But this feeling changed, there was a real shift in the tone of, well, life in general. As I mentioned earlier, I met more people as time went by and everything became kind of cosy. Everything was nice and relaxing, I could meet up with friends, take walks, play games, watch DVDs, visit sweet and toy shops, have dinner, sleep over and all kinds of similar lovely things. It was excellent, it slowly developed throughout my first year at the university, and reached its climax in the second year. But, slowly but surely, things began to change and another shift is in progress. The wonderful 'cosy' era is doomed; it's already started to change due to various factors, and will come to an inevitable end before long, which is very sad really. But, such is life, who knows how things will be in the future?
I remember a day very near the start of my time at university, where I was walking up a huge hill with a friend of mine on the way to their house (I was staying over to avoid a late trip back to Corsham). At the time I'd only really known this person for two months, and one of the months had been as an internet friend. At university, she was really my only friend (I had yet to have the pleasure of meeting David Tubb, Oscar Taylor-Kent or the website-less Naomi Brennan). As I walked through the city in the cold of night, I can remember exactly how it felt. There was an odd mixture of excitement and melancholia, it was the start of my time at university and there was that feeling that anything could happen there, and I'd have all kinds of new experiences, but at the same time I was feeling quite sad, I missed The Corsham School and my friends Ben, Dalfino, Davey, Egan, George, Laura, Rory, and all the rest (I made an entry about that actually).
But this feeling changed, there was a real shift in the tone of, well, life in general. As I mentioned earlier, I met more people as time went by and everything became kind of cosy. Everything was nice and relaxing, I could meet up with friends, take walks, play games, watch DVDs, visit sweet and toy shops, have dinner, sleep over and all kinds of similar lovely things. It was excellent, it slowly developed throughout my first year at the university, and reached its climax in the second year. But, slowly but surely, things began to change and another shift is in progress. The wonderful 'cosy' era is doomed; it's already started to change due to various factors, and will come to an inevitable end before long, which is very sad really. But, such is life, who knows how things will be in the future?
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While I haven't been keeping up with it very well, you may remember that I have the challenge of writing more blog entries on philosophers and countries than my friend’s blog, The Kite Still Flies. Last time I did Socrates and I said that I would probably do Plato next and so that's exactly what I'm doing now!
The name Plato actually means 'broad shoulders' and I like to think that that wasn't his name at all. It amuses me to think of him meeting people at Ancient Greek parties and such and saying to them "Hey, my name's Broad Shoulders" when really he had a really ridiculous name. But, anyway, that's a little bit of a silly tangent. His name isn't very important, though it is the source of the word 'platonic'. At the centre of all of Plato's writing is one person: Socrates. Socrates was Plato's teacher and friend, and so Plato was, quite understandably, pretty sad when he was executed. As such, Plato wrote down all of the ideas which came from Socrates, and he did this in the form of dialogues. These dialogues were always pieces of writing where some philosophers would have a discussion with Socrates; Socrates brings up his point of view, and then verbally destroys all of their counter-arguments. The Socrates of these writings was also used as a mouthpiece for Plato's own ideas. Strangely enough, despite the fact that some of these dialogues may well be based on real discussions, Plato is never in them himself, and sometimes they stop and say "Hey, where's Plato?" and somebody will just say "Oh, he's down at the gym working out" or something like that, and then they'd just carry on. The most important of Plato's philosophical ideas, or at least the best known, is that of the World of Forms, or the Intelligible Realm as he called it. Plato basically argues that there is a higher plane of existence where there is a perfect version of everything and that this is the place where human souls come from. Everything in the real world is a shadow of something in the Intelligible Realm and is not really worth studying (art, he says, is a shadow of a shadow, and so worthless). He believes that this exists, because if somebody is asked to picture, say, a chair, they will be able to do so and this is the perfect chair. He says the reason they can picture it, is because they can remember having seen it before their soul came to Earth, we never learn, merely remember. The most important thing in the Intelligible Realm is the Form of the Good, which is basically perfect morality. Through philosophy, says Plato, we will learn about the Form of the Good. Many believe this to have been inspiration for Christian ideas of Heaven and God. So that's an outline of Plato. It may also interest you to know that the legends of Atlantis stem from Plato's writing, or at least, that the earliest mention of Atlantis comes from him. It's generally accepted that he just made it up though. When I get round to it, the next philosopher entry will be on John Locke. It is my firm belief that Tetris is a very fun game indeed. Some people like to tell me that they think it's really boring, but then the things they find exciting tend to be quite boring to me. Anyway, this anecdote is something I would like to put forward in Tetris's defence as counter-evidence to it being 'boring'.
