Month 15

I said in the last post that Golden Sun: Dark Dawn would be the best Christmas present I got this year.  It was.  Not that I don't appreciate the stocking filler gifts and cash from my parents but they don't have the epic-est music ever when you first start playing with them. 

I've been playing GS:DD for 22+ hours now according to the info on the save screen and I'm up to the final boss.  I have missed a fair chunk of stuff out though such as optional dungeons, bosses, djinn and items.  I haven't missed them on purpose, I just haven't found them and I didn't want to look at a guide on my first play through.  I'll have to start again when I've finished so I can get everything.  I'm sure I could get a 35+ hour save file out of it which is pretty amazing. 

I'm going to Liz's tomorrow to spend New Year's week with her.  My resolution for 2010 was to read more books.  I think I've kept to it quite well, especially over summer when I was reading a book each day for a few weeks.  Last year I only read about 3/4 of a book (The Picture of Dorian Gray) so I think the 15 or so I read this year is a good improvement.  I'll try to read at least as many books again this year but my new resolution is going to be to try to write more.  In March I started a fictional blog, wrote four entries, then didn't know what to do next and left it.  Well, in the next few days before 2011 I'm going to try and make a plan of what's going to happen in this story and then my aim is to have at least 150 entries before 2012.  I'll let you know when I think it's good enough to set to public.  For now, while it's still getting off the ground I'm going to leave it set to private. 

Greetings Zenem Ether

I had my last lectures of the term yesterday.  The rest of this week's lectures have been cancelled because we've finished the notes and the workshops are optional so I don't think I'm going to bother going to them. 

Since I had to uninstall Fallout 3 I've got back into Runescape.  It had changed a bit in the time I had off so I had loads of dead easy tasks to do and a few harder ones that I'm working towards currently.  Also, I've got my character on the high scores for a few skills which is almost an achievement. 

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn came out on Friday and it will no doubt be the best Christmas present I get this year.  I won't try to describe how excited I am to start it up on the DS and have the most epic music ever playing through the speakers while I start the new game that will keep me sat silently in my room for hours on end.  I'm planning on playing it so much that the battery needs recharging at least twice in the first session. 

Due to GS:DD being a Christmas present I was able to leave my room and go to see Jason Manford live at Blackpool Opera House on Friday evening with Liz and 10 others from Bowland.  It was the first time I've been out in a large group like that in as long as I can remember.  As good as it was, I think I still prefer it when it's just the two of us.  The size of the group didn't affect the comedy though and it was great.  The encore lasted quite a while so we all left early to make sure we were back in time to get our trains. 

The other possibly noteworthy thing I can remember to have happened since my last blog is concerning Liz's nonsense of direction.  We went for a walk after tea one night and didn't really know how far we were going to go before turning back.  So let's just skip all the uneventful, intentionally walking away from Chancellor's Wharf and you'll find us at a crossroads.  At this point we were going to head back home and, as always, I insisted that by turning left we will get to wherever we're going.  I don't know what it is about suggesting we turn right but I've never really liked it.  Left is just a better direction to be turning.  Anyway, Liz insisted that we should turn right to get home and, because I wanted to go for a longer walk, that's the way we went. 
After following Liz along a few roads and across a car park we arrived at the canal.  I was confidently informed that we were on the south side of the canal and so we should go left and follow it back to Chancellor's Wharf.  As good as this turning-left idea sounded, it was very cold and I was ready to be back in my warm (less cold) room.  I decided that turning right would be a quicker way to get home and sure enough, from the bridge over the canal, Lancaster Cathedral was just about visible in the distance in the direction I had reluctantly suggested.  This, the signpost to "White Cross Industrial Estate" and what I must assume to be a lifetime of not knowing how geography works helped Liz realise that I had a better idea about the fastest route home.  It took us about half an hour to get back. 

Oblivious to the gentle waves of empathy.

I spent such a long time trying to get my head around the first question on the Real Analysis homework.  Literally about two hours between lectures just looking at it and reading over notes and looking at it again and drawing a scribbly little sketch of what might be happening to a function of x.  I'd say my understanding did increase but it wasn't enough to get the answer on my own.  In the end I decided to change the inequalities in one of the examples in the notes that didn't quite go the way the question hinted at and not worry too much about what equates to around 0.01% of the year.  However, when we went to hand it in I had a look at AK's answer and it seemed to combine what I'd done with the hint from the question so I made a few amendments to my work and hoped it was a good decision.  Unfortunately I still didn't understand it well enough to know if I was just making things worse so it's back to not getting too hung up on 0.01%. 

I had a look at some recommended mods for Fallout 3 and now it won't let me leave to an exterior cell (or go outside if you don't want to be technical).  I tried disabling all the new mods and I've still got the same problem so I'll probably have to reinstall it.  That's a job for the end of the month when my quota is about to be reset. 

Yesterday I changed my tariff from one that gives me free texts and £10 credit for a month for £10 to one that gives me free texts for a month for £5 but no extra credit.  I thought I was still going to get the £5 credit, in which case it would have been loads better, but since I don't get the credit it works out to be pretty much the same as it was before.

I've been trying to learn some songs from The Dissent of Man on my five string guitar but I don't know the lyrics to most of them yet so it's slow progress.

Just misfit melancholy dregs.

We've full on clamped down on work this year; that's why there haven't been many blogs going up.  After spending hour after hour in the library trying to get my head around the latest maths we've been taught so we can get the homework done well before it needs to be in I don't much feel like going through it all again in my head to fish out the interesting bits, especially when they usually aren't very interesting.  Of course interesting things happen outside the library but that's when I'm busy catching up on food/sleep/TV/cinema/Liz/etc. 

So, if you're one of the one people who don't know that Liz has gone to London to look at arty things, you might be wondering why tonight is a night I have time to write a blog.  Well I'm not going to tell you. 

Sophie Taylor from school was sat in front of me on the bus home today.  Last year it was ages before I'd seen the four people from school who have come to Lancaster (points if you leave a comment telling me how long it was - I'm pretty sure I mentioned it around the same time as the Art meal in summer term).  This year it's only Monday of week 6 and I've seen them all.  I should play Pokémon again while I'm in the zone.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was about as good as I expected it to be considering it's a film based on a computer game.  They're always a bit rubbish.  Still, I'd pay the full £6 to see big screen adaptations of Zelda or Halo. 

After having documents checked for the CRB I went for a talk with the guy who decides which school we go to.  I don't think I got anything out of the talk other than the idea that taking more statistics modules next year might be a good idea so I can swap to a Maths and Stats degree if I so desire.

I just looked back at old posts to see what I talked about last time and I realised that with white text highlighting in black does a pretty poor job at censoring.  I've gone back through my old posts and fixed any such incidences that I noticed (which should be all of them because a big black rectangle is hard to miss) and I'll try and remember to use white in the future.  You get points for leaving a comment telling me if I do it in black again.

I knew full well what I wanted this blog title to be from and when I was deciding which line to have I was inevitably reminded of how bad my throat has been this weekend.  Very.  I could barely speak at all all weekend.  My voice is back now and I just have an occasional cough.

On Friday Liz and I went to Bella Italia for tea and it was really good as time with Liz always is.  I had a big posh pizza and the bannoffee pudding. 

0x0=0

I have just finished Fermat's Last Theorem (the book, not the proof).  I enjoyed it and I'd happily go on to read another non-fiction book next if it promised to be as interesting and had the same level of complexity.  However, I don't have another non-fiction book so I'll probably read Airman next because it has been on the shelf since my birthday.

I'm in the library writing this because I didn't have anything else to do before my next lecture.

I'm mostly happy with my mark for the Probability homework this week but we spent so long on the last question it would have been nice to get ½ a mark even though we missed a chunk out.

I bought Plants Vs Zombies when it was on offer on Steam for Halloween.  Best. Game. Ever.  I haven't even considered going on Fallout or Oblivion or any of the others all week.  I had played it for 16.2 hours by Wednesday night and I only installed it on Monday.

The latest Robin Hood film was good enough at the cinema last night but it's more of a Batman Begins style prequel to the story and I'm sure King Richard isn't supposed to die in France before anything has really happened.

Time to go to 220 now.  Pointless going to be honest but I've got nothing else to do and I'm not going to spend and hour blogging.

What's wrong with a kiss, boy? Hmm?

100% on all homeworks this week.  Happy times.  Everyone's jealous.  I'm about half way through Fermat's Last Theorem too.  I rather enjoy all my time in the library this year. 

The university cinema is having the Fright Night tonight but Liz and I have decided not to bother because last year we missed half the films due to falling asleep in the middle of them and it would mean tomorrow would be a tired and lazy day in which no work was done.  Plus we didn't get cheap tickets earlier in the week; we didn't go to watch Lebanon because we couldn't be bothered with a war film with subtitles and we didn't go to see Sex And The City 2 because the trailer seemed to have all the best bits and it still looked shit.

