg it back up with everyone to the Games Soc one as nearly all of them are members.

AGM was brief enough. Every position bar two went uncontested, and the only reason those two were contested was because of our nooby first year meaning just a little too well. Needless to say he didn’t make it. Oh, and I’m Console Ents for next year. Woo. To quote Robby: I finally made it. I’m not going to delve into how badly our resident noob lost in both his attempts, but let’s say it was near-unanimous.

And Games Soc won Best Society and the Clubs and Socs Awards. Epic win

Thursday

Thursday was mainly spent recovering from the night before. Lab gaming was a very subdued affair seeing as how firstly very few people were there, but also as the lab would be closing way earlier than usual because of a scheduled power cut the following morning. No matter, there were SU election counts and recounts to enjoy.

There was a good bit of tension as the Education and Welfare candidates were all around for the results of a recount which increased the winning margin from 3 to 4 votes. Apparently a future recount increased it even more to 6 votes! It was one of the tighest elections ever. I wouldn’t like to have been one of the candidates for that. I would have had to take out all my stress on Super Smash Bros. which the guys set up in the Clubs and Socs office…

BTW, we finally unlocked Toon Link, and thus all characters on the Games Soc copy of Brawl

Friday

Sleep. That’s all I can say. Oh, and Elly’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy party. There were a lot of white mice eaten

Saturday

A1 qualifying is the main thing that kept me up on Saturday. Starting third and second bode very well for the championship with Switzerland starting last and third. Also, Man U barely winning was not nice, particularly with Ronaldo only playing 22 minutes and thus wasting my captaincy choice for the week in the Fantasy league. :angry:

Sunday

A1 racing, more footy. A1 stewards are a bunch of fags. Filipe Albuquerque cannot drive.

Plus, I was invited home to Dunboyne by Aoife so that we could spend Easter Sunday as a family for dinner. It was nice to be able to go back home legally for a while and see everyone again. Aoife was especially pleased. Also, I found out that my mom was heading out to the US for another business trip the following morning, which did lead to a hectic night of packing… I did get to stay the night, so yay for sleeping in a familiar bed with comfy sheets

I managed to bring some more of my stuff with me to Santry as well, and with a little bit of playing around, managed to get my 360 connected to Live via my computer, so yay for being back on Live presence again! Not sure if the connection is ideal enough for playing on, so maybe we could test it out in a few custom games on my new Halo 3 map I’ve been forging in Sandbox?

Asperger syndrome (also called Asperger’s syndrome, Asperger’s disorder, Asperger’s or AS) is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and people with AS therefore show significant difficulties in social interaction and restricted, stereotyped patterns of behavior and interests. AS differs from other ASDs by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Although not mentioned in standard diagnostic criteria, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.

Well, that’s it in a nutshell. I’m betting that the majority of you before have wondered what I’m like when I’m thinking about things, or the way I talk, write, act etc. I had been an Asperger child since a young age, or as far as my mother can remember. My childhood was filled with days where I would go and be analysed by psychologists, child specialists and others. I’m not sure when I was officially diagnosed, I think I was around 11 or so, in first year. But at the time I was relieved that I finally had something, some descriptor, just a reason or an understanding as to why I am who I am.

The first thing I will say to you about me, I find it very hard to refer to my mother as “my mother”. Whenever I’m talking to other people about her, I refer to her by her first name. The other person I will refer to her as “mom” or “mommy” when talking to is my little sister. And I only refer to her as “Ma” on my phone so that it’s the first number that shows up when I press M in the contacts list.

A pervasive developmental disorder, Asperger syndrome is distinguished by a pattern of symptoms rather than a single symptom. It is characterized by qualitative impairment in social interaction, by stereotyped and restricted patterns of behavior, activities and interests, and by no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or general delay in language. Intense preoccupation with a narrow subject, one-sided verbosity, restricted prosody, and physical clumsiness are typical of the condition, but are not required for diagnosis.

This is probably what makes the condition so different – the fact that it’s not just a single symptom that defines those who have AS, and those who don’t. There are several different facotrs that can determine whether you may have AS or not, but again even having all of the characteristics of someone with AS, may not mean that you actually do suffer from it.

And I’m not saying “suffer from it” in a bad way. It’s just that my vocabulary probably isn’t as wide as it could be in this sense. I’m just talking about having it or not.

Social interaction

The lack of demonstrated empathy is possibly the most dysfunctional aspect of Asperger syndrome. Individuals with AS experience difficulties in basic elements of social interaction, which may include a failure to develop friendships or to seek shared enjoyments or achievements with others (for example, showing others objects of interest), a lack of social or emotional reciprocity, and impaired nonverbal behaviors in areas such as eye contact, facial expression, posture, and gesture.

While I don’t have as many problems socially now as I did when I was younger, it is still a maor factor with me. “The lack of demonstrated empathy” is a big thing. When my grandmother died ten years ago this June, when I was nine years old, I was sad at the time. I still have a memory of me sitting beside her on a made-up bed in my great-aunt’s house (I think), and being very sad at saying goodbye to her. However, the following week, during a break period at school, the principal called my over, and brought me just inside from the school yard.

Now I should explain this here, my principal from primary school knew my family very well. It may have been because my mom was good friends with two of the teachers there, but I do believe it all boiled down to the fact that the principal lived about a 3-minute walk from my house! So, it’s only natural that he heard of my grandmother’s death. He called me in asking me if I felt alright. While I was still a little sad at the time, I got over it extremely quickly. So quickly, he himself was very surprised (judging by his reaction when I made it clear I got over it). And since then, death really hasn’t made all too much of an impact on me. It’s not as if I don’t care about death happening, it just doesn’t affect me emotionally as it would other people.