As regular readers will know, I have to catch a lot of buses during my weekly routine, and that, in turn, means that I have to wait for a lot of buses in my weekly routine. To pass the time at the bus station a few weeks ago, I decided that I would play Tetris and try and earn myself a few highscores. Before long the bus had arrived and so I popped my 3DS away and stopped playing. "I was watching you play," said a woman behind me, once I stood up. "Oh, I see, I see!" I replied, not quite sure what the correct response was (thank you?). "That game where the blocks fall down, what's it called?" she asked. "It's called Tetris, it's a favourite of mine." "It looked really fun, how do you play?" "Ah, well, the reason it looks very fun, is because it IS very fun. All you do is make the shapes fall so that they're in straight lines, then the lines disappear and you just have to see how long you can go before they reach the top!" "That sounds fun then," she said, "I shall have to try it one day." "Yes! Yes, you will. You'll almost certainly enjoy it very much." "I saw a person playing a game with fireworks being launched once," she told me. "Oh, well, that doesn't sound quite as fun as Tetris..." "Well, I'm sure there was more to the game than just launching fireworks, but yes, you're right." And that was the end of our conversation. But, you see, if Tetris really were such a boring game, would it really attract the attention of a complete stranger and then get them almost completely enthralled in the game? I think not. I realise also, as I get to the end of this entry, that my blog is becoming more and more about documenting small moments that happen to me, rather than the, perhaps, more comprehensive anecdotes of the past. I like that. And so we reach the punclusion of the very loose story arc I started back in November with this strip. But have we really seen the last of Dorium? He is trapped in Hell now, at least, in case it wasn't obvious from the picture. Rainbow Man might seem an odd character to suddenly show up, so let me explain a little about him: In 2002, my class at school had a few lessons where we worked on making people out of papier-mâché, so I made Rainbow Man and I have been waiting for something to use him for ever since! Now, eleven years later, I seem to have found something! This also concludes the cliff-hanger of this strip and I already have quite a few strips ready for the revived Colin!
All finger puppets can be bought here. (This review is based on my having played the 3DS version of this game, and so this review is based on that version, other are very slightly different.) While this game is the second in the Rayman series, it has no strong connections to the first game (other than featuring Rayman as the main character) and there'd be absolutely no confusion if you were to play this game with no prior knowledge. The storyline is a fairly basic one: the Glade of Dreams, which is the place where Rayman and his friends live, has been invaded by robotic pirates who have captures and enslaved most of the inhabitants. Rayman then escapes and has to rescue everyone and defeat the pirates, occasionally with the assistance of various friends.. While every level in linear in that it has a starting point and an exit you have to get to, they are also full 3D worlds which you are free to explore as you go through, each world having a number of Lums (little fairy things) hidden in them for you to collect. There's also a very nice variety in the levels too, including swamps, haunted caves and volcanos. The worlds are all very enchanting, each of them has a very nice soundtrack to go along with them and the graphic style makes them all look nicely mysterious. Plus, there are lots of convenient check points in the levels and you do not have a limit on lives, which means that will it can occasionally be hard it is never hard to the point of annoyance. There are a few downsides though, for example the music very ungracefully changes from one track to another when going to different areas and this can be rather annoying. Also, I do think it can be bothersome when there is an enemy right after a check point as you'll spend a while defeating them go on, die elsewhere, then every time you go back you'll have to fight it again. Plus, it is quite short over all. Rating: 8.9/10 (It can also be downloaded from iTunes and the PlayStation Network.)