Since Fallout: New Vegas came out last week I've spent a little time watching Chris play it.  When I started watching I really wanted to get it myself to play but the more I saw the more I was able to resist.  There are so many bugs and glitches and it has already had three patches.  It's a bit pathetic to be honest.  I'll definitely be able to go without it until it gets fixed.  There a plans for DLC to be released around Christmas so hopefully it will be much more playable by then and there might be money off for Christmas.  I've got Fallout 3 to keep me busy until then.

I need more black ink for my printer and I left the plug at home so I've had to borrow Liz's.  The pin board in my room does not like having pins in it so it still isn't in use.  I have the CRB application now and I'm going to need a load of documents to prove I'm me and that I'm a good person.

Mouse < Elephant

I suppose I haven't quite fallen back into blogging frequently now I'm back at university.  I'll try harder; I promise. 

I've had a full week of lectures now.  We have three modules on the go at once.  12 hours per week plus time taken for homework/revision. 
MATH210 is a bit confusing.  It is heavily focused on proving things rather than working out specific cases so everyone seems to be complaining about it because they miss school and college level maths.  Also, no one likes the lecturer very much.  I don't mind doing proofs and having a lecturer who speaks clearly and in an easy-to-understand accent though so I don't mind getting up on a Monday and Tuesday afternoon.  Also, by "everyone" and "no one", I am, of course, referring to the small number of friends I have in maths lectures. 

The first booklet for MATH220 is exactly the same as the first booklet for MATH114 from last year but with bits missed out so I haven't been able to concentrate on anything yet.  Instead of listening, I spend lectures reading through my old notes and filling in gaps in the new ones.  The lecturer seems like he'll be pretty good at explaining the new stuff whenever we get to it so that's something to look forward to. 

MATH230 is Probability.  Our lecturer is Spanish or Italian or something like that so she has a really strong accent and is difficult to understand.  The actual work is easy enough so far though so it isn't too bad.  The first week was mainly revision of MATH104 from last year and was easy enough to follow. 

I was going to write a paragraph about how annoying certain ones of everyone/no one were when they were claiming, with the utmost confidence, that the notes were wrong, that the 210 notes are exactly the same as last year and that if we fail our Masters then we leave university with absolutely nothing but debt.  The notes were unsurprisingly correct and only the 220 notes are the same.  I don't know what happens if we fail our Masters but I'd be willing to bet we get our BSc if we do well enough in Part II, regardless of how we do in the fourth year.  Instead, I decided to write a paragraph about how I was going to write a paragraph about it. 

I don't know where my printer cable is for plugging it in so I'm borrowing Liz's for now while she has no use for it. 

My phone froze today and when it unfroze it had decided to go through a few screens and reformat my memory card so I lost everything that was saved on it. 

Chris and I have played the Halo: Reach Campaign and Firefight game modes to death so we decided to make a Mario Kart style race track in the map editor.  We also made a bouncy cage of death in the middle of the sky for general having a laugh killing each other again and again with swords, gravity hammers, rockets and/or grenades. 

Good, huge food in the White Cross on Saturday when my parents came.  My guitar still isn't fixed because the machine head didn't fit.  Lord of the Rings trilogy before Hazel comes and takes them back home next weekend.  Cemetery Junction tonight at the university cinema.  Bus to campus now before Liz goes mental. 

Taking it like a man.

I've been meaning to write a blog about getting back to Lancaster all week but I've been busy spending time with Liz and playing Halo: Reach with Chris next door. 

It has been a good first week back.  My new room in Chancellor's Wharf is good and sharing the bathroom and small kitchen hasn't been a problem at all.  I've met my flatmates and they all seem like nice people so I don't see why any of us won't be able to get on well all year.  None of them have been having parties at 3 a.m. so  it's an improvement on living with Kelsey last year.  Becky and John from SSAGO live in the flat next door to continue the huge coincidences of people Liz and I know living right there.  

I was able to get a new machine head for my acoustic guitar so my dad is going to bring it up next time he gets a chance. 

Mike Davies hasn't had a great Freshers' Week and has gone home because he couldn't handle not knowing people or something.  I'm not sure.  He's coming back tomorrow before lectures start.  I was under the impression that he was too shy to join in with a conversation and talk to people who already knew each other (so if everyone was talking in the kitchen he wouldn't be able to go in and get to know them) but he wasn't helping himself by pretending not to be in when the Freshers' Rep's knocked on everyone's doors to get them all chatting and getting acquainted.  I had said I'd try and help him get settled in but I have no idea what I could do to help if he won't even talk to people who don't know each other already. 

I'm going to go and play Halo: Reach again now while Liz is busy with arty things. 

"God hates baguettes. "

I've just got back from a meal out with my parents and Mike Davies' (not to be confused with Mike Davies) family.  It was alright.  He's starting Lancaster University on Sunday (he's in Fylde college) so his parents thought it would be good for him to know someone who had already experienced Freshers' Week and could let him know what to expect.  Also it was a chance for them to catch up as they have been friends for about 100 years.  My dad sat in the corner and joined in conversation with slurred speech about 5 minutes after they'd finished. 

I can't wait to be back in Lancaster with Liz because it's much better than being in Garswood without her. 

I started packing today.  Now I've got two half empty bags that are half full with pens and notepads and files and folders.  There is also a bag that has the books Liz brought for me to read last time she was here.  More on that later. I'm going to spend tomorrow packing everything up apart from my laptop so I can go early on Saturday morning and arrive in time to have a decent pick of the kitchen space.

At the weekend I tried to get a new machine head for my acoustic guitar but none of the shops had a spare one for me to buy.  I didn't fancy paying £15 for six when I only need one.  I'll try the shops in Lancaster next week and if I can get a replacement I'll ask my dad to bring the guitar up on his way to/from work.

Over the last few weeks I've been reading and reading and playing Golden Sun and reading.  But I got bored of Golden Sun when I decided I wanted a load of rare items and it was taking me too long to get them.  The Bartimaeus Trilogy was fantastic and I had wished that it wouldn't end and I could just keep reading it forever.  Obviously I eventually got to the end so I started An Abundance Of Katherines.  I'm up to chapter six.  I wanted to like it, really I did, but it's just so silly and the main character is so annoying.  As if anyone would know 19 people called Katherine - none of whom shorten their name in any way and none of them spell it 'Catherine' - and all of them would be the same age as him (or close enough) and all of them would date him (and then dump him).  Even more ridiculous is that he isn't even 18 yet.  19 girlfriends before turning 18 is hard to believe but I could cope with it and call it poetic license.  I think I could accept 19 girlfriends all called Katherine, too, if there was the possibility that some of them shortened their name or spelled it with a 'C' or both.  But K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E 19 times?  It's taking things a bit too far.  However, I wanted to like it so I just went with the flow.  Then I found out how annoying the main character is.  He's so depressed because of being dumped for the 19th time by someone called Katherine.  He needs to man the fug up (fug?  Surely that should be fuck?).  If he's smart enough to come up with a theorem that "predicts the future of any relationship", as the synopsis on the back cover seems to suggest, then he should be able to work out that he might be better off trying a girl with a different name.  I know it isn't correct to think that the next Katherine will follow the trend and dump him - each Katherine should be independent of the others - just like it isn't correct to think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 won't come up on the lottery.  But, despite it having as much chance as any other combination of six numbers between 1 and 49, you'd never make 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 the numbers you pick every week.  Similarly, you wouldn't risk another heartbreak with another Katherine after being dumped 18 times by girls called Katherine.  And that's why it's my pick of the week.

Master Chief's Spartan Laser lets out a howl!

Had my hair cut today.  Then Lucy came to show me her new car and we went for a drive.  We were going to walk around on top of the hill but it was too muddy and we were hardly wearing the right shoes for it so we came back to my house and had a chat in the kitchen.  We would have gone to meet people for a bit but we couldn't think of anyone who wasn't back at uni or busy getting ready to go back or at work. 

This summer I've seen Mike, Laura and Lucy so, with no more friends left to catch up with, there's nothing more to do other than go back to Lancaster. 

Except there is more to do.  I need new trainers, a backpack, slippers and to finally get my acoustic guitar fixed.  I'll try to get an early night so I can go to Wigan tomorrow morning and sort all of those things out.

I'm going to have to do a lot of reading next week if I'm going to finish all these books in time.  I'm bored of level grinding on Golden Sun now though so I don't have as many distractions. 

The Halo soundtracks are making me want to go out and shoot aliens.  It doesn't feel right having such epic music playing while I just sit in my room at the laptop - I should be out saving the galaxy! 

Wibbly wobbly.

More Golden Sun.  

