Maybe some points of interest. Maybe not.

I'm more awake at night.  I'm also more talkative at night.  So why does the internet feel the need to shut down at this moment?  My wit is spewing out in all directions like a teenager's first puking session after a steady course of alcohol, and there's no-one to listen to my pearls.  It's like my sociablilty smells or something.  (If it's anything like my physical state of recent, I'm not far off.)
So as I'm sitting in a state of wanting to talk to people who aren't there (A well documented phenomena actually) it hits me.  I should play Fallout!
5 minutes in and it crashes.
"Fair enough, it's not known for being the most stable game" I think, as I boot up another session, remembering to save regularly.
10 minutes later, it crashes.
On next boot up, it does the same when I get to the same area.  (Canterbury Commons.)

And so ends the story of how I ended up closing the game, remembering not to blame the Vault Dweller (Dizturbd ^_^), and typing the first thoughts into my head on here.  You're welcome.

Also on tonight's agenda, chatrooms.  Lately, it's been Gamernook, and Lycos, in an attempt to kill some time and talk to strangers about crap, since doing it on the street gets you weird looks.  Especially if you're pantless like I am during the majority of my PC time.
Why is it that when I was younger, and more socially retarded, I found it easier to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger?  Nowadays, I can barely talk to the other lines of text.
While we're on the topic of younger, why are summers so bad now?
I remember when they were great, and there was never a moment of boredom.  Now I'm lucky to find something to entertain myself with.
And this was before I started playing games all day long.
What the crap did I do all day?!

On a side note (i.e. bugger all to do with anything in the history of everything) I now have a purple mop!  Read: hair.  Though I do now want a purple mop.

Thoughts from a thinker.

- Getting the 'Explorer' perk in Fallout 3 is the best thing I've ever done.

- For an apocolyptic wasteland, there sure are a lot of places I need to go to.

- Thanks to Fallout, my left hand goes to 'WASD' and 'V' by default.

- I need a larger MP3 player.  Squeezing 60GB of music onto 4GB of space leads to a lot getting cast away.

- It's also VERY boring to go through each album to see what's worthy.

- It's also very boring going through each album, correcting all tags.

- When I'm bored, I tend to get sociable.  A huge disadvantage, since my usual source of boredom is no-one to talk to.

- I've found that chat rooms scare me, but I just can't...stop...watching.

Boy, do I have some stories to tell you

Actually, i don't.  Otherwise I would have said something since umpteen years ago.
Today's excuse for silence: Monkey Island.

"But faithful internet blogger!" I hear you shriek."This is 2009.  The age of point and click is long dead."
"So's your face!" I cry, and I penetrate it with the closest sharp thing to hand. (Some sort of broadsword I'm hoping.)

Hopefully, you'd see this as less of a violation of my parole, and more of a way to try to explain that point and click adventure games are still going strong, just not getting the recognition they deserve. 

This summer has seen the revival of the Monkey Island series, 9 years after Escape From Monkey Island in 2000, and a remake of the original Secret of Monkey Island.  First off, we have Telltale's take on the Monkey Island series with Tales of Monkey Island.  Telltale like to release their adventure games in episodes, rather than one full game, with each episode being a fraction of the price of a retail game.  In my case, each episode was about £5, with the entire 5 episode series coming to about £22.   The episodic nature worked with Sam & Max, so I was eager to place my pre-order a month early, and spend the 6th July cooped up in my room, sleeping, ready to endlessly click the refresh button all of next day on Telltale's website. 
And that I did.
For 5 hours.  (Those real-life friends have a habit of dragging me outside when I'm busiest, otherwise it would have been double figures.)

During these 5 hours I took a trip to the forums.  Expecting to see a few fans like myself, hoping to relive some of the magic from our youth, I saw a massive amount of users ready to download and play the new Monkey Island game.  I'd never knew the genre still had this much life within it's fan-base.  Ironically, this 'life' caused the website to crash a lot and caused the forums to go down for maintenance. 

