53 Year Old Basement Dwellers, Source Code and Why Not To Ask For Directions.

It's been a fair time since I last posted- but even so I hopped online to discover that I have over two and a half thousand page views, and that's quite a shocker really. Many of these are from the relentless lust for my, cool, picture of a fish, but they are views none the less. So I'm hoping that those of you actually reading this are enjoying it- either that, or you're a 53 year old man trapped in his basement by mortal shells, who is forced to eat his many goldfish to survive, and spends his spare time looking for cool blogs. That would make my day.

But in this joyful week I've done a wonderful myriad of things, first of all, I went to see a film- but I'll get onto that in a second. The one problem was that I didn't know where the cinema was. This was supposed to be remedied by a highly co-ordinated entourage for myself to help guide me to said cinema. Flaw in that was, there was pretty much no-co ordination. And so, after several heated phone calls, and a few looks at a map, me and my equally clueless friends determined the way to go- they scouted ahead (they had bikes) and I carried on walking. But it reached it a point where I couldn't wait much longer, so I did something that all right minded British people fear. I asked for directions. Now, you might be wondering why it's such a bad thing- now let me tell you, you can get lucky, and get two of the required things: the person you're asking knows where you want to go, and they feel like telling you.Of course, I ended up with one of the two- they were more than happy, desperate even, to help- but they weren't very sure where to go. It went something like this:

"Um, excuse me, do you know the way to the cinema?"
"Yeah, sure, you just go...up...this road? And then...well, the quickest route..."
He trailed off for a second then stared at the lampost in front of him, probably in the hope it would start talking to him and remind him.
"Well...you should probably just head straight and turn right, it should be on your left"

I left slightly less sure of where to go than before.

But, fortunately, I arrived (just) in time for the film, which was, for the record, very good. It's all about a train being bombed- and the protagonist, can use this piece of technology to 'relive' the last eight minutes of the train ride to find out who bombed it, in an attempt to stop future attacks. It's an interesting idea, the screenplay's good, as is the acting, and the film slowly feeds you information; you're not kept in the dark and bored for the first hour, and you don't know everything straight away. Overall, I'd say give it a look over and see it if it appeals to you.

And that's about it! So thanks for reading, I'll be sure to give you some more delightful rambling soon.

-Big Cool Fish

Hackers, scalpers and swearers.

One's breakfast began with a delightful bowl of 'Cheerios'. However, I was horrified when I learned that it was the last bowl. But, on the bright side, there is an unopened box of crunchy nut cereal awaiting my arrival, so I'm ready and I'm anticipating tomorrow eagerly.
 
And Sony have hit a nerve of  the group 'Hackers Anonymous'; they recently filed a lawcase against George Holz, confiscated many of his materials, and shut down his website and stopped him posting videos via the internet. Why? He is a hacker, who 'jailbreaked' the Playstation 3, and created videos showing people how to download something to get games for free. Anonymous were outraged at this, and called it 'an attack on free speech'. They have already hacked Playstation.com and sony.com, they claim they will soon attack the PSN store- a threatening video was released earlier, it can be viewed here:

I'll bring you more news on this as it unveils.

And a man has been arrested for scalping two people, and cutting off their hands. Two women, who's deaths were about a decade apart, both had their hands and head cut off. He made several paintings of him doing such a thing, and poems- calling himself "The Scalp Hunter". Pretty scary, eh? Fortunately, he's been found and arrested, as previously stated.

And Wayne Rooney has been attacked and created an internet and TV firestorm after swearing on TV. He was suspended, and many sports presenters are criticizing him- but isn't this a little ironic? This is football, the sport that has the stadium consistently blue with obscene vulgarities- and the presenters themselves don't have to go far to find such words I suspect, I wouldn't be surprised if they only had to walk around their office to hear them tossed around. I know it's not 'right' to use that sort of language- but people swear all the time, and football and cursing are inexplicably linked. So calm down Britain, and besides, he's not the first.

And that's all for now, I've got two tests tomorrow, lasting a total of three and a half hours, so wish me luck!

-Big Cool Fish

Children smuggle drugs, monarchy sucks- and so do school fees.

When I saw this in the paper, I knew it was something I just had to let you guys in on- it's quite funny and disturbing how far people will go to get a fix. The situation is this: three men get put in jail, but, in effort to get them their drugs, their friends attempt to smuggle in some cocaine. How? The drug is crushed into a paste, then used to 'write' in a children's book, to write the words 'dear daddy'. However, as inventive as it is, they got found out.