More reading.  

I'm getting the £22 uni was trying to deduct from my deposit back.  

Dear James

Thank you for your email and the queries you brought to my attention.  I am so sorry to have mistakenly made deposit deductions in respect of the ‘Desk Damage’ and ‘Carpet Stains’.  I have checked your inventory and on it you clearly stated that there was glue on the desk and marks on the carpet by the bed.  I overlooked this when going through the large number of room inspection results, and must apologise for this.

I will ask the Finance Office refund £22.00 to your nominated bank account as soon as they are able to do so.  Many thanks for looking after the room so well for us.

Best wishes

Pam

Well done for being thorough.  That email was sent a week ago and I'm still waiting for the money to go back in.  

We have until Friday 23rd October 2010 to re-register with the university.  More evidence that time doesn't work properly on campus. 

I can't wait to live on my own (with Liz) again. 

((Mass Effect)(Pokémon))^Zelda = Golden Sun

Liz was here.  That was good.  I can't describe how good though because of how the dictionary works. As usual you can just read her blog to see what we got up to so I don't have to repeat it for all you people who have already read them. 

Since Liz went home I've pretty much just been playing Golden Sun.  I finished the first game yesterday and immediately moved on to Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age.  It is the best game in the entire world ever.  As long as you can get into it.  There is a lot to consider when it comes to kitting out your team and it can be a bit overwhelming at first.  I love it though.  It's much better than Mass Effect and Pokémon added together.  In fact it's like Mass Effect multiplied by Pokémon.  To the power of Zelda. I like it even more now that the real world is awesome (because of Liz).  It used to be the case that I'd finish playing and feel sad that all that fantasticness was just a game.

It hasn't all been saving Weyard though.  I've started reading The Amulet of Samarkand.  I think it's amazing because it has Djinn in it (there are Djinn in Golden Sun too) so it is obviously set in the parallel universe that connects this universe we live in to the Golden Sun universe.  I'm going to read eight chapters now before I either go to bed or go back on the DS.

"I'll tear down the building just to pass through the door. "

I didn't read The Book Thief.  Sean the decorator asked if I wanted to help him for a couple of days and make some money so I said yes.  I was just sanding walls down before he painted them (which isn't the most engaging job) but I didn't complain - I didn't have to use my brain at all which is always nice.  I'll read The Book Thief when Liz has gone home at the end of next week.  And then maybe Lord of the Rings.  I'll see. 

I got the email about deductions to my deposit the other day.  Absolute joke.  No way was there £22 worth of damage.  £10 for minor desk damage and £12 for a carpet stain.  There was nothing wrong with the desk or the carpet!  I've sent an email asking about it but all I've had back is a generic auto-response to say it will get looked at soon.  "Soon" hopefully meaning before I graduate...

I can't wait for tomorrow. 

Concerning Hobbits...

I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy books one a day since the first one and now I've only got the fifth left to read tomorrow.  I wasn't overly impressed with the third book yesterday - I'd say it was the book I've least enjoyed all summer.  It had far too many random chapters that didn't need to be there.  So they don't like potatoes; get on with it.  Book four was better but in the end it seemed like it was just done for the sake of writing another book which, from the Forward, it seems to have been.  I laughed out loud a few times though and I can say I've read it now.  Besides, I'll have a slightly better idea of what is being referred to tomorrow if the last book references earlier books in the same manner the earlier books referenced even earlier books.  I must say I am looking forward to a more serious book after this series though because the randomness of it is trying to come across in my own writing.  And it seems like it might be succeeding. 

After tomorrow I'll have The Book Thief to keep me busy until Liz arrives on Friday morning.  Hopefully it will last that long but if I really enjoy it there's nothing to suggest I won't keep going to the end in one go.  Then I've got Lord of the Rings on the pile for after Liz's stay.  I highly doubt I'll be able to finish them in a day each, if at all.  It didn't go too well last time I tried - I barely made it past the prologue.

It's OK, because you're a hot b!tch.

Scott Pilgrim was fantastic.  Best film all summer.  I don't know what to do now.  Going back to the life I had before Scott Pilgrim seems so anticlimactic.

I was going to have an early night tonight after only getting 3 hours of sleep last night but I had a bottle of Blast to make sure I was awake enough in the cinema so that plan might not work as intended end of sentence full stop

We're saved!

I did finish The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in one day after all.

Last night I stayed up until 5am watching the ends of films on Sky Movies and talking to Chris (who was also watching them at the same time) about them.  First I watched the end of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was a bit pants.
Then we watched the end of Made of Honour just because.  It turned out to be the film the coffee-collar guy was from.  I'd mentioned coffee-collar guy to Liz the other day (about how rich he was from such a simple idea) but I couldn't remember what he was from.  This, it turns out. 
Next we watched Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! which was a perfect example of a film being so bad it's good - there were many laugh-out-loud-hysterically moments throughout; mostly at how terrible the acting was.  The characters delivered their lines with such unconvincing non-existent enthusiasm and the special effects looked like they'd been done in MS Paint.  I had a look online and found out it was released straight to VHS in 2008.  It was that bad.  There is a DVD though. 
Finally we saw the end of Revenge of the Nerd.  It was alright but it just couldn't live up to Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!.  Although, the nerd who dressed up (with a fancy dress mask and cape) like the main jock and then went and got down and dirty with the jock's girlfriend gets serious man points.  Serious win points too for the girlfriend being totally not-bothered-at-all when he crawled up to reveal his true identity.  She even dumped the jock to go out with the nerd.
Was that rape?  Because she wanted to have sex with him but only because she thought he was her boyfriend.  I think it probably is. 

Today I'm going to see Scott Pilgrim Vs The World with Mike.

My divinity is caught between the colours of a butterfly.

I went to the Bad Religion gig at Manchester Academy 2 on Tuesday night with Mike.  It was absolutely amazing.  I've never been to a gig before so it was automatically the best gig I've ever been too, but Mike also describes it in that way and he's been to loads.  I can't stress how good it was.  The setlist was fantastic - we couldn't have asked for anything to be different.  It would have been good if they'd played All There Is as it's definitely up there as one of my favourite songs, but I don't know what I'd have swapped for it.  It's probably for the best that it was left out though because I can't sing it at the best of times and if I'd tried belting that one out at the gig, my throat might have exploded.

When it was over and we were making our way back to the station I could barely hear anything and my voice had dropped about two octaves.  Throughout the course of today (yesterday) my hearing has returned and my voice has shifted up about one octave.

While I wasn't up for listening or speaking, and since it arrived the day before, I got on with reading Mass Effect: Retribution.  It was good, as these books usually are.  I was, however, slightly disappointed that some of the decisions you make in the games had been assumed to have been taken in a specific direction, rather than being left out of the book or made intentionally vague.  For example, at the end of the first game you choose who should become the Human Councillor - Anderson or Udina.  As only one of them becomes Councillor, but which one depends on your choice in the game, the second book didn't mention who had been selected.  In this book Udina was mentioned only once, but he was referred to as "Councillor Udina".  It wasn't even necessary - it would have made perfect sense to have just said "Udina".  As such the book didn't quite follow the story from my game in which Anderson was Councillor.  I also noticed a spelling error which had me cringing - one of the planets, Sidon, was referred to as "Sion".  The mistake was only made once though and I didn't notice any more apart from possibly a missed comma, but that might just have been me failing to read the sentence properly.  I still enjoyed the book. 

Tomorrow (today) I'm going to start reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I'm not so determined to get it finished the same day I start it, as I have been with Mass Effect 2 & 3 and The Hunger Games.  At the same time I'm not going to stop reading just so I don't finish it in one go.  I'd like to make these last five books last until Liz gets here though because if I don't I'm going to run out of things to do. 

"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!"

I finished Mass Effect 2 today.  The final mission is epic but the game still feels like a massive side quest on the whole.  Now I'm just waiting for the new book to arrive so I can get back to reading to pass the time rather than starting at screens all day long. 

So little has happened since my last blog that I almost started describing the two dreams I had last night.  Fortunately I can't remember them in enough detail to bother. 

Mum made cake.  It's pretty good. 

I've just remembered the Dave Gorman podcast.  Hallelujah for something else to do! 

The Earth Explodes!

On Sunday I read all of The Hunger Games in one go, only having a short break to eat my tea.  On Monday I read all of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in one go.  They were so good!  I was entirely engrossed in the story the whole time I was reading, totally oblivious to everything going on in the real world.  So much so that I shed a tear once per book.  Once when Rue died and once when everyone in District 11 whistled her tune.  I can't wait to read the final book in the trilogy. 

I've still got the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series to read but I've decided to have a break from reading after spending a few days reading one book per day.  Instead, I've been playing Mass Effect 2 so I can get it finished before I read the third book.  It came out the other day and I've ordered it from Amazon so it should be here soon. 