The wait was worth it.  Though LucasArts has little to do with the game they made famous, Ron Gilbert made a couple of trips to Telltale's studios to make sure they stuck to the old Monkey Island ways we fell in love with.  The first episode, in my eyes, was a hit and I loved every second of it.  The game took me 4 hours to complete, with the puzzles being challenging, but easy enough to spot the obvious solution with a little thought.  Hopefully the difficulty curve will increase as usual to make the next few games as awesome.
Dominic Armato continues his voice over to ToMI to voice Guybrush Threepwood, a fact which made me bring out my credit card ready to pre-order before I even realised what was going on.  He does, yet again, a brilliant job at capturing the charm and wit of Guybrush.

Next we have The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.  A remake of the original game in 1990, with updated graphics and voice overs.  Once again, Dominic is there to take us through the Tri-Island area,hoping to be the next mighty pirate.  A clever feature of the game is the way you can press a button and it will digress to the original game, a-la pixels and crosshair.  This makes for an easy comparison between the games, and I find myself switching between each just to compare animations and scenery. 
The puzzles are the same as the original game, but now there's an added hint system.  On the PC version, press 'H', and you get a handy tip on screen.  This helps in some cases (as I found myself earlier) where I just couldn't figure out a solution to a puzzle, and didn't want to check a walkthrough for fear of spoiling a later puzzle. 

Away from the Monkey Island series, we also had Sam and Max season one hitting Xbox Live recently.  Though I've not played the Xbox version, I have played the PC version, and recommend the series to anyone who hasn't played either.  The humour of the game is on par with Sam and Max: Hit the Road.  That is to say, hilarious. 

All in all, I'm loving the recent revival of a genre that doesn't get nearly enough acclaim as it should.
You can stick with your Halos and your Calls of Duty.  I'm sticking with my three headed monkeys and funny haired pirates.

The big room with the bright light is getting warmer

So yesterday I was persuaded to venture outside into public.  Into sunlight nonetheless.  The occasion?  Playing cards in the park. (I won.)
So now it's sunny again today, and I can't help but want to go out again.  As each sun-filled day passes, I can feel an ounce of geek leaving me.  Thankfully, I woke up to realise I now had all Dragonball episodes downloaded.  That's Dragonball, Dragonball Z, and Dragonball GT.  If uit wasn't for an assignment deadline in a week, I'd be watching it and pretending they never made a live-action movie.  I've not seen it yet, but I'm not getting my hopes up.  At the best, I'm hoping it'll spunk all over my childhood's face, instead of the violent anal penetration I'm expecting.  More on this when I get a new bank card delivered, thereby having access to my money again.  (I may have been a little drunk and lost it the other night.)

I just found a site called GamerNook, a social networking site for gamers.  So far, the only annoying part has been adding my games collection to my profile.  I've had to do this once before for a Facebook application, so I wasn't too enthusiastic about it.  I've missed out my N64, Megadrive, and PS2 collection, which I'll finish when I can be bothered.  Apparently it's meant to make it easier to find people to play online with, so if you make an account look for me.

My place really does suck

So I live in a little slice of heaven affectionately called 'The Moose'.  Reason?  Because it's the name of the place.  Duh.
Anyway, this house isn't well known for it's healthy drinking water.  One more than one occasion I've taken a glass, and had the water contained turned nearly opaque due to the 'things' in it.  The only way to get the water to an acceptable drinkable level, apart from moving, is to let the tap run for a few seconds prior to glass-filling.  Over Christmas holidays, a housemate left a bottle of water on the side, and returned 3 weeks later to a sight which can only be described as 'icky'  Mould balls had formed, and were bobbing up and down the bottle.  Sadly, he wouldn't drink it.  Even for science.

Why do I bring this up?

I was searching through a cupboard in my room back at home (The home with the people who gave birth to me) and found a bag I'd used for camping.  "Awesome" I said, as no-one was awake to tell me to stop talking to myself.  I need a tent for a week in June, so looked inside to see if I had one.  I realy can't remember what was in there.  The last time it was opened was about two years ago.  On the top of the bag, a bottle of water.  It had been in there for two years, and it was clear.  If I hadn't have just taken it out of this bag, I would consider drinking it.  (Again, for science) 

So a bottle of Moose water is left for two weeks, and grows mould.
A bottle of Liverpool water is left for two years in a bag in a small cupboard in a warm room, and it's fine.