Hence why I can be seen talking very nonchalantly about events happening around the world where many people have died, almost as if I don’t care about the loss of life.

Unlike those with autism, people with AS are not usually withdrawn around others; they approach others, even if awkwardly, for example by engaging in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic while misunderstanding or not recognizing the listener’s feelings or reactions, such as need for privacy or haste to leave. This social awkwardness has been called “active but odd”. This failure to react appropriately to social interaction may appear as disregard for other people’s feelings, and may come across as insensitive. The cognitive ability of children with AS often lets them articulate social norms in a laboratory context, where they may be able to show a theoretical understanding of other people’s emotions; they typically have difficulty acting on this knowledge in fluid, real-life situations, however. People with AS may analyze and distill their observation of social interaction into rigid behavioral guidelines and apply these rules in awkward ways-such as forced eye contact-resulting in demeanor that appears rigid or socially naive. Childhood desires for companionship can be numbed through a history of failed social encounters.

Yes, socially I was a little different – and still am. I have no problem sitting in the corner or to the side when there are loads of people around whom I have never met or seen before (which may have been obvious at Twestival on Thursday). However, those I do know and have met before, I have no qualms at all engaging in conversation, even if they themselves are talking with people I don’t know.

I do still tend to have some issues. I can ramble on for ages about things that I know a lot about or am insanely interested in, even to the detriment of the conversation. Sometimes, if I do see that someone else shares my interests, then we can hit it off like the flicking of a switch (like me and @emordino talking about CoD4!).

Restricted and repetitive interests and behavior

People with Asperger syndrome often display behavior, interests, and activities that are restricted and repetitive and are sometimes abnormally intense or focused. They may stick to inflexible routines, move in stereotyped and repetitive ways, or preoccupy themselves with parts of objects.

I think most of you by now will understand this, even without an understanding of AS. My interests can be summed up in two of three things: gaming, web junk etc. That’s basically it. I pick up other interests from time to time, but they do seem very minor in comparison!

Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS. Individuals with AS may collect volumes of detailed information on a relatively narrow topic such as dinosaurs or deep fat fryers, without necessarily having genuine understanding of the broader topic. For example, a child might memorize camera model numbers while caring little about photography. Although these special interests may change from time to time, they typically become more unusual and narrowly focused, and often dominate social interaction so much that the entire family may become immersed. Because narrow topics often capture the interest of children, this symptom may go unrecognized.

I’m not too sure about others, but I surely recognised this quite quickly. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was sit in front of my old (and quite crappy at the time) PC, and play Command and Conquer non-stop. Nowadays, I just want to sit in front of either my computer or 360 and surf the web, chat, play games, watch videos etc. Special interests though are a little harder to pinpoint or myself. There are times when I’ve gone onto Wikipedia (or another wiki) and just read pages and pages on a certain game or series, but they’ve never become fully-fledged anal interests.

Stereotyped and repetitive motor behaviors are a core part of the diagnosis of AS and other ASDs. They include hand movements such as flapping or twisting, and complex whole-body movements. These are typically repeated in longer bursts and look more voluntary or ritualistic than tics, which are usually faster, less rhythmical and less often symmetrical.

Might not be because of AS, but I do have a knack of being unable to keep still for more than about 10 seconds without having to fidget or move something. I have no idea why, it just seems to be a habit of mine by now…

Speech and language

Although individuals with Asperger syndrome acquire language skills without significant general delay and their speech typically lacks significant abnormalities, language acquisition and use is often atypical. Abnormalities include verbosity, abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker, auditory perception deficits, unusually pedantic, formal or idiosyncratic speech, and oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody, and rhythm.

Being able to speak, and wanting to speak are two different things for most people. For me, they seem to intertwine together, but also stay separate sometimes. One thing I do hate is any form of public speaking. At the Games Soc AGM at the end of my first attempt at second year, I was nominated for the Consoles position on the committee. Trying to actually come up with something to say on the fly like that was a complete disaster for me. I’m not sure if it contributed to me losing the vote 21-9, even with me having most of the previous committee on my side (and the very least Robby and Seán)…

You may also remember TeenCamp, and how crap I feel I was on the mic during my half-assed talk and during the Twitterati phase…

I also have a tendency to take words at their face value, and being unable to understand the real interpretation of the phrase. I can’t exactly give you a good example right now, but you would understand if I were to make a mistake like that again…

Three aspects of communication patterns are of clinical interest: poor prosody, tangential and circumstantial speech, and marked verbosity. Although inflection and intonation may be less rigid or monotonic than in autism, people with AS often have a limited range of intonation: speech may be unusually fast, jerky or loud. Speech may convey a sense of incoherence; the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts. Individuals with AS may fail to monitor whether the listener is interested or engaged in the conversation. The speaker’s conclusion or point may never be made, and attempts by the listener to elaborate on the speech’s content or logic, or to shift to related topics, are often unsuccessful.

Basically, that paragraph does describe the way I talk pretty well. I can be quite incoherent, the subject matter of what I talk about can vary wildly from the start to the end. I do feel I talk quite fast, and probably too fast for my own good – that does not mean that I don’t make a large amount of errors when trying to read prose, particularly out loud. The rest does mention how I can tend to ramble on and on about something without stopping, no breaks for interjections, no way for other to get something in.

But then again, this part of things doesn’t tend to be as bad as it could be. It may just be that I can’t speak all that loudly, but if in a group of people talking over each other, I can never get a word in, because whetever I say is drowned out by others…

Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called “little professors”, but have difficulty understanding figurative language and tend to use language literally. Children with AS appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of nonliteral language that include humor, irony, and teasing. Although individuals with AS usually understand the cognitive basis of humor they seem to lack understanding of the intent of humor to share enjoyment with others. Despite strong evidence of impaired humor appreciation, there are anecdotal reports of humor in individuals with AS, which challenge theories of humor in AS.