I had a random urge to make a video today, just so I had something new to do.  It didn't really have any purpose - it was never going to go on Youtube - and it was just me rambling at the camera for a few minutes.  It was more so I could have a mess around with editing a video.  Complete failure.  The audio refused to be synchronised with the video so I abandoned the project about five minutes after starting it.  I did a few Google searches to try and find a quick fix but when nothing came up in the top three search results I started doing something else. 

Spilled Milk.

I spent all day reading Mass Effect: Ascension.  It was absolutely fantastic.  The first Mass Effect book, Revelations, was good, but it had to introduce all the characters and the whole of Citadel space, as well as the relationships and histories between and of the different species.  The plot was interesting and gave a welcome insight into the histories of the almost main character, Captain Anderson, and the main villain, Saren.  It did, however, feel like all the action took place in the first and last two chapters, while everything in between was just the characters finding out what had happened immediately before the events of the first chapter.

In contrast, Mass Effect: Ascension was able to get right into the action, and stay there, having had Revelations and the first game already set the scene in sharp detail.  It didn't need a lengthy explanation of what a 'biotic' was.  It didn't need to tell us about the Quarians and the Migrant Fleet.  Instead it could go straight to using them in the story, making it much faster paced.  The only bit I didn't like quite as much was the gruesomely grotesque depth in which the victim of Pel's torture was described.  The character who was tortured had only briefly been mentioned but I cringed as I read about his wounds.  Not that I'd change any of it, I just felt it was a bit intense compared to the rest of the book's descriptions of violence. 

I've still got eight books waiting to be read.  I think I'll have a break from epic science-fiction and read The Hunger Games next.  I'll try and start the first book tomorrow.  Maybe I'll go on my bike, too, if the weather isn't too bad. 

I'm finally finishing this blog about three hours after I started it because I couldn't concentrate on what I was writing when my mum had the TV on.  She wouldn't even turn it down during the adverts.  All she had to say was, "No one cares about your blog."  Odd, then, that she is so vehemently opposed to me writing anything about her.  Request denied.

"What's that in your hair?"

It was my ear.  Well done grandad.  He also made sure the bananas were somewhere they wouldn't get paint on them because no one wants to eat...the skin?  Baffling elder folk logic. 

I painted the back room of my grandad's house today and now I am very tired.  I had to get up at about 7:30 and then I was working for ages.  After a while all the colours looked the same and I didn't know where I was up to.  The ceiling was the hardest thing to paint because of its anti-paint texture.  My mum's going to help tomorrow so that can be one of her jobs. 

Last night I made a note to mention how expensive LEGO is these days but I'm too tired to go into detail so

LEGO is very expensive.

I'm going to have a shower now to get all this paint off my arms and out of my hair.  Then I might go to bed so I'm ready for another early start tomorrow. 

"Walk on the sea"

We went for another bike ride today.  This time my mum came too.  There were two puppies in the beer garden licking a tiny patch of ground and eating the stones as if the last ever banoffee pie had been dropped there.  Very odd. 

When I got home I finished Mass Effect again after getting the achievement for using the team mate Kaidan for 75% of the game.  Now I only have to play it through once more and I'll finally have all the achievements possible (without downloading extra content).  I'll never have to play Mass Effect 1 again.  I definitely won't be playing it again this summer once I have all the achievements. 

My dad is watching Ice Station Zebra.  It is such a long film.  It's very slow paced too.  I've given up paying attention to it now. 

This afternoon I found the old notepad in which I used to write lyrics to finished songs I'd written or helped to write.  I can't remember how to play half of them now.  Shame really, I vaguely remember them being half decent. 

This is NOT the time for maths homework.

I started my What To Do list in the nice notepad.  Only thought of three things to do today though; couldn't think of much else I needed to get done on a rainy Saturday. 
I went for a bike ride with my dad to The Masons again when the weather seemed to be improving.  For the ride home he challenged me to a race but to give him a chance I had to go on the road while he cut across the field.  I accepted the challenge thinking that the road went in roughly the right direction and that, despite the huge hill to slow me down, I'd always be getting nearer to the finishing line.  Not the case at all.  The first half mile of road is all up a steep hill that has cyclists travelling at most as fast as someone on a relaxing jog, but probably closer to the speed of someone walking.  The road also forces you to travel further and further away from my house until you get to the top of the hill (where I threw up from exhaustion), at which point you finally turn towards the wrong side of Garswood (but at least it's towards somewhere in Garswood).  Meanwhile, my dad would have been heading practically directly towards home on a field that is either flat or downhill with the odd slight incline here and there. 
Obviously I lost the race.  He probably got back in the time it took me to get to the top of the hill and then recover from spewing my guts out.
Next time he can go on the road and I'll cut across the field. 

Earlier, when I was playing on the XBOX my mum kept complaining about how "loud" it was.  It wasn't loud at all.  It was on 25/100 and she has it on 30/100 at the absolute minimum when she watches TV. 
Now, as I'm writing this and listening to Shinedown through my headphones, I can still hear her on the phone to my aunt.  She refuses to keep her voice down.  Grr. 

Last night I went through all of Liz's Bookshelf blogs and labelled each one with the rating she gave them out of 5.  Now it's easy to see which books are good, at least in her opinion, and which ones aren't so fantastic.  I was considering labelling them with both the rating given and also that rating rounded to the nearest integer.  I only thought of doing that half way through though and I couldn't be bothered reopening thirty or so posts to change them again for so little gain.  Maybe later. 

I'm going to go and watch a steam train pass through Garswood station now. 

"There was a ghost!...It ran right through here and slimed me."

I haven't done much today.  I was going to try and get at least the first 10 chapters Mass Effect Ascension read but since it is set after the first game I decided to play through that before I get on with reading.
Whilst I was busy taking advantage of the good nature of the doctor who gives me too much money for weapons and upgrades, my dad came into the living room and rudely demanded he be allowed to watch the cricket immediately.  When he didn't get his way he had a little tantrum and turned off the electricity for every downstairs room in the house.  Obviously the XBOX went off.  Everything soon came back on when he realised that the fridge and freezer wouldn't work without power.  Fortunately for me my exploiting had meant I'd been triggering autosaves every 30 seconds or so.  All I lost was the few minutes it took me to turn the XBOX back on and reload.  Dad has been sulking since.

After two days of not getting much done I have started to consider making a short list each night before I go to bed of what I want to get done the next day.  I got the idea from Alex Day and it doesn't seem to have done him any harm.  I have a really nice notepad that I could use for it too.  However, now I'm torn between giving it a trial run with scrap paper in case I can't keep it up for more than a few days; that way I don't spoil the first few pages of the nice notepad with a failed project.  On the other hand, I might be more inclined to make a habit out of it if I do use the nice notepad; if I do start on the first few pages then I can't give up or else I will have ruined it.  Since I don't know where the notepad was packed for the trip home from Lancaster I think whether I start in it or on scrap paper simply depends on which I find first.

Hold the line.

I had a terrible sleep last night.  I woke up at about 3:40 and lay awake for around two hours.  When I finally did fall back to sleep it only lasted a few hours and I was up and ready for my day by 9:30 - about four hours earlier than I have been getting ready in the last few weeks. 

I got the train into Wigan around 11 o'clock so I could collect the books I ordered last week.  In the delivery office I bumped into someone I recognised from school.  We had a bit of a chat about how ridiculous it is to expect people to be at home in the early afternoon.  I went along with it despite it being one of the very few times I've even left the house this summer.  All I could think about during the conversation was "sorry, what's your name again?"  I didn't ask though.  Instead I waited a few moments until I was given the books, at which point I said "see ya" and left; probably to go at least another few years before I see him again.  I managed to get on the same train home as I was on on the way to town. 

Back home I rang the number I'd been given to ask about a job delivering leaflets.  The phone rang a couple of times before going to voicemail so I sent a text.  Long story short they text back telling me to call in one day and they'll see if they can find anything for me.  Task for tomorrow I think. 

Now hopefully I'll get all night to talk to Liz because I love her. 

Like a rock, like a planet...

How has it been a week since I last posted a blog?

I read The Lost Symbol last week.  It was a nice change to see that 1) only America was in peril and 2) someone else had to sort it out.  A welcome relief after saving the galaxy countless times. 
I ordered the Mass Effect novels off (from?) Amazon last week and the postman came with them on Friday.  When I was still in bed.  So I missed him.  Now I have to go all the way to Wigan to collect them myself.  But that's OK. 

I also heard from Sean the decorator with news of a job.  It's not with him but he heard about it from his brother-in-law (I think) who says they're desperate to have people deliver leaflets.  Walking around on my own all day with little to no human interaction?  Sounds perfect.  I'll give them a ring tomorrow morning. 