Also, Monarchy is pretty terrible. Hang me for treason, but I'm very grateful that our queen no longer has any power- she's like a Christmas tree decoration; she doesn't actually do anything, but she likes to hang around and feel important. But the idea of it is perhaps the most flawed thing. Ever. It's based off one key idea: that the son/daughter of a good leader is always a great leader. Upon being born, and just living their life, they are immediately the most important person in the country. Can you find any flaws in that system? I would list all of them ,but I don't think I've got that much time on my hands.

And one thing that's really bugging me, is school fees. It's predicted that all universities will charge an excess of £6000 per year. That's fine for the people in power who're making these decisions; they've already got their degrees and whatnot for free. Unfortunately, I don't- nor do thousands of students around my age. The problem with increasing school fees, above all else, is that, in the long run, everything just ends up worse; they make and save more money to start, but less people get qualifications, less people get better jobs, and there's less of a benefit to the economy- we end up with more people working the bad jobs, and the amount of scientists and whatnot dwindle. So, in conclusion, it's probably going to make it worse than better. And the people making these decisions are idiots.

Now one last thing I'd like to tell you about- there's a new way to view my blog! Just add '/view' on to the end of my URL, so just type in:

http://bigcoolfish.blogspot.com/view

And you can view my blog, any blog even, in 5 new dynamic ways! It looks very impressive, and I recommend you give it a go.

But that's all, I'll be writing a review for the Xbox live arcade game 'Torchlight' and the newest, and final two, installments in 'What makes a game?'

So until next time, I am still...

- Big Cool Fish

How the Queen got pregnant, and other important news.

As I'm sure most of you now know, the queen is now pregnant with a child. This information was released just a few hours ago, when the queen, after her daily gymnastics class, submitted to a pregnancy test - upon hearing the news she started free-running across London, doing rather majestic back-flips over several churches, before landing in a casket and being carried home. She was then taken home to rest.

And, in a completely unrelated topic, here are some of the best April fools wind-ups I've found:

1. In 1957, BBC show Panorama showed the Swiss harvesting spaghetti. Several people called up after wards to ask how to cultivate their own trees.
2. In 1933, The Independent announced the discovery of the 3000 year old village of Asterix, a cartoon character, by a group of archaeologists.
3. In 1976, Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that, due to the alignment of the planets, there would be a temporary reduction in gravity. He invited the audience to jump and experience weightlessness.
4. In 2005, the official Nasa website announced they had images of water on Mars. The pictures were of a glass of water on a Mars bar.
5. In 1980, the BBC reported that Big Ben would go digital

Taken and paraphrased from the 'i'


Well, armed with these trusty ideas at your disposal, there's no end to the fun you can have!

Also, turns out that, if population rates stay steady, that India will overtake China as the most people in a single country- with an increase of over 180 million in the last decade. Great, just what we need- another ridiculously overcrowded country.

But besides that and the several nuclear missile launches, which are to destroy us within the next 10 minutes, there's not really that much been happening. So that's while I'll keep this one fairly short, after all, I do only have 7 minutes to live.

-Big Cool Fish

The Germans have done it again! And sitting down is EVIL.

Welcome to another edition of my blog, where I talk about daily happenings and what's on my mind, so let us begin at once!

First off, is something that made me laugh out loud. During a lesson of the infinitely exciting physics, someone sparked up a conversation about the recent Japan earthquake- then proceeded to state that the earthquake caused the Earth's axis to change angle, and the poles to move slightly. Unfortunately, I was rapt in my work, and only glanced up for a second or two, to hear "The Axis caused the Poles to shift". Now, the way I heard it was "The 'Axis'"(German war machine during WWII) "caused the 'Poles'"(Polish people) "to shift". So upon hearing this, I reacted rather differently to most. In fact, how I reacted was "What the -blam!?-". I chuckled  and turned to my friend, who was also thinking of the same thing. Of course, I then asked into what he[the speaker] was on about, and soon realized the foolish mistake made. The moral of the story? Dammed if I know, make up your own.

Secondly, there's been a slight imbalance in justice; riots in London due to the amount of cuts has resulted in a number of arrests, almost 150 actually. However, 138 of them were peaceful protesters- who sat down, not harming anyone, showing their obviously raging defiance against the justice system. Yet, only 11 rioters were charged when they threw smoke bombs and broke into shop fronts, smashing many of the things they could get their hands on. Another example of how our boys in blue are doing a fantastic job. Of course, that might be a little harsh, it is a tough job, but they've really messed up this time.

