callmeolive

Ah, August. Once again I’ve survived a ridiculously hot July and I’m blessed with a beautiful month where all is cool and the nights are still long. It’s also the time of year where my brain pipes up and says I should be more active, so I hatched a plan: every day in August, I’d disconnect, go out on a walk, and enjoy myself. It was a foolproof plan with one flaw – I’m a fool. Either I walk like a plonker, or I tie my shoes too tight, whatever. The arch of my right foot has been aching since…

Endings. They’re a fact of life. Sometimes I’ll finish a programme or game and I’ll be content with the ending, other times I’ll upset. But the focus of this post will be when I get close finishing something I enjoy, and then I just leave it. I can’t tell what it is. Have I been burnt out by bad endings? Do I prefer things being open? Do I want to leave things for future me? I don’t know. Endings are bittersweet to me, it’s nice to see something conclude, but at the same time it stings knowing…

Late last night I heard the unmistakable sound of something colliding with a computer fan. Having only cleaned it out on Monday, I was worried that I must’ve broke something. I turned my phone’s light on and had a peek. My computer’s glass panel had some scratches on it, which weren’t there when I cleaned it out. Then the scratches flickered with the current of the fans. Oh. That’s spider silk. Bugger . I shine my light about, I can’t see anything. I sit back up, launch the program that…

Jim Nielsen recently wrote how blogging can just be stating the obvious, so here we go Jim: it’s too sodding hot. The last 3 days broke the record for the hottest June day. Yep, 3 days in a row. We’ve had yet another unprecedented heat wave following last year’s, and the year before that, etc. It’s been bloody unbearable. You can manage in the shade, but if you’re out in the sun or living above the ground floor, it’s hellish. You know it’s bad when an event about how the world could adapt to…

I always meant to have some major epic planned for today’s post, but alas. What I have instead are some shorter, compartmentalised thoughts on the whole debacle. Why Brexit? There’s a fair bit I could talk about: The evolution of the European Communities to the European Union, worries of the EU overruling domestic decisions, immigration concerns, or decades of weird fearmongering and lies from the press. I could talk about our role in Europe, centuries of foreign policy spent interested in…

You know the song No Limit by 2 Unlimited, from the album No Limits!? Ever since I was a kid I’ve always wanted to like this song, but there’s one critical flaw: The song begins with the iconic line “Let me hear you say yeah”. What’s followed is SFX of a crowd audibly not saying yeah. Boy I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

The annoying thing about having a blog is that when I see anyone else’s blog, one thought comes to mind: I wish my blog was like this. It could be anything. I see it, I appreciate it, and I want to crib it. Often it’s contradictory: in a single day I could see blogs with a modern sans-serif font, a serif font, or something akin to Comic Sans, and I’d want to steal all of them. Hell, this blog is practically we have Bear Blog at home! It’s not just limited to design choices. My RSS feed reader…

If there’s one thing I miss about being a kid, it’s the sheer fervour I had for the media I consumed. Being an adult’s alright, but it kinda sucks knowing that I can’t experience media with the curiosity, wonder, and ability to form wild attachments that I used to have. You get what I mean? Emotional immersion, perhaps? And while I certainly miss the utter joy of characters overcoming their struggles, what oddly miss is the fear. Okay I still feel fear and I struggle with anything horror, but…

Yep, Doom 2016 is a decade old now. Time flies. Click here if you want to skip to my thoughts. Also I spoil the game a lot. Doom, retro shooters, and me I mean, it’s Doom, id Software’s seminal title from 1993 that influenced everything else. What’s more to be said? I was born a few years after the original Doom released. I never had the chance to play it as a young’un, nor would I know anyone who did. But with the internet being a thing, and growing up on [now-dead] gaming forums, I’d become…

Weird fact about me: I’m cross-dominant (also known as being mixed-handed). Instead of having a dominant hand I use everything with, my hands are… Awkward. There are some tasks which my left hand excels at, and some tasks which my right hand excels at. And I can’t know until I try it. Oh so you’re ambidextrous? This is the question I’m asked every time I bring it up, but no. Ambidextrous people have (mostly) equal ability with both hands, whereas cross-dominant people’s abilities are tied to…

Let’s cut to the chase: it was a wearable blanket. A wearable blanket? Yeah. It’s a blanket you wear. Went for a tenner in the middle of Lidl, right next to the welding masks. A blanket you wear? So imagine a blanket made of teddy fleece. Give it arm tubes and a large pocket for your feet. Bingo. … Like the ones in those weird American infomercials? Yes. Didn’t we find them ridiculous like 15 years ago? Yep, but think about how they’re coded nowadays. Back then we laughed because it was prese...