Yesterday, just before reaching the end of The Lost Symbol, my dad asked if I wanted to go for a ride on the bikes to a pub called The Masons in Billinge.  They had been awarded some award and were having a free barbecue to celebrate.  It started to rain as soon as we set off but stopped not long after; at least until we got to the pub.  There was nowhere to sit inside because it was so full so we had to find half a bench out in the intermittent rain.  The whole experience was about as interesting as I've made this paragraph. 

Now it's Sunday and I'm waiting for breakfast and then I'm off to Grandad's and then to the cemetery. 

Little Mike got tickets for us to see Bad Religion in August at Manchester Academy 2 for less than £20.  Epic win. 

Now it's a little bit later on Sunday and I've just had my breakfast and I can hear my parents complaining about how rich and fat some famous American chef is. 

I like your face.

My parents went on holiday last week so Liz decided to spend lots of money on a train and come stay with me.  One day we went for a walk and to Wigan.  Another day we got the train to Chester, Liverpool and St Helens.  Another day we made banabar cake with the dodgy bananas that didn't survive the trip to see the rhinos the day before.  But more detail about what Liz and I did can be found here, in the second paragraph and in this video so I won't say much more about it.  Nor will I say much about what I've been up to since Liz went home because you probably had to be there to enjoy it. 

But you can only save the galaxy so many times before you realise that it's your actions that are putting it in danger; so I decided to watch some TV instead.  And by "TV" I mean internet. I watched the last few episodes of True Blood season 2 that I'd missed while I was at university.  Now I'm waiting for South Park to load. 

I was expecting "Sean the decorator" to ring up at some point in the week letting me know when he was going to give me some work experience and money but the call never came.  Not that I was looking forward to it at all but it did seem like a better way to get something for my CV than a real summer job. 

I just cut the "writing bump" off my finger with nail clippers.  It has been annoying me so much lately; I couldn't take it any longer.  I was able to cut more off before it started to hurt than I had expected. 

Results Day.

It is results day today.  Here are my results. 

Happy times for me today. 

Like a beacon in the mind of an ancestor.

My sleeping pattern still isn't fixed.  My forehead rash has mostly gone.  My oblivion character's journal has half as many entries as this blog after about 1/10 the time.  My life is awesome. 

Pretty much all I did between my last post and Thursday night/Friday morning was play Oblivion so I won't go into too much detail there (and that's also why there were no blogs). 

Friday was my last full day in Fylde 67/2/A31 so I spent hours and hours cleaning and tidying up and getting ready to come home.  My room wasn't too bad; nothing a few bottles of bleach couldn't fix.  The kitchen, on the other hand, was quite dire.  Now, I sort of understand the logic of not cleaning up while there are still people there to make a mess, but my flat mates had left it in such a state it was unreal.  Even the ones that left well before the end could have made some effort to make it less of a job for me.  The amount of food people had left because they couldn't be bothered taking it to the bins for me was ridiculous.  As fun as stories about cleaning kitchens are I'll let you use your imagination and just say that at the end it was pretty clean.  My room was spotless when my parents arrived yesterday.

My Aunt and Uncle also came just to have a look around the university.  My cousin wants to do maths when he finishes 6th form and with Lancaster being the best in the country after Oxbridge, and with me saying it's really good, he (or at least his parents) has been considering following in my footsteps.  Then I missed the part of the conversation about his antics at college but from what I gather he dropped one of his subjects and didn't even go to his other lessons and his parents didn't find out until parents evening at the end of the year.  So he's going to start A/S again in September and be a year behind where he could have been.  But he'll have to get his act together to get into Lancaster as no doubt the entry requirements will go up a fair bit now that we're so close to the top of the table. 

It's my mum's birthday today so I have to find the 14p card I bought from Card Factory and go out to the pub for a meal.  So just another Sunday at home.  Then I might have to go to the other pub and find out exactly what work I'll be doing for a decorator my dad knows.  Likely just steaming old wallpaper off and sanding down the wall ready for new wallpaper.  Or something along those lines.  Fun times.  But at least I won't have to speak to lots of people, I'll be getting paid and I'll have something more recent than 2006 to put in the Work Experience section of my CV. 

Since I'm at home and I've got access to the XBOX I've started Mass Effect again.  Oblivion can wait until the XBOX is far away.  I thought Mass Effect would annoy me when I started playing again but so far it has been loads of fun.  I'm level 10 (capped at 50) and I've only just become a Spectre.  When you become a Spectre the game starts properly, so I effectively got to level 10 before the end of the intro. 

Kick towards tick off.

I decided I would have an early night last night, and what could be earlier than the past?  So I didn't go to bed.  I had a lie down and closed my eyes but then after about 5 minutes of rest I got up and had a shower.  Faulty logic aside, I'll be quite tired when it's a reasonable time to go to bed tonight after the England-Germany game and then I should be in more of a usual sleeping pattern for at least two days.  I'm quite tired now so I don't know if that made sense and currently my attention span isn't long enough for me to reread it and check. 

I have a rash on my forehead from being away from Liz for too long.  It will surely only get worse over the next month. 

I've just spent about 5 minutes watching my thumb nails go white and pink as I alternate the amount of pressure on them from the other nail.  And people asked me how I was going to stop myself from going insane all alone in the flat for a week. 

I didn't get much done on Oblivion last night because for some strange reason my health wouldn't recover past 70% of its total and I couldn't find a way to fix it other than go back to a previous save.  I have been writing a journal from the point of view of my character while I've been playing the game so it was a good job I didn't write an entry since before the save I went back to. 

Tea time without Elizabeth.

A turkey escalope and in a jug of peas.  Ubernom. 

I know what you did in the car park.

It's day something-or-other on my own at university without Elizabeth.  I miss her quite a lot.  I'm so used to her being here.  It's like when you always wear a watch - if you ever don't have it on you still look at your wrist to check the time, even if you know you haven't got it on; it's just a force of habit.  This is similar to what it's like with Elizabeth.  Without her next to me all day I feel lost.  I don't know what time it is any more.  I need her to tell me when it's time for food and when it's time for bed.  When it's time to go for a walk outside in the fresh air.  When it's about time I stop playing computer games and have a rest from the world behind the display. 

Unfortunately, without Elizabeth here in the room, that world behind the screen is infinitely more interesting than Lancaster.  It's brutal and I die quite a lot thanks to the realism mods, the levelling mods and the overhaul mod I have running in conjunction with each other.  Nonetheless, I can cast fireballs and shoot arrows in roughly the desired direction.  I can cloak myself in a shroud that makes light pass through me so I can only be seen by the ripples my body causes in the air, much like the blurry effect heat rising from the hot road has in summer.  I can brew potions and poisons with the ingredients I find in the fields and caves. 

What I can't do is get to bed at a reasonable hour.  But maybe this is a good thing at the moment.  This week at university sees the biggest raves since freshers week, in the form of the Extravs.  Furness had theirs tonight and we could here the pounding rhythm of the bass all the way over in our Fylde kitchen.  Granted, Fylde and Furness are neighbouring colleges, but Furness bar is still a significant distance away from our accommodation. 

The Extravs have brought AJ back to the flat this afternoon, so now I'm not the only person here.  He and Scott had plenty of stories to tell Dennis and I about their escapades in Spain over the last week or so.  Not one of them is suitable for me to retell here.  All of them were so outrageous that we'd have called B/S if Scott hadn't been there to confirm AJ's tales.  A voice in the corridor might also suggest the return of Sam.  At 1am, that conclusion seems silly, although I'll only know for sure in the morning.  Or at least some point tomorrow. 

My alarms are set for me to wake up, eat, eat, eat and eat for the next few days.  It's no replacement for my beautiful girlfriend but it'll have to do. 

Best. Film. Ever.

After a long night of installing mods for Oblivion and hoping they don't break it (so far so good) I finally crawled into bed about an hour after the sun had risen. 

When I awoke I found both Mass Effect games to be on offer on Steam with massive discounts.  If you're reading this before tomorrow then you can get the first game for a measly £3.24!  That's rather amazing.  It's a brilliant game too, worth every penny of it's full price.  I'd be so tempted to get it if only my laptop could run the sequel.  As it is, although my CPU is good enough to run the game, it would sport unplayable amounts of lag.  Definitely not worth the hassle when I can just get it on the 360 while I'm home over summer. 

Better late than never.

The last of the summer exams finished days ago and now the exam season seems like a distant memory.  I did a massive amount of revision for my maths but I didn't leave the Great Hall feeling massively confident on many occasions.  There's nothing I can do about it now though so there's no point worrying about it.