Yes, I do remember when I was younger having quite the vocabulary and using it in all the wrong ways… Taking things literally is something I have always done, for good or bad. While I don’t have issues understanding most mainstream humour, I bdo have a bit of a dry wit. I get described by my mom that my sister’s dad and I are a lot more alike than we think, since we both seem to appreciate satirical humour and things most people generally wouldn’t fine very funny.

Other

Individuals with AS often have excellent auditory and visual perception. Children with ASD often demonstrate enhanced perception of small changes in patterns such as arrangements of objects or well-known images; typically this is domain-specific and involves processing of fine-grained features. Conversely, compared to individuals with high-functioning autism, individuals with AS have deficits in some tasks involving visual-spatial perception, auditory perception, or visual memory.

This is actually something I don’t have. I, at least according to those standardised tests you take during school, have a great understanding of spatial awareness. You could probably throw me into that round on the Krypton Factor and I’d ace it.

Many accounts of individuals with AS and ASD report other unusual sensory and perceptual skills and experiences. They may be unusually sensitive or insensitive to sound, light, touch, texture, taste, smell, pain, temperature, and other stimuli, and they may exhibit synesthesia; these sensory responses are found in other developmental disorders and are not specific to AS or to ASD. There is little support for increased fight-or-flight response or failure of habituation in autism; there is more evidence of decreased responsiveness to sensory stimuli, although several studies show no differences.

I do actually have a few differences in my senses. I am extremely insensitive to smell, unless it gets really bad, which is usually why I am always told that there is something in or around my room (including myself) which smells, yet I can’t identify it myself. I’m also very pervasive to temperature. If I am taking something out of the oven or the microwave, I always have oven gloves, or a towel wrapped around it, because such things always feel hot to me, even if they are barely lukewarm.

Children with AS are more likely to have sleep problems, including difficulty in falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, and early morning awakenings. AS is also associated with high levels of alexithymia, which is difficulty in identifying and describing one’s emotions. Although AS, lower sleep quality, and alexithymia are associated, their causative relationship is unclear.

I do have a few problems trying to get to sleep at night. It is probably why I’m always tired in the morning as I have never had enough sleep the night before since it took me so long just to get to bed.

I think I described upon my alexithymia(?) earier in the post somewhere. Not about to go fish it out again.

The Final Word. Or sentence/paragraph/remark/whatever…

Now that I’ve reached the end, I’ve actually forgotten why it is I opened up the Wiki article on AS in the first place, and what compelled me to write this. It may be another symptom I have from my AS, or it may just be me not paying enough attention. I just hope that this will help you to understand me and my attitude a little better, as it’s always been hard for me to explain why I do what I do online…

I’m not sure if this will finally set free some of those feelings I’ve had opening up about me and my personal life. I have always felt that this part of me was probably something better kept to myself, since most people probably wouldn’t understand. However, I would have to say that Tommy is probably one of the main inspirations for me to open up about myself. He hasn’t had any problems letting people know of the nitty-gritty details about his life, so why should I?

I should probably also mention this blog I noticed ages ago. It is a personal blog written by Gavin Bollard focusing on the positive side of AS, rather than all the negative aspects. I’ve been signed up to the RSS feed ever since, even though I never added bit to my blogroll, or linked to it anywhere. I’ve read some of the posts he’s written and I’ve been able to relate some of my symptoms to those mentioned in his posts. If you want to, I would definitely say to go and read some of his pieces if you are interested in knowing some more about AS, and the impacts and aspects on life.

Home

Things going better, still slightly autocratic, but not as much as before. Got to watch TV alone for the past hour
Guy from Magnet coming Monday to fix patch panel thingy (the hub where the fibre-optic ends and turns into CAT-5 that’s pre-wired through the house) – we sort of had to break open the door because they put a cover over it and locked it without supplying us with a key

Pics

Took some pics today – rainy window, Baby Bear antics, new version of that Lego car, and new avatar
Remind me to upload them to my gallery/hosting tomorrow!

Hosting

The attempted move to Blacknight on Friday didn’t go according to plan… Seems my website backup wasn’t as recent as I had hoped for
DNS is back to GoDaddy for the time being, I’ll try and switch back over sometime next week!

Monies

Since I put Baby Bear’s little ad space, they’ve actually made quite a bit
Maybe it was a good idea to put some on, at least it can help pay for the hosting

Yea, umm that’s all I can think of… Gotta run, 7 minutes of power left!

PS: The post title, is one of my favourite voice taunts from Age of Empires 2

So I turned on the computer today to find 13 new e-mails. OK, that’s not as bad as it could have been. Although having legitimate comments in the moderation queue for more than a few hours worried me (sorry, Laura!)

While the e-mails may not seem that big, it’s everything else that does the business. Around 200 new feed items make up the salad in the sandwich. That’s a lot of news stories, new blog posts, and other general random crap that I need to catch up on. I had enough issues keeping on top of it all when I was on practically 24/7…

And being offline for so long can wreck havok on keping up with forums and other posts. I’ve only visited maybe 4 or 5 since I got on, and there have been so many new posts… It’s even harder to keep up with when I’m quite a frequent poster on some of them!