And, finally, a love note/letter from the poet John Keats sold for £96 000 at an auction. He wrote it whilst dying of TB, and was sent to his lover Fanny. It's only a few lines long, nothing special- but somebody was willing to pay this exorbitant amount of money for it. I suppose, if you're that kind of person, you probably have so much money you don't know what to do with it:

"Hmm, got a few million in the bank, what shall I treat myself with...?"
"Sire! They're selling love letters!"
"Aw, shucks, what the hell!"

And that's how I imagine it went. Anyway, that's all for today's blog, I hope you found it to your liking!

The Big Cool Fish Returns.

And this time, I've got a T-Shirt. The other day a T-shirt with the words "Big Cool Fish" upon then arrived, and a, rather cool, fish imprinted on the back. Very cool indeed. I'll get a picture up here when I get the chance. And, I'm very sorry, it's been an entire week since I put up a blog update, but I've been writing a few other things I think you should check out:

• What makes a game? Part 1: Sounds Great!  This is all about audio in gaming, and is an article I wrote for a forum- check it out and let me know what you think!
• What makes a game? Part 2: Looking good! This is similar to the previous, but about visuals instead- a third installment will be coming your way soon!
• Full house poker review This is a review of the newly released game, Full house poker, for Xbox 360.

And that's some stuff that might entertain you, but, of course, if you're not a gamer then you might not want to bother, so I'll give you all my blogging goodness as usual.So onwards upwards! Or, onwards and updates, as it is.

The first thing is, coincidently, about this blog. As those of you bored enough to know, my blog has shifted from daily recounts to being more my viewpoint on current affairs. I'm hoping to do a tasty blend of the two, mostly the latter, but some of the former will be definitely in there.

And Barack Obama loves Mythbusters! How do I know this? Simple, he requested that they got cracking on a certain something himself, and he will be featuring in the show- along side 500 school children holding mirrors. Why mirrors? This is an experiment done to check something old- it's no 'urban myth', but a historical event: it was written that Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, who, in an effort to build weapons, supposedly destroyed a roman fleet by taking bronze mirrors, and focusing the sun's rays to set the ships on fire. This is not only because Obama is a huge fan of Mythbusters, but because  he wants to promote the idea that learning can be fun. I say fair enough, just wish we could do more stuff like this.

And Natalie Portman has gained an enemy- Sarah Lane, who claims she did 95% of the dancing, and Natalie actually did very little. Sarah is a possessional dancer, and is displeased that so little credit is given. Why is she angry now? Because, in her speech for 'Best actress' Oscar winner, she failed to include her in her thank you speech. Isn't it funny how people fall out over the littlest things? Now Fox are denying her claims, saying that "Natalie herself did most of the dancing." This is pretty bad either way- either they're refusing to give credit where credit is due, or some stuck up girl is getting picky.

That's all for today, I'll write some more soon, not going to have a repeat of the last week.

The haka, Japan's miracle survivors and it's not about golf!

Today's Monday- everyone's favourite; who doesn't enjoy  having a whole week of work/school ahead of them? And so I was pleasantly surprised when I got up this morning and found myself not completely shattered and in dire need of sleep- although this was probably hit me later, tomorrow perhaps, when I'll just lose all my energy and collapse.

And, in news that never ceases to surprise me, there are still survivors from Japan being found. Why, ten whole days of the earthquake, a ten year old boy and an eighty year old were found in a collapsed house- the child was trapped by rubble and the eighty year old with damaged legs and unable to move. They survived by eating food from their refrigerator. But can you imagine that? Living in a house that was most probably half flooded, trapped for ten days. It's stories like this that make you realize how lucky most of us are.

And, in news that makes me think "Wait, what?" there was a legal issue about 'The Haka'. If didn't already know, the Haka is a a dance done by the New-Zealand 'All blacks' rugby team. It's done to intimidate their opponents- but controversy arose when the tribe that created it claimed intellectual property of it, and demanded  that it was no longer used pre-match. They were disgraced at the way it was used- in T.V adds, online, and not respected as an ancient dance to honour their ancestors. However, given several talks, they eventually agreed to allowing it too continue- but this still brings up a good point. How long is something yours? If it becomes common knowledge or part of daily life, do you still have a claim? For example, if a man who is the descendant of a man who's thought to have lived over nine thousand years ago, should he be able to take any of his primitive possessions from a museum? This may be hypothetical, but think about it.

And, in news that makes me laugh out loud, the popular book "Eagle of the ninth", a book about the tale of a Roman Legion that goes missing in Britain, has to be renamed. Why? Because it was often mistaken as a book about golf. I own this book myself, and, looking back, have just realized why so! Funny game of golf though, I'll tell ya.

That's all for now, come back daily, as I'll be doing this every day or other day, preferable the former.

-Big Cool Fish