I did say I'd get back to blogging after the last exam on Wednesday but as my beautiful Elizabeth only had a few days left before leaving campus to go and begin her busy summer holiday, I decided to spend as much time with her as I could.  Now that she's gone, however, I have nothing left to do apart from sit at my laptop for two weeks until I go home.  Hopefully I'll get some creativity back into my writing in that time.  It'll be nice to be more unrestricted in what I'm doing when I've been almost mindlessly running through specific algorithms for so long to find answers to standard (at least standard for university level) maths questions. 

While I'm being creative I'll have a good opportunity to play some computer games that I was oh so eager to play instead of doing revision.  I'm proud to say that I didn't even do one quest until my exams were over though, and other than playing a lot more chess than usual (because it's a quick game that promotes forward thinking and interpreting situations and is therefore nearly as good as revision) I avoided playing much at all.  I think I'll be an Arch Mage when I get back to Garswood. 

Tea Time.

This is what I had for tea the night before my first important exam. 

Brain food. 

Have you missed me?  I'll be back from my unannounced absence next Wednesday when my exams are finally over.

Gotta catch 'em all!

After a full-ish day of revision Elizabeth and myself put on some nice clothes and went out with the art people to celebrate them finishing their work for the year.  While we were sat on the wall outside the Learning Zone I saw Sophie.  I think I have mentioned before that four people from my high school came to Lancaster uni after going to different colleges than me, and that I've barely seen them.  I saw Catherine Byrne in the first couple of weeks when we went for a meal at The Plough and she was waiting on.  Much, much later in the year I saw Emily Phoenix in her wheelchair in the gap between lectures.  It was only a week before the Easter vacation that I bumped into Michael Feeney at the Cartmel comedy night when I first saw Jon Richardson live.  Finally, after just over 25 weeks of living on campus, I saw the last one.  We were waiting for the rest of the art people to turn up and Sophie Taylor walked up the steps with her friend, said "Hi" when she recognised me (much sooner than I'd recognised her) and carried on, probably not to be seen again for another year. 
Having said that, the guy from Superdrug, whom we said we'd never see again, is always in the same shops as us when we wander around Lancaster town centre. 

Get that picked up right away.

I've had a pretty awesome weekend so far.  The end of module test for Series went particularly well; I only lost three out of the 50 marks available leaving me with 94% and a smiley face drawn on my work by the tutor.  The end of module test for Statistics wasn't quite as good, but with cap at 40 marks of a possible 50 I can afford to lose ten before I even have to worry.  I'll get that result some time next week.  The UAAA essay I wrote a few weeks ago has been marked.  I said I'd post it as a blog if it got a decent mark and with 73% here it is. 

Yesterday the weather was a bit too beautiful and we were rather warm in our treks around Kendal through the art museum and the park while we wasted time before the comedy with Jon Richardson and Shappi Khorsandi.  It was nice to see that Jon wasn't just doing the same set he had done at the comedy night at uni a few weeks back and, although some of the funnier jokes made a reappearance, it was mostly material we were unfamiliar with. More of Shappi's jokes had been heard before but enough of them hadn't for the second part of the gig to be well worth watching also.

The only bad part of the day was the journey back.  We had to get a taxi all the way from Kendal to uni as the trains and buses stop running ridiculously early.  The guy said it would be over £50 on the meter but he'd take us for £40.  When we finally did get back the little display had a "6" at the front so we were happy to get a third off the price as we handed our notes over.

We went to bed in Slaidburn for the first time in a term and a bit and stayed up for a while chatting about teachers from our schools.  No Tech. teachers were mentioned (although Agent Mr Smith was an absolute legend).

Evolution on Earth.

Prologue
After first contact in the year 2525, the Human Race united to repel the alien invasion.  Despite the aliens’ more advanced technology the brutal, war-like nature of the Humans helped them to win the war and, with their dominance over the aliens, they spread out into the galaxy.

Millennia passed, and the Human Race grew stronger.  The genome code was completely cracked early on and genetic engineering became the normal practice.  With it every Human was made as close to perfect as nature would allow.  The average lifespan climbed to over 200 years and the people were athletic genii.  Disease was made a thing of the past.

Thousands of worlds had to be colonised in order for Humans to continue their growth.  Eventually they had to colonise worlds that already had sentient life on them, but there was never anything powerful enough to challenge them.  The Humans shared their knowledge with other sentient species and felt that they were a force of unparalleled good in the universe.  They were blind.  They had grown too quickly.  True, they shared technology with others, but they never let them become too advanced.  They wouldn’t let anything else grow enough to threaten their dominance.  They had control over every species and had forced their way to the top of the hierarchy.

Eventually someone noticed.

1
The old Terran ship, Heracles, dropped back into normal space and moved into orbit around the white dwarf star, Sol.
“Cool those engines, Ensign,” Commander Jacobs ordered, “we’re going to be here a while.”
A young bridge officer tapped a few times on the display in front of him and a moment later the dull hum of the Alcubierre Drive, the engine the ship used for faster-than-light travel, ceased.  As it did so a look of uneasiness crept onto the four faces that belonged to the crew.  It was highly irregular to power down a ship that wasn’t docked – it made it an easier target  for pirates, and rogue meteors or comets would strike the ship before it had chance to evade.  This, however, was a highly irregular mission.  That is if it could even be considered a mission.  It hadn’t been issued by the council, nor did any Humans have knowledge of it.

The small crew was made up of what were, throughout the Human Empire, known as Progs.  The first planet Humans colonised and made independent of Earth, while habitable, had a slightly thinner atmosphere and a weaker magnetosphere which led to genetic mutations that, over time and through the process of natural selection, gave inhabitants of the planet a certain set of traits that were different to the Humans from Earth.  It was advantageous for the people on the so called New World to grow bigger lungs and, by extension, larger chests.  Eyes evolved so that pupils could shrink to much narrower apertures to filter out the excessive amounts of light from the nearby star but not hinder visibility in low lighting at night time.  These and other changes to their appearance, coupled with their slower advances in science, meant that other Humans who hadn’t evolved on that particular planet looked down on them as if they were a sub-race.  The term Progressed, or Progs for short, was ironically coined to describe such less advanced people.

In the Empire, Progs rarely held positions of importance and in the military, known as the Terran Space Fleet, they had to work exceptionally hard to advance to the rank of Commander.  Jacobs had worked exceptionally hard.  If his ancestors had grown up on Earth he’d have been a Vice-Admiral.  He also wouldn’t have been on this  operation.  He’d have been making sure no one was on this operation.

2
The corner of a screen flashed orange as a new message came through on an encrypted link. Private Joheness, fresh out of the Academy, opened it on his retinal display and read:

To outpost 17D, Sol System.  Be advised that the TSF vessel Heracles is on an in-system vector.
Record and forward outbound vector data for further analysis when it re-enters Alcubierre Space.

TSF Comman.

“Jesus,” the Private thought to himself, “what could they be doing in this hell-hole?”
Joheness confirmed the receipt of the transmission and, knowing that alarms would sound as soon as anything came within one billion kilometres of the sun, closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.

3
Commander Jacobs looked through the viewport at the star his ship was orbiting.   He was glad it was here – it would remind his crew why they were risking their lives.  Throughout the history of the Human Empire the Humans had portrayed themselves to all the other sentient species they had discovered and assimilated as omnipotent, omniscient beings that had always existed.  It was far from the truth but unfortunately the only ones who seemed to realise this were the Progs, and Progs had very little credibility.  The Humans had seen to that. 

The Humans had taken their lie so far that they destroyed, albeit unintentionally, almost all the evidence to show that they had once evolved in the same way as all the other life forms in the known universe.  As soon as their technology allowed it they accelerated the fusion reaction in the Sun’s core and effectively made it die much faster than it should have done.  They cut its life short by approximately eight billion years.  They had been trying to cause the Sun to eject some of its energy in the form of a directed T Tauri wind that wouldn’t blow off the Earth’s atmosphere but could be used to send solar-sail probes deep into the galaxy.  Unfortunately they lost control and the Sun exploded into a red giant and, just as quickly, collapsed into a white dwarf.  The Humans had failed and destroyed the solar system of their origin in the process.  In some ways it had been fortunate for the Humans that they had been at a state of technological advancement that had not yet entirely secured their place as the dominant species in the local cluster, and therefore they had kept Earth a closely guarded secret – just in case.  When it had been destroyed all they had to do was delete the evidence that it had ever been there to begin with.  With no place of origin the Humans pretended that they had always existed so that they could emphasise their God-like status among the less advanced sentient species, and after a few centuries they had all but convinced themselves of it too.

The Progs, however, could remember Earth.  The stories of how their ancestors had left Earth and started a new civilisation away from other Humans had lasted for thousands of years.  They could remember when they were treated as equals by the other Humans – when they were other Humans.  Just because they had evolved on a different planet with different conditions and made slower advances in science they had become a race to be ridiculed while their cousins became a dominant elite.  Commander Jacobs had brought his crew to the Sol System to remind himself and his crew that the dominant elite were, in fact, fallible.
“Take a good look ladies and gentlemen; this is where we came from.  This is where we all came from.”