Anyway, I need to get back to catching up on everything. I’ll try and tweet a bit more from home via text, but I’m not sure whether it’s worth turning on text updates… Maybe I’ll just set it to direct messages or @ replies only…

PS: Guess I can’t set the text updates for @replies, just direct messages. If anything really important comes up, and it’s during my “off-peak” time, DM me. The phone might wake me up enough to reply…

Recent Changes

In case I didn’t make it clear, or just didn’t post it, these are the changes:

• Pretty much confined to my room and en-suite, unless specifically told I can get food etc.
• Have to leave when Elaine leaves, and can’t come back until she’s back.
• No Internet in my room (mainly because the port isn’t enabled, but I’ll probably go down and switch around the active ports in the panel)
• Sockets get turned off overnight. Although this is a double-edged sword because everyone else has to deal with it, it means my radio alarm can’t wake me up

Yea, life sucks right now
It’s about 2 months of this before college accommodation becomes available again. Maybe I should go look for somewhere near campus to rent, and keep it for the whole year…?

NOTE: The following rant contains coarse language and things unsuitable for a less mature audience.

Yesterday and today seem to have been the turning point from things being relatively bad, to things being oh-so-fucking-atrocious. I’ve been on the summer break from college, after having to move out of on-campus accomodation 2 days after my final exam of the year. Whilst everything was fine and dandy at the start, since then things have deteriorated significantly.

I’m aware that myself and my mother have different lifestyles. However, I’m repeatedly being told that it’s my choice of lifestyle that’s the “wrong” one. I’m aware I have no job, althought I put that down to the fact that there is no work available around Dunboyne, and even Blanchardstown. I’ve been trying since I arrived back around 3 months ago. Why then, do I get continually shouted out for staying at home all day, when it’s not my problem there’s no work out there? I’ve heard all the stories about rising unemployment, and I agree with them! I have first hand experience with a lack of work, unlike herself who’s been working practically full-time since she was 17.

Which leads me onto another thing. Not everyone has to go through the same thing! Sure, she had to work almost full-time locally to pay all the household bills because her mother was ailing at the time, and she had to take care of me after my father went and fucked off after 2 years – but it does not mean everyone is expected to deal with such hardship! I did get a job and tried to hold it down, but customer service was not my thing, and I couldn’t stay there much longer! That my problem? Sure, I’m probably not able to pay so much towards the house what with half of my Disability Allowance going into a savings account so that I can pay for college registration fees, and accomodation – but will you ever stop going on about it! I do my best, can you not accept it?

It really drives me crazy how I do my best to find work, contribute towards the house, to get through college and passing the exams – and I still get grief because it’s not enough. I did my best for my exams, I studied as hard as I could and make a huge effort in regurgitating all that info onto the exam paper. So, I failed a few. Well I did fail quite a good bit, but having to do 6 modules a semester, with all 6 exams in the space of about 8 days is really tough! It’s a lot harder than it was in 1st year. It’s not a linear difficulty curve, that you can easily manage from year-to-year. From a relatively simple first year, it really shot up in second year. I did my best then and it wasn’t good enough. I’m now trying to learn as much as I can to do even better the second time round! So, will you stop bleating on about how I’m “not studying”. Just because I’m not studying the way you had to (with books and paper notes and stuff), doesn’t mean I’m not learning anything! These days we have notes and reading material online… get that through your thick head…

My choice of leisure involves doing stuff online or playing video games (mostly online as well). I don’t see how you can’t understand that I’m interacting with others. The only times I’ve seen her use a forum is when she’s looking for other people’s experiences with money and other crap like that. Obviously, she hasn’t used a forum for general chatting, and good times with others. Plus, with blogs and Twitter, and other forms of networks, everything you do online can be with other people. I know she works a lot on her computer – but it doesn’t mean that’s what everyone has to do on theirs!

Particularly when it comes to video games, that’s where we really clash. I choose to play the 360, particularly online with other people. Playing games with others makes it into a fun experience. I’m glad she understands that when it comes to playing Wii Sports, but obviously she can’t switch that mentality to other consoles and/or games. And WTF is with the crackdown on the 360? So, my main choice of genre on it are first-person shooters like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. I’m aware Aoife’s very young, hence why I’d only play them when she’s not around. And my so-called agressive nature when I’m playing? Obviously you’re not sitting down and watching me play these days. Yes, a couple of years ago, I did get annoyed a lot when playing, but I don’t do that anymore. These days I play mostly for fun with others, rather than sitting by myself in the corner of a room playing against the ever-annoying CPU…

But, the big swing of the pendulum has to be mentality. I think differently to others. I see things in a different light, and from a different perspective to normal people. It’s been recognised by mental health experts. I have a doucment which clearly states that my differing mentality is officially recognised as Asperger’s Syndrome. The State even recognise it and are trying to help me by supplying the Disability Allownace while I do my best to find work that’s suitable for me (heck, right now any work would suit me!). She understands that I have it and that I think differently, but then why is she always saying that I’m not thinking “normally”. I’m aware I’m different. I do my best to try and be normal, and when that’s not possible, I do my best to suceed my way. How is that such a big deal?

I’m not sure if I have all that much of a level head right now, because with all this anger and sorts going through my head, I’m really finding it hard to think straight. I haven’t had many anger management problems for a few years now – last time I got pushed too far, we physically fought for about an hour, and I was this close to slitting her neck. There have been several occasions now where I’ve had to say that she’s pushing me to the limit, and that I need to walk away to cool down, but she’s always forced me to stay and have to listen to her bleating on and on when I’ve specifically said that it’s making me more and more angry. I’ve been hearing news recently of court cases when murder has been involved and the reason for it was that the person was driven too far by the deceased. I worry that this is going to turn into one of those cases…

*sigh* If you see a very brief Twitter message, almost like that guy who got arrested in a foreign country and only managed to get the word out by tweeting from his phone, then you’ll know things have hit rock bottom. I really don’t want to have to go there, but I don’t know how much more I can take it…

Not sure whether this will be my last post for a while… but we’ll see… Things will be said over the next few hours. What the result of that will be, I really do not know.