(I do not own the copyright of the image.) On Saturday, I popped down to London to spend the day with my internet friend Mairi Mac Arthur. During that day, we did various fun and exciting things one of which, was visiting the big toy shop, Hamley's. As we were heading out of the shop, Mairi spotted a man who was making balloons out of some kind of slime, and so the pair of us stood and waited for him to make another so that we could see how it was done. Unfortunately, however, he didn't seem to be making another one. "Smiley face!" he shouted after a little while, and then "Smiley face!" he shouted again. After his third shout, I looked down and realised that I was wearing my yellow t-shirt with a big smiley face on it. "Oh!" I said as I wandered over to him, Mairi following me, "You mean me don't you?" "Yes, well, what is that on your shirt?" he asked, perhaps rhetorically. "A smiley face," I replied. "Exactly!" he said with a smile. "And what is that in your pocket?" he pointed at Colin, "a duck?" "A cow." "A penguin?" "A cow." "Oh a cow!" he said, suddenly even more excited, "So, you like cows then?" "Yes I do!" I gave him a big smile in return. "So you don't eat beef then?" "Nope, I'm a vegetarian." "What a coincidence! I am too. You," he said pointing at Mairi, "why are you stood there with your arms folded, where is your smiley face shirt?" "I don't have one," she said, but she did unfold her arms and smile. "Where are you from?" he asked us both. "Wiltshire," I said. "Scotland," said Mairi. "Oh, Scotland!" the man sounded extra excited again. "That is the place with the monster isn't it? The underwater monster." "Yes, the Loch Ness Monster," she said. "Yes, the underwater monster! Have you ever seen him? You know, there is a very vast system of caves under the water, and there are four of them who live there, a mama monster, a father monster and two baby monsters. The reason nobody ever sees them, is because the people who look for them all look like very serious people, they don't look like they're any fun at all. So, if you do want to see the monsters, here's what you do: go to the lake in a smiley face shirt and they come right out to see you! I can see you're laughing, you don't believe me, but it's true! How do I know? Because I've done it myself! I’ve seen them. So go and get a shirt like your friend and you'll be sure to see them!" "Ha, okay then," she replied. The man then grabbed some slime and stuck it onto the end of a straw type thing and blew. The slime then turned into a huge balloon which he placed into my hands. That's what the photo at the start of the entry is, in case you didn't realise. "Have a nice day!" he said to us. "Thank you very much!" I said in return, and then Mairi and I headed out into the streets along with the slime balloon. An Ecobardic Manifesto is a pamphlet written by The Fire Springs (Anthony Nanson, Kevin Manwaring, Kirsty Hartsiotis, David Metcalfe and Richard Selby) in which they lay out the role that they think storytelling should play in the modern world. It's very short and can easily be read in a single sitting. One small point about the title, which I quite liked, was that it is that it is AN Ecobardic Manifesto, rather than THE Ecobardic Manifesto, because they realise that thoughts and ideas change and that the things in the pamphlet may not always be the right things to do. Basically, the pamphlet puts forward the idea that fiction should encourage its readers to respect nature and to respect the traditions of the past. It also encourages writers to respect their audience and argues against the idea of 'dumbing down' work in order to appeal to the most people as they believe that a piece of work should teach its audience. The pamphlet is also quite critical of modern culture and society as a whole, and points out a few ways in which it is damaging to people. While there are some very good points and arguments, it does seem to be slightly overly wordy. Sometimes things are written with many overly long words and sentences, perhaps with the intent of teaching the audience, but it often just comes across as boring. The points would be made with a much bigger impact if they were written in a more straightforward manner. There is also a section where conflicting religious beliefs are discussed, and it says something along the lines of "these days non-religious people can be as bad as the extreme religious groups" which is a bit silly, since I don’t believe there are any cases of terrorist atheist groups. On the whole, this is a nice little pamphlet with a generally good message to it, even if it is a bit bothersome with its deliverance. 6.5/10. (I do not own the copyright of the cover image) Since it's Valentine's Day, I expect most people who are in a relationship will have had some kind of nice treat from their partner, but why are they any more worthy of something nice than any single people? Quite simply, they aren't! As such, I decided I would write something nice about all of my friends who are single so that the people who wouldn't be expecting anything on Valentine's Day still get a small, but nice, surprise. So, without further ado, in alphabetical order (by last names) here we go!