4
The Voyager 4 spacecraft dropped out of Alcubierre space at precisely the moment it was supposed to.  Its onboard sensors slowly warmed up as they came online and scanned the surrounding space.  It simultaneously began to broadcast what it had calculated to be its current location in relation to Sol back through the Alcubierre rip – the transdimensional hole caused by re-entry into normal space – before it quickly snapped shut as if it had never been there.  When the scans for nearby life came back negative the main engine began to heat up, and in an instant Voyager 4 was back on its way hurtling through Alcubierre space.


5
“We’ve been sat here long enough.  Prepare the engines for FTL, Ensign.   Lieutenant, I want scans on every single bubble we come across – we’re due a message and I don’t want to miss it.  Major, calculate probable vectors our message in a bottle would have used, based on the old charts we...,” Commander Jacobs paused for a moment, “...acquired.”
The crew quickly got to work inputting commands into the ship computer and checking and rechecking equations.  The Heracles’ engines came online in a moment and the Major’s calculations appeared on the Ensign’s display.  A quick tap to confirm them and the ship lurched into motion and headed away from the system at faster-than-light speed.

All four people sat on the bridge of the Heracles understood the implications of what they hoped to find.  Prior to the colonisation of New World a fourth Voyager craft, equipped with an Alcubierre Drive, was sent out from Earth.  It had information on all of Earth history up to that point stored in its memory banks.  It had been thought to have crashed on its voyage thousands of years ago but Commander Jacobs had picked up a peculiar transmission whilst on his previous assignment on the Terran Space Fleet cruiser Titan.  The transmission was weak and much of it had been lost in the transdimensional space but enough had made it through to catch Jacobs’ attention.  He had uploaded the data to his neural pad before removing the message from the Titan’s mainframe.  As soon as he was groundside he and three officers under his command stole the Heracles from the ship yard and began to search for Voyager 4 and the full transmission, and proof of the true origin of the Humans.

6
A green light began to flash on and off as the siren wailed.  Private Joheness awoke at once.  It took him a moment to realise where he was after dreaming about being at home with his wife but, soon enough, he had his bearings and was reading the text scrolling across his retinal display.  Command had been right – the Heracles had dropped out of orbit and triggered outpost 17D’s alarm.  Joheness trained the aft camera on the vessel in orbit around the Sun and began recording.  He watched for almost 10 minutes as it slowly circled around the star in darkness before powering up and jumping back out of the system.  The outpost’s equipment automatically scanned for the outbound vector and attached the data to the file that would be forwarded to command for further analysis.  Joheness typed up a short report on the Heracles’ activity, attached the recording to the file alongside the vector data and sent the folder to headquarters.

7
“Commander, I’ve got something on long range.  It’s a radio frequency consistent with 26th century transmission technology.  The stamp on it also suggests it was sent by Voyager 4; given what we know about the craft.”
“Good.  Try and get as much of the message as you can.  I want to know where that ship is and where it’s going before it knows itself.” 
“Receiving coordinates now, Sir.  Sending them to you, Ensign.”
“Fantastic work.  Set a course to take us on that heading immediately, Ensign.  We won’t catch it on this break but if we’re quick we might make the next one.”
Commander Jacobs felt an excitement he hadn’t felt in a long time.  He had seen Human after Human get promoted past him even though he had always been better at his job than them.  Perfect marks in all his tests at the Academy and he still only left as a Private. 80% was enough for a Human to start off as a Corporal or even in some rare cases, a Sergeant.  It had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth as he saluted to those he had scored higher than and beaten to the finish line.  He’d never have to do that again.  Tomorrow he would have Voyager 4 and with it he would crumble the Human Empire.

8
As Voyager 4 dropped into normal space for the second time that day it found itself unable to transmit through the Alcubierre Rip.  The signal was crossing the event horizon of the short-living anomaly, but it was being bounced back as if there was a wall on the other side of the hole.  A second later the rip expanded tenfold and a Terran Space Fleet  vessel with the word ‘Heracles’ painted on the side of it hurtled out.  Before Voyager’s engine could heat up for the next jump it was scooped into the port fighter bay of the larger ship and disabled.  After being tampered with by something that was obviously intelligent, the craft shut down all its non-essential functions and ejected its memory core safe in the knowledge that its mission had been completed.

9
“Show me exactly what we’ve just picked up,” Commander Jacobs said quietly to his second in command.  
“Linking the systems now.  Here we are, it should be coming up on screen...now.”
All four crewmen watched the display in awe as text and pictures describing evolution on Earth showed up on the screen.  The history of the planet – how it was once a ball of molten rock formed by the agglomeration of planetesimals which came from gas and dust that surrounded the newly born Sol, how the moon was made from part of the Earth’s mantle that had been blasted into orbit when the planet was hit by a large protoplanet, how cometary bombardment and volcanic activity had created the atmosphere and oceans, and most importantly, how all life that originated from Earth, including Humans, had evolved from single cell organisms in an environment no Human could ever survive in.
“This is it.  We’ve got it.”  Commander Jacobs could hardly believe the amount of data they had found that proved the Humans account of their history was false.  He spoke slowly and deliberately so he could more easily retain his composure.  “Ensign, take us to Terran Space Fleet Command; we need to speak to the council.”

10
The gigantic letters “T.S.F.C” decorated the southern wall of the colossal Terran Space Fleet Command building.  The larger of the binary stars around which the urban planet, Eden, orbited was about to set.  On the lower floors of the building people were getting ready to leave for the night while others were just starting their shifts.  The council members had been on their way home when they had been called back for an emergency session.

Thellm, one of the few non-Human council members, took his seat in the shallow sea of people.  He noticed a Progressed Commander standing on the podium in the centre of the large, suspended hall so that he was at the same level as the council members.  The chamber had been designed to be intimidating for anyone stood on the pedestal.  Thellm wondered what had been so important that it warranted bringing everyone back right away rather than being postponed until the morning.  Then the Progressed began to speak.  At first all he spoke about was the history of some planet named Earth.  Thellm had never heard of Earth before and his attention began to wander.  He heard phrases such as dust, gasses, agglomeration, meteor bombardment and others mentioned but didn’t know what context they were being used in; nor did he really care.  The man went on to say something about the planet being 500 Kelvin and having a thick, mostly CO2 atmosphere that was about 30 or 40 times the standard comfortable pressure for Humans.  Also that microscopic prebiotic particles arrived in vast quantities, but that wasn’t so special – prebiotic particles arrived on every planet in the Empire from tails of comets.  What really irritated Thellm was that all of this happened just under four billion years ago.  Had he really been called back to receive a Progressed’s history lesson on some insignificant planet?

Only when the lecturer mentioned the emergence of life on this planet did Thellm’s attention return.   Up to this point it hadn’t been mentioned, or at least Thellm hadn’t heard, that this Earth planet was in the habitable zone of its system.  If it was in the habitable zone, and if it had been four billion years since the harsh conditions the Progressed had spoken of, then by now it was entirely possible that a sentient species had evolved there.  With this realisation Thellm sat forward in his seat and began to listen intently to the talk.  A noisy shuffle in the hall indicated that everybody else did the same.  Perhaps the life on this planet would join the Empire.  A new race would surely be very exciting.

*

“By this time bacteria were multiplying in the oceans and did so until approximately seven hundred million years ago when multicelular organisms began to appear.  Over the next one hundred million years jellyfish and trilobites made an appearance too.  Four hundred million years ago stromatolites had multiplied into such massive quantities that the CO2 in the atmosphere had largely been replaced with oxygen, and an ozone layer was created that allowed arthropods to crawl out of the seas without being destroyed by the harsh Ultra Violet radiation from the Sun.”
Commander Jacobs could sense that the council members were paying more attention to him since he had mentioned life evolving on Earth.  Good.  He had one shot at exposing the Humans for what they really were and he wanted to make his story as plausible as possible.  If a sufficient number of the alien races on the council were hooked by his recount of history then hopefully they would search deep enough into the Humans’ past and see that he was telling the truth.
“Now that it was safe for plants and animals to live on land, forests sprung up all over.  These provided food for animals that would leave the water.  The arthropods inhabited the forests.  Fish from the seas evolved to use their fins and gills as legs and lungs so that they could survive on land rather than in the water.  These evolved into reptiles such as turtles and lizards which, in turn, evolved into the dinosaurs – the dominant species on Earth for one hundred and eight five million years until they were wiped out by a cataclysmic meteor strike.  The cometary dust thrown into the stratosphere blocked out the sun for over a year causing plants to be incapable of photosynthesis.  With plants unable to photosynthesise they died and hence so did everything that fed on them.
When the dust had settled the dinosaurs had perished, allowing the mammals that had survived underground by eating roots and grains to come back to the surface and take over.”