Tweetup

Friday’s Tweetup was really good, I liked meeting the people behind the blogs and the tweets. Once you meet people in real life, it changes your perspetive of who they are, and helps you to understand more what they talk about.

Met Alexia first in Starbucks on College Green. It’s actually quite funny, as when I first got off the bus and rang her to see where she was, I thought to myself “What are the odds she’s in the Starbucks right here?”, and it turned out to be that way! Laura met us there soon after, and Elly not much longer after that. I have to say Elly is the one who most surprised me when meeting up with her. She’s has a very “bubbly” personality, which is probably what surprised me the most!

As for the sushi dinner in the Hop House, it was lovely. It also gave me the opportunity to at least attempt to get to grips with chopsticks

Also there at the dinner were Darragh and Niamh, and Marie arrived later on during the meal. Fun times to be had by all, particularly regarding phones! Laura and Marie both had iPhones, and Darragh an N95. Which looked a lot different in comparison to my little 1101. Which is why I mentioned, and told I’d be quoted on saying: “Am I the only one who downgraded when they bought their last phone?”

Unfortunately, I had to head back home after the dinner. We finished at 11pm, and with the last bus leaving at 11.20, I decided to head back. I wasn’t alone, as Darragh and Niamh went back to Blanch, and Laura back home as well at that point. It would have been nice to continue on to the pub part of the meeting, particularly as there were more people there: RapturePonies, and Damien “The King” Mulley. Mulley is someone I would have loved to meet, but alas, my logistical properties prevented me from doing so

All in all, the Tweetup was a great time. Hopefully there will be more meetings soon! (In fact, I think there is another less formal meeting planned by Debz for this Wednesday – although I think I need to look into it more!)

Pictures: Mine, Alexia’s. Will add more once I find them!

Family Time

OK, so maybe there isn’t really much to say about this bit. Other than being called at to come down and get in the car, while I was in the loo, and then having them drive off on me, forcing me to get the bus much later in the afternoon, leaving my DS behind because when trying to add more stuff on the memory card is fucked up and deleted all but one of my games and almost all of my saved data, and staying there until around 11pm, and having to sit through crappy 80′s music on VH1 instead of the really interesting The Match: Forza 2 that was on Pulse in which Stune from the London Mint was participating.

Wow, run-on sentence.

So yea, I think that’s about it for those two events. I’m not sure if I already mentioned my DS card screwing up – if I didn’t I’ll get onto it soon. It’s a busy period around here, and I’m finding it hard to not only post here, but also to continue the task I took upon myself to improve a few Pokémon articles on Wikipedia

Wow, long paragraph…

So earlier today Games Soc held their EGM to ratify the changes to the constitution which effectively implemented the STOCS merger (Officially, it was dependant on STOCS ratifying the changes as well, which they happened to do later on in the day around 7pm. Which I was in the room as the meeting took place, unknowing that the meeting was going to take place. I sat in a corner playing Hyps. and made remarks ). During console gaming, one thing was made a good  bit clearer to me that it was made at the team tournament last week: I have a lot of skill playing Halo 3 IN COMPARISON TO THE REST OF GAMES SOC. It probably also applies to the fact that it is split-screen system link and not over Live.

It appears that no matter what game type or what game settings, I always seem to win. Whether it be default vanilla FFA Slayer to 25, or a 150% speed-150% gravity-rockets only-team game to 50, or a 2v2-neutral bomb-bomb carrier 100% speed to 3, I will end up winning or being on the winning team. Maybe I should stay away from the Xbox 360 every week in future, although that might be more difficult if I run for Console Ents. for next year.

That also brings something else to light. The Games Soc AGM is in a couple of weeks and there the committee for next year will be elected. Right now a lot of people have been talking with me and suggest I run for certain positions. I actually find this quite helpful – seeing where other people see me as being good does help me to decide about what position(s) to run for. The Console Ents. position may be hotly contested, but I think it might be my best shot for a position. However, it also all depends on other positions. Webmaster may seem like a "cheap" position, but it can be quite important, as those of you reading this would know
All depends on whether anyone else more skilled is running for it. At one point, I was also suggested to go run for PRO (Public Relations Officer), however when it came up that I am a Photoshop n00b, it was suggested maybe not to run for it. I acknowledge that PRO does involve a lot of poster making, and probably isn’t something I’d be too good with. Heck, if you noticed the lame attempt at Baby Bear peeking out of the side of the home page, you’d understand how bad I am at picture editing.

To get to more "normal" discussion, I was playing CoD4 with a Kinetic and a few CS lads the other night. Alright, so it started off with me joining the party via Kinetic when a spot opened up. After a few games and the other lads had backed out, Kinetic sent an invite, and we had a good few games together. I probably didn’t play my best (although in fairness I don’t play the best anyway), but while under the influence of Gais(?) prestiging for the 5th(?) time, I decided to do prestige mode as well. There are three things I can definitely say from this:

1. The starter guns are quite under-rated. M16 can be very effective if you aim for the head easily. The big thins for me though is M40A3 + Stopping Power. 90% of the time, it’s a one-shot kill whether it be to the head or body. Although head is preferred if only for the challenge
2. Challenges take a LONG time to unlock. I never realised how long it took before the challenges started unlocking, and then again how slow it is to unlock each successive set. And obviously it’s annoying that the match before you unlock the first set, you go 23 and 5 and get the UAV, air strike and chopper – and then it takes about 15-20 games before you get your next chopper for the challenge. At least this time I managed to get Flyswatter quite quickly – took an RPD to a chopper in Hardcore TDM
3. It IS very fun going through all the challenges again. When you think back to how long it took the first time round, at least this time now you know how to do them. I was probably at Level 38 before I figured out how to get Goodbye (fall 30 feet or more to your death). This time round, as soon as I unlocked it, the first game I had on Backlot(?), I jumped off the top floor of the construction building to the basement and up popped 250 XP

I think that I need to make a little "sortie" home sometime soon. It’s come to the point where Aoife herself is ringing me asking when I’m going to be home next. Yes, I think it has been a long time. Probably too long. If my 360Voice is telling me my current streak is at 34 days, then it’s probably been too long. Apparently next week Aoife’s off, so these next couple of weekends should be good times to head back. Especially as next weekend is the Patrick’s Day weekend, so I get Monday off. And the week after, the college is closed Friday and Monday! Woo, 4-day weekend!