Naomi Brennan I first met Naomi in 2011 on one of my very first days at university, and since then the pair of us have become pretty good friends. She's full to the brim of politeness and hospitality, for example, she's one of the few people I know who own a car and should I ever have to go somewhere, she'll almost certainly offer me a lift if she hears about it (which is good, because, lovely as they are, buses are not always the most reliable things). Plus, I quite often find myself staying in her house while she's not there (student housing, others live there too) and she very kindly allows me to sleep in her bed while she's away! It's a very comfortable bed too. But, yes, that's just two examples, I could give many more, but I want to keep these short little things, well, short! Elliott Egan Always referred to by his last name since he hates the name Elliott; I first met Egan sometime around 2007. He has always given me very useful feedback on my stories and even given inspiration for my writing (several anecdotes on here feature him quite prominently). Back in 2008 and 2009 I used to wander around Corsham at night along with Egan and one or two other people, and those are times which I'll always remember very fondly. He's got quite a laddish personality, but in a way that makes him very likeable, rather than in a way which makes him annoying. When I find myself going to nightclubs, I tend to try and stay with him because it saves me having to socialise with mid-level acquaintances in uncomfortable group events, and I tend to save him from doing things which would probably just kill him, so, we make a good team! I don't get to see him even nearly often enough though, sadly. Dalfino Madrigal Keyte I can't remember when I first met Dalfino (which is odd, I can remember how and when I met most people), but I have known him for over six years anyway. If it weren't for him, as I'm sure I've mentioned many times, I wouldn't have a blog at all! This whole thing was his idea, and what a good idea it was! I do feel there were times in the past where I was a little rude to him (sorry, Dalfino) but hopefully he can forgive me. He's also a musician, and not one with a lack of talent either, maybe you should give his music a try? Sadly, I don't get to see Dalfino as often as I used to, but when he's around I can depend on him to pop into Bath and have a nice day wandering around and eating food!, which I always enjoy. Mairi Mac Arthur My best internet friend! And the only one who I ever actually meet in real life. I joined a site called "Who likes you?" (or something like that) in 2008 where you post a picture of yourself and a description and find out who thinks you look good. I, on the other hand, used it as a way to find readers (and put in my description that that was all I was interested in!) and that is how I met Mairi, and she has, indeed, been a very helpful reader! It's always very nice to pop down and see her for the day, and just spend six hours wandering around the streets. With a good, and sometimes bizarre (in a good way), sense of humour and a very approachable attitude, she's somebody who I imagine could befriend anybody, and according to Facebook she has about a thousand friends, so I guess that is correct! George Moore The oldest friend of mine on this list. I've known George ever since, at latest, 2003 and he has always been a good reliable friend ever since. Like Dalfino, I do feel there have been times when I was a little too rude towards him (sorry, George) but still, I have always valued him very highly. Sadly, these days, I don't really get to see him very often (due to university) but I still see him at large group meals I arrange every few months, and I do occasionally have the very lovely surprise of passing him in the street, not quite often enough though! I think I should add. George also is quite a good artist, as I have mentioned before, so go and take a look at his work! David Tubb Last but not least, as they say: David Tubb. I met him very early in my first year at university; we mainly started talking to one another as it was something to do during English Literature essays! We found ourselves to be quite likeminded and so quickly became friends. I'm sure readers of my blog will be familiar with David anyway, inventor of the Smell Catalogue and The Music Box Watch, and as somebody who has appeared in several anecdotes. As David often points out to me, he and I can have fun without doing anything, we can just sit there and chat and it will probably go on for quite some time, covering all kinds of interesting subjects. He's a very kind person and one who I can always depend on for a nice walk or a tasty pizza whenever I'm bored, so ours is a friendship I value very highly! I made this strip to illustrate the point I made in my Valentine's Day entry from last year. If you read that, this will probably make more sense! If you're wondering why Buster would feel unhappy on Valentine's Day, you should read this strip and this strip, they'll explain it all for you!
All finger puppets can be bought here. A second Valentine's Day entry is coming later today. Just a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine made the observation that I move my face around quite a lot when I talk. They set me the challenge of not raising my eyebrows at all while I spoke to them and this was actually very hard indeed. But, on the other hand, trying to keep my them motionless was a fun challenge. Since then we have turned this into a game to play.
The rules are easy: you just look each other in the face and have a conversation until one of you raises your eyebrows, that person is the loser. It's kind of like a fun version of the Staring Game. It is important, though, that you both keep talking to one another, without discourse it's very easy to keep your eyebrows down. I'd suggest you try it, because all people do move their eyebrows when they talk (though some do more than others) and it's fun drawing the conversation over into eyebrow raising territory as a sneaky ploy to get them to lose (though this can backfire)! Have fun. Also, be sure to check here tomorrow for two Valentine's Day themed entries! |
About the AuthorAdam Randall is the author of the blog. Is he a good or bad writer? Who knows? Why not read a few entries and make a decision! New to this Site?
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