*

A murmur ran through the council hall as the Progressed stated that mammals had become the dominant species.  Humans were mammals.  As the speaker continued to talk about the Tarsiers and the Lemurs that had evolved on Earth fifty million years ago, Thellm’s retinal display flashed on and showed images of the two animals.  Their faces almost looked Human.  Next up came an image of an ape, then another that was stood more upright and holding something in its hand, then another stood more upright still and with a larger head that obviously housed a larger brain.
More images showed on Thellm’s retinal display, each one of apes that looked more and more human until the final image in the set.  This one was of two almost hairless apes stood next to each other and completely upright, with heads that could fit a more sophisticated brain that was three times larger than the ape in the first image.  The two images began to rotate and morph.  The one on the right morphed into a generic looking Progressed.  Alone, all this would imply is that Progresseds evolved from ape like creatures similar to ones found on Earth.   However, the other image, the one on the left, morphed into what was unmistakably the image of a Human.

*

Commander Jacobs delivered the final words of his speech very deliberately and very precisely.
“So you see, council members of the other races, the proof is here.  The Humans encoded this data for aliens to find and now I invite you to find it.  They have not always existed as they so confidently proclaim.  They evolved from the same primordial soup as the Progressed, adapting to better survive in particular environments over a finite amount of time just like us, and just like all of you!”

Uproar.

Epilogue
Jacobs scraped his index finger across the scanner so it could read his unique DNA to confirm his identity.   A green LED lit up and the Senior Chief Petty Officer on duty gave him a nod.  At the end of the corridor an alien was waiting.
“Welcome back to the universe, Jacobs,” said Thellm, “I think you’ll find a lot has changed while you’ve been in prison.  Your speech had quite an impact.  When the clusters found out that Humans were nothing more than what they could potentially one day become, hundreds of races left the Empire.  Too many for the Humans to even begin to stop.  What remains of the Empire is totally reformed.  Every race is independent of the Humans and can advance at its own rate.  Of course in reality every race has inherited the Humans level of technology so there is no longer an unopposable species at the top of the hierarchy; in fact there is no longer a hierarchy.  We’re all equal.”
“That’s all I could have hoped for,” Jacobs said with a slight grin, “equality.”
“What will you do now?”
“I supposed I’ll rejoin the Fleet.  I’m sure there’s a lot for the military to do now everyone can walk on their own feet.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Thellm replied.  “Since you were discharged by a biased party I have been given special permission to give you this.”
Jacobs let his eyes travel over the piece of metal he was being presented with.
“Thank you,” he stuttered in disbelief.
“Not a problem at all.  Congratulations, Jacobs.  For the work you carried out on exposing the Humans and discovering the history of evolution on Earth, I hereby promote you to the Terran Space Fleet rank of Admiral.” 

PeOpLe On TeH iNtErNeT,

I have just received this email:

"Dear James,

Temporary Clerical Assistant Accommodation.

I wish to thank you for your application for the above post.  Due to the large number of applications for this we have just completed short-listing.

I am sorry on this occasion you have not been unsuccessful in your application.  However, may I take this opportunity to wish you luck in finding suitable employment shortly.

Regards,

Geraldine"

 
It clearly states that my application was not unsuccessful.  Now, if MATH111-Logic has taught me anything, it's that  

not not successful = successful.  

Of course I realise from the rest of the message that two wrongs don't make a right and I didn't get the job.  However, just in case it was a test to make sure only the best people were offered the placement, I replied to point out the mistake.  A minute later I had another email at the top of my inbox telling me that it should indeed have said "not successful". 
Not put off by this I asked for a job as a proofreader.  
This was the reply:

"Hi James,

I like your style, I was just in such a hurry don’t like to keep people hanging on to long for an answer!

I really do wish you all the best in finding something shortly.

Best wishes,

Geraldine"

It should probably say "too long". 

This is a Fab lolly.

I walked about 10 miles on Saturday to, around and back from Williamson Park.  SSAGO had a trip out to do orienteering and I decided to tag along for a day out and an excuse to avoid revision.  It was really good and our group finished first out of the non-cheating groups.  It was a lovely day for walking around the park too; much nicer than the last time I went with the boat club and had to run around for two hours in the freezing wind, rain and hail. The only bad thing was the fact my headphones have broken so I couldn't listen to my audiobook while I was making my way there. 

The revision avoidance continued through Sunday when I was busy with laundry, tidying my room, not getting gassed in my room from all the chemicals I'd used to make the bathroom sparkle, and a nice midday nap.  To make up for it I did a full day of work on Monday, although that was only because I was so stuck on the maths homework I decided to make some revision cards instead. 

High school seemed like such a blur.

I've just had a chicken sandwich for dinner.  Sainsbury's Basics chicken.  It is 61% chicken.  The next two most abundant ingredients are water and chicken skin.  Yummy.  It has the same texture as that plastic cheese you can get.  Fortunately I remembered the leftover apple pie afterwards so I've been left with a nice taste in my mouth. 

My laptop just tried to commit suicide.  All the windows I had open flashed up and then closed, before the machine restarted itself to install updates.  I wish it had given me some warning.  I'd better not do any work in case it happens again; I don't want to lose anything. 

I've got a UAAA lecture in half an hour and then after that we need to go and put our groups project object in the room it needs to be in so it can be marked next week.  We also need to retrieve the tennis ball Elizabeth has painted planet colours and somehow try to stop the star from rolling off the board when it's tilted. 

Apple Pie.

Our Wednesday afternoon trip into town for a bit of exercise turned into a proper food shop.  The bags were very heavy.  My fingers hurt because somebody forgot to bring the bent plastic handle things again. 

The Statistics lecture was boring as ever.  We don't seem to be learning anything.  This is made obvious when it comes to the homework that only people who took A-level Stats seem to be able to do.  I was very close to getting the right answer on my own though; if only I'd used 'x' instead of 'p' I'd have had it. 
The Series lecture was just difficult. 

My lab group met up after lectures to get the project done in 45 minutes.  Once again Scott just started typing and then, when he was soon done, it worked perfectly.  I'm rather glad he's in the same group as me because I didn't have a clue what was happening. 

Now I have to get to my workshop.  It's the one I missed last week because I was in the queue to vote.  Seems like ages have passed since then. 

Thursday.

I had the final lab100 quiz of the year this morning.  It was the hardest one yet but most of it was still doable.  It helps that my friends all have their quizzes before I have mine so they can tell me their answers.  At least then I can have a decent guess if I get completely stuck on a question.  I usually just go for it on my own though because my friends aren't exactly whiz kids when it comes to 'R' code. 

My two Tuesday morning lectures were fairly uneventful beyond being told twice that the end of module test for Series will be at 10pm.  Still, I think I'll turn up early for the 10am lecture just in case.  The UAAA seminar time was spent watching and listening to presentations by the three groups that didn't have chance to go last week.  The first one was full of information and was well presented, but it suffered from the same problem as every other group (apart from mine) in that the people giving the presentation were reading it straight from the sheet in front of them.  Hopefully there will be big marks for groups that clearly know the subject well enough not to need a preplanned speech to read directly from.  If so then ours is looking even better.  On the other hand the first group of today did speak clearly and the whole thing fit well into the time allowed despite being 40ish minutes in the practice two weeks ago. 

The next group up was quite terrible in my opinion.  They spoke very briefly about exoplanets before showing us a short video that they had made.  The idea was that a guy wants to learn about exoplanets by visiting one.  Obviously limited to the university and its surroundings, it ended up being 10 minutes of a random guy who isn't even in their group (or on the UAAA course as far as I'm aware) sitting in a bathroom talking to a MacBook that had the iTunes visualiser on full screen, then a tiny cardboard box spinning around as if it was trying to be a TARDIS, and finally the random guy being amazed at trees, ducks and pigeons in front of the Fylde Statistics building.  The one thing that did make me smile was the part when they asked what aliens might look like and then showed some extraterrestrial creatures from Hollywood along with a picture of the guy, Matt, from their group.  He didn't look out of place among pictures of ET and the like.  However, in my opinion, one funny second of video wasn't enough to make up for the lack of science and general correctness in the whole presentation. 

The final group was slightly better, but only slightly.  Of the three people, only one spoke and he sounded very nervous to be stood up talking in front of about 15 classmates whom he has never been too shy to speak in front of when sat down at the back of the room.  The other two people did no more than click for the next slide and hold up a representation of atoms at different stages of a nuclear fusion reaction. 

Overall it was an hour that could have been spent on breakfast but I'm glad I went to the seminar just to see how much better my group was.