Soon, I also need to go sort out my finances. Not really because I’m running short, but more because I want to go buy a new computer. And it’s actually going to be a proper desktop computer built by hand from parts. Right now, I have a nice shopping list on Komplett, totaling about €1700 (not including monitor). Hopefully, I can either get a loan off the parents, or apply online at my bank and see if I can get a decent repayment rate for 24 or 36 months. Yes, it’s a long-term investment, but if I get it, it should be nicely future-proofed

If you’re interested at all, here’s my shopping list:

• Asus Striker II Formula, nForce-780i SLI ,Socket-775, DDR2, 3xPCI-Ex(2.0)16
• Crucial DDR2 PC6400 4096MB CL6, Kit w/two matched DDR2 PC6400 2GB CL6
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775, 8MB, BOXED w/fan
• LG DVD±RW burner, GSA-H55LRB, 20x, LightScribe, SecureDisc, Black and White
• Logitech G5 Laser Mouse 2007, USB
• Logitech Media Keyboard 600, UK-layout
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate English OEM DVD 64bit
• SteelSeries QCK heavy mouse mat, Professional gaming
• Thermaltake Armor Black, Aluminium Front , 25 cm Fan, Super tower (Without PSU)
• Thermaltake Toughpower 850W, Modular, 8xSATA, ATX/EPS, 4xPCI-E, 20/24pin
• Western Digital Caviar SE16 750GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
• XFX GeForce 8800GTX 600M 768MB XT GDDR3 ,PCI-Express,2xDVI/HDTV/HDCP,600/1900Mhz

After the last 2 weeks here, it seems that my current “activities” aren’t helping the family and household as much as they could be. I’m a gamer, what do you expect…?

With any luck, I should be able to head off back to on-campus accommodation by the end of the weekend. Although the luck all depends on whether Tim is able to give me a lift back with all my stuff. And the fact that he has my 360 (I wasn’t leaving it in college over the break – I can’t trust the bed-bug sprayers or the inspection people), so without him giving a lift, I’m not really going “home”.

Back to the present, MOHAA night tonight was fun, even though it took until about 1am before the other Clan members took notice, and even then it started off on some other server! It was grand and all, except that it seems that if a server is a little TOO full, then you have some problems. Plus, the whole concept of leaning is quite annoying to me. It’s why on so many occasions you can be killed from what appears to be nowhere since the guy leaned out, shot and went back in. It really could have done with a proper cover system…

Looking forward to next week though, but unfortunately, it all depends on whether it can connect through the proxy in college. I know Steam can, so maybe there is a slight chance that MOHAA can? If so, grand – more MOHAA gaming
If not, then it’s back to the crappy 9fps CS:S. Which has been changed to a Zombie mod server. ZM FTL. GunGame FTW.

PS: It appears my KpD could do with a little work. Now sitting at 0.820. Although I’d much prefer not to have to show it off, it’s still a handy Xfire feature
Now I just hope that it can still track kills/deaths when I have to start using DMW, since that piece of shit stops you using the Xfire in-game interface. Although I have found it can be used to make you walk automatically without needing to hold down the “w” key…

Earlier today, Aoife was making our mother a birthday card for tomorrow. Everything seemed fine as I was coming down to see the card she had made, but as soon as I walked into the kitchen, all I could notice was the amount of glitter that was all over the place. And I mean, it was everywhere. On the table, on the floor, on the chairs – even in the dishes in the sink.

Needless to say, although the card was lovely and really well made, the room was a mess. Even after hoovering the whole room – it’s still all over. Seriously, that stuff is getting banned from this house…

Enough about glitter, you all know how sometimes packaging labels can have some really silly warnings? Well, I found this forum post, and just had to share it:

Liquid Plumber
Warning: Do not reuse the bottle to store beverages.

Windex
Do not spray in eyes.

Toilet Plunger
Caution: Do not use near power lines.

Dremel Electric Rotary Tool
This product not intended for use as a dental drill.

Arm & Hammer Scoopable Cat Litter
Safe to use around pets.

Bowl Fresh
Safe to use around pets and children, although it is not recommended that either be permitted to drink from toilet.

Endust Duster
This product is not defined as flammable by the Consumer Products Safety Commission Regulations. However, this product can be ignited under certain circumstances.

Baby Oil
Keep out of reach of children

Little Ones Baby Lotion
Keep away from children

Hair Colouring
Do not use as an ice cream topping.

Wet-Nap
Directions: Tear open packet and use.

Dial Soap
Directions: Use like regular soap.

Stridex Foaming Face Wash
May contain foam.

Hair-dryer:
Do not use while taking a shower.

Old Spice Red Zone Deodorant
Use only on underarms.

Zantac 75
Do not take if allergic to zantac.

Sleeping Pills
Warning: May cause Drowsiness

Christmas Lights
Warning: For indoor or outdoor use only.

Bic Lighter
Ignite lighter away from face.

Komatsu Floodlight
This floodlight is capable of illuminating large areas, even in the dark

Fire Extinguisher:
Caution: Non-Flammable

Earplugs
These ear plugs are non-toxic, but may interfere with breathing if caught in windpipe

Mattress
Warning: Do not attempt to swallow

Matches
Caution: Contents may catch fire.

Pepper Spray
Caution: Never aim spray at your own eyes.

Auto-Shade Windshield Visor
Warning: Do not drive with sunshade in place. Remove from windshield before starting ignition.

Fix-a-Flat
WARNING: Do not weld can to rim.

Rain Gauge
Suitable for outdoor use.

RCA Television Remote Control
Not Dishwasher Safe

Pine Mountain Fire Logs
Caution: Risk of fire

Triops Fish Food
Warning: Not for human consumption

Home Depot Treated Lumber
Do not consume

Hair Dryer
Warning: Do not use while sleeping.

Road Sign
Caution water on road during rain.

Camera
This camera will only work when film is inside.

Road Sign
Cemetery Road. Dead End

Church Parking Lot Sign
Thou shalt not park

Children’s Superman Costume
Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.

Silk Soy Milk
Shake well and buy often

Air Conditioner
Caution: Avoid dropping air conditioners out of windows.

Rowenta Iron
Warning: Never iron clothes on the body.

Slush Puppy Cup
This ice may be cold

American Airlines Peanuts
Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.

Nabisco Easy Cheese
For best results, remove cap.

Swanson TV Dinners
This product must be cooked before eating.

Hershey’s Almond Bar
Warning: May contain traces of nuts

Heinz Ketchup
Instructions: Put on food

500-piece puzzle:
Some assembly required.

Beach Ball
CAUTION: It is not a life saving device.

Chainsaw
Do not attempt to stop chain with hands.

Sears hair-dryer:
Do not use while sleeping.

Bag of Fritos:
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.

Bar of Dial soap:
Directions: Use like regular soap.

Swann frozen dinners:
Serving suggestion: Defrost.

Hotel provided shower cap in a box:
Fits one head.

Tesco’s Tiramisu dessert: (printed on bottom of the box)
Do not turn upside down.

Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding:
Product will be hot after heating.

Boot’s Children’s cough medicine:
Do not drive car or operate machinery.

Nytol sleep aid:
Warning: may cause drowsiness.

String of Chinese-made Christmas lights:
For indoor or outdoor use only.

Japanese food processor:
Not to be used for the other use.

Sainsbury’s peanuts:
Warning: contains nuts.

American Airlines packet of nuts:
Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.

Korean kitchen knife:
Warning keep out of children

Helmet mounted mirror used by us cyclists:
Remember, objects in the mirror are actually behind you

New Zealand insect spray:
This product not tested on animals.

Blanket from Taiwan:
Not to be used as protection from a tornado.

Cardboard windshield sun shade:
Warning: Do Not Drive With Sun Shield in Place.

Infant’s bathtub:
Do not throw baby out with bath water.

Package of Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges:
Not meant as substitute for human companionship.

Disposable razor:
Do not use this product during an earthquake.

Bottle of shampoo for dogs
Caution: The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish.

Curling Iron
Warning: This product can burn eyes.

Hand-held Massaging Device
Do not use while sleeping or unconscious.

Case of a chocolate CD in a gift basket.
Do not place this product into any electronic equipment.

A toilet at a public sports facility
Recycled flush water unsafe for drinking.

Pair of shin guards made for bicyclists
Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover.

Container of Underarm Deodorant.
Caution: Do not spray in eyes.

Aim-n-Flame fireplace lighter.
Do not use near fire, flame, or sparks.

Toner cartridge for a laser printer
Do not eat toner.

13-inch wheel on a wheelbarrow
Not intended for highway use.

Can of self-defense pepper spray.
May irritate eyes.

Novelty rock garden set called “Popcorn Rock”
Eating rocks may lead to broken teeth.

A frisbee
Warning: May contain small parts.

A toilet bowl cleaning brush.
Do not use orally.

A birthday card for a 1 year old.
Not suitable for children aged 36 months or less.

Heated seat cushion
Warning: Do not use on eyes.

Microwave Oven:
Do not use for drying pets.

Electric Cattle Prod
For use on animals only.

Can of air freshener.
For use by trained personnel only.

Silly Putty
Do not use as ear plugs.

Knife sharpening stone
Warning: knives are sharp!

Deodorant
Do not use intimately.

Rat Poison
Warning: has been found to cause cancer in laboratory mice.

Portable stroller
Caution: Remove infant before folding for storage.

Dashboard of a mail truck
Look before driving.

Children’s cough medicine
Do not drive car or operate machinery.

Sign at a railroad station
Beware! To touch these wires is instant death. Anyone found doing so will be prosecuted.

Bottom of a supermarket dessert box
Do not turn upside down.

Package of dice.
Not for human consumption.

Bottled Drink:
Twist top off with hands. Throw top away. Do not put top in mouth.

Shipment of hammers
May be harmful if swallowed.

Manual for an SGI computer.
Do not dangle the mouse by its cable or throw the mouse at co-workers.

Stamped on the metal barrel of a .22 calibre rifle
Warning: Misuse may cause injury or death.

Electric Thermometer.
Do not use orally after using rectally.

Packaging for a chain saw file, used to sharpen the cutting teeth on the chain.
Turn off motor before using this product.

6×10 inch inflatable picture frame
Not to be used as a personal flotation device.

Box of bottle rockets
Do not put in mouth.

Wrapper of a Fruit Roll-Up snack
Remove plastic before eating.

Box for a car jack
For lifting purposes only.

Instructions for a cordless phone:
Do not put lit candles on phone.

Small print from car commercial which shows a car in the ocean
Do not drive cars in ocean.

Small print from a car commercial which shows a vehicle “body-surfing” at a concert
Always drive on roads. Not on people.

Bus Stop
No stopping or standing.

Church Sign
These rows reserved for parents with children.

Bag of Fritos
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.

Credit card statement.
Payment is due by the due date.

Laundromat triple washer
No small children.

Sign in front of a newly renovated ramp that led to the entrance of a building
Take care: new non-slip surface.

Box of Pills
Take one capsule by mouth three times daily until gone.

Instructions on the packaging for a muffin at a 7-11
Remove wrapper, open mouth, insert muffin, eat.

Can of black pepper.
Instructions: usage known.

Bag of cat biscuits
Simply pour the biscuits into a bowl and allow the cat to eat when it wants.

Car Manual
In order to get out of car, open door, get out, lock doors, and then close doors.

Espresso Kettle
The appliance is switched on by setting the on/off switch to the ‘on’ position.

T.V. manual
Do not pour liquids into your television set.

Label on a hammer
Caution – Do not use this hammer to strike any solid object

VCR box
Instructional video on hooking up VCR included.

Toilet brush
Do not use for personal hygiene.

Black rubber fishing worm
Not for human consumption.

Orange Juice Can:
100% pure all-natural fresh-squeezed orange juice from concentrate.

Depend Adult Diapers
Step into underwear and pull them on just like regular underwear.

Furniture Wipes
Do not use for a baby wipe.

Stickers to put on the seat of a potty training toilet
This is not a toy. Stickers require adult supervision.

Lawnmower
Warning: When Motor Is Running – The Blade Is Turning

Instructions on the bottom of a grocery store pizza
Do not turn upside down.

Bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle
Do not open here.

Bottle of bathtub cleaner
For best results, start with clean bathtub before use.

Container of lighter fluid
WARNING: Contents flammable!

Box of household nails
CAUTION! – Do NOT swallow nails! May cause irritation!

Microwave popcorn, packaged so that the directions cannot be read unless you open the plastic and unfold it
Direction #1: Remove plastic.

Drink bottle label
Do not peel label off.

Woolite carpet cleaner
Safe for carpets, too!

Box of Frosted Cheerio’s
The logo, “Tastes so good this box never closes,” is located just underneath another announcement: “To close: place tab here.”

Container of salt
Warning: High in sodium

Hose Nozzle
Do not spray into electrical outlet.

One thing that was decided when the servers were being set up, was that we would be having DMW Anticheat enabled on them. This means that anyone who wants to play on our server needs to have the DMW client installed on their computer. Alright, no biggie. Downloaded and installed fine. Up comes the login box. Oooh, OK didn’t know a login was needed. Let’s click on “Create Account”.

That’s where the trouble came. You see, once you get onto that page, you’re lovingly greeted by this:

OK, that does not help me one fucking bit. How on earth am I supposed to play on our DMW-protected server when I can’t make an account to login to the client so that it can scan me when I join the server to ensure I have no cheating devices, and thus not kick me 30 seconds after joining?

It also wouldn’t be as bad if we had decided not to put back up our DMW-free Team Deathmatch server after the server’s hard disk failure recently… Oh well. I guess it’s back to Worms World Party, Sims 2, and Command and Conquer…

Although I really should get some 360 time in. But that won’t happen for at least another 4 days. 3rd January is the earliest I can go back to the college dorm, since the University officially re-opens then. But then again, I might be delayed further by another day since the 3rd is my mother’s birthday.

Oooh shit, what to get her… Can’t be jewellery since Aoife got her a necklace with an “E” symbol on it. Ideas anyone?

After making two attempts to get a definite answer from Avril about going to the Blanch centre for shopping, I finally got the “Yes” I was looking for. So, I went down to Blanch, picked her up, and off we went. A nice touch I felt, was Avril wearing her nice new DCU hoodie that she got from Santa. To be entirely honest, if she wears that hoodie, with a little bit of make-up on as she did today, she could pass off as a college student you know!

Anyway, en route the conversation shifted to presents. Avy was very excited about the DS Lite I got, mainly since she’s been wanting one for ages as well. I was even more excited when I head she had got a 360! Especially when Avy’s not the kind of person I’d consider would be a 360 gamer! So once she manages to find the missing section of the power cable (she’s so clumsy!), it’s go time! That is if we have the same games…

Back to shopping, there was a lot. And I seriously mean, a lot. GAME was the first port of call for obvious reasons . Although packed, the queue didn’t last that long. In all, I only spent €260… However, it did manage to get a good few things such as:

• Live Vision camera – for video chats, plus it’s better quality than my current PC camera!
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Warchest – for the PC, now I can play with EVO on the MOHAA server!
• NASCAR 08 – glad it finally got released over here!
• Halo 3 – now STFU about me not owning a copy!
• CoD 4 – yea, it looks good, and everyone is playing it. Although the PC version would have let me play with EVO, but then again it probably wouldn’t have run…

And, no that wasn’t it. Off to Argos later to spend €250 on a new digital camera (and memory for it). I’ve been needing a proper camera for a while to take decent pictures! Especially this one of my copy of Halo 3 – and Baby Bear posing alongside to prove it is my own copy!

And with all the shopping done, and the packaging ripped off and the rest, it was time to upload them. But I guess things got the better of me and the whole site has been re-done – especially as it’s now more a site and less a blog. You can still see the blog, but now you can also find the gallery, and the others. I especially like the new navbar, and especially the way that the left sidebar only opens on the blog with all the blog links – and stays hidden on others so that there’s more room!

So yea, consider my debit card out of bounds for the next month or so, and the site in beta until I can find all the bugs