Is my water really that bad?

Here he goes again

It's bad when you get writer's block.  It's worse to get it when you're not a writer, barely update a half decent blog, and should really have a lot more to talk about.  This is one of those 'worse' moments.  But, I'm bored and after reading some other websites, I'm inspired.  Either that or 'creeped-out'.  Note to self: Cleanse browser history.  With fire.

I've not got a topic handy, since when I go to ask people for something to talk about they always answer with the same thing:
"Where are your pants?  How the hell did you get in here?  I'm calling the police!"

Really, if you can't ask random strangers for advice in the comfort of their own home, our society is doomed. 

While I'm on the topic of destryoing society,  the internet has a new corner to annoy the rest of mankind.
Omegle.
My first experience was a stranger asking 'Cyber?'  Instant dislike alert.
Give it a go.  You may enjoy it, you may end up shutting off your PC in the hopes of never contacting another human being ever.

Funnily enough, this is what /b/ makes me feel like anyway.

Thoughts from the morning

- I should do this more often. It's like updating my Facebook, but I don't feel like a social whore by updating it every 2 minutes to tell people I just farted.

- I just farted.

- I'm regretting turning on that fan and pointing it in my general direction.

- I can't decide whether I want to spend £10+ on the GTAIV expansion. Does anyone want to give me the money for it?

- Why not? You got a problem with giving me money for nothing, arsehole?

- I should really play Sam & Max Hit The road again. It was such a great game, and I have the CD next to me, but it takes up both screens, and I cba to figure out how to change it to windowed mode, or if that's even possible.

- As of tonight, I've (nearly) completed two assignments. Suck it, time!

- I should really iron out the kinks in my code before declaring it as finished. Memory leaks are Satan spawn. But replacing variables to fit with a style guide is tedious as hell.

- I'd probably get more marks and have a better chance of passing the year if i didn't do this sort of thing at 6am, or stay on StumbleUpon until stupid O' clock.

- I should design a clock with stupid O' clock on it.

How to survive the zombie apocolype.

We all know it's going to happen. But will you survive? According to totally legit leading sources, which may or may not be movies and video games, no. Apparently only 1% of the human race know what to do in this situation. (According to the internet and how many blog posts are similar to this, it's more like 40%. Good going, internet!) After a good few hours on Left 4 Dead, and a childhood growing up with Resident Evil (sadly, including the films), I'm more than clued up on the facts. Gather round children, it's storytime.

Warriors > Everything.

People like swords. Why? Because you get to hit shit. In a zombie apocolypse, the same rule applies. After seeing your family, friends, or maybe even your favourite goldfish succumb to the wrath of the zombie hordes, it's a lot more satisfying to give the thing a wallop around the head than to stand a few feet away, aim, fire, and probably miss. Melee means no ammo. Melle means no jamming. Melee means punching a zombie in the face. For bonus points, try and get a still breathing friend to take a picture of said act. You can share it with your diminished friends list of Facebook once this has all blown over. If you think this may significantly lower your chances of survival then you may want an ordinary baseball bat or something sharp.

Dibs!

If you see something which may be useful, take it. All those years of adventure games will come in handy. You'll feel like you really were on your way to Monkey Island with all this stuff tucked away in your pants, waiting for the right opportunity to use it. Note: What you take is up to you. This guide cannot be held responsible for you chopping off your love-meat because you had the bright idea to put a knife next to your gonads for safe-keeping.
Go to B&Q or somewhere similar, and ransack the place. You'll be glad you took that lawnmower when you see the zombies gathering around the shop. Plus, that is another chance for an awesome photo.

Screw the carbon footprint.

For some reason, a few people tend to leave their cars along the side of the road when they realise the only bridge out of town has been blocked off. Be the smart one. If it still runs, drive it. You may not be heading out of town due to the aformentioned blockade, but it'll sure give you a ton of weight to mow down the undead with. If you're not old enough to drive, who cares. It's not like the law enforcement left will be bothered about the underage kid driving when there's a creature trying to chew his ear off. On the off chance there is, beat him and pretend you thought he was a zombie.
Also learn how to tap petrol from another car. Most petrol stations will be dried out, but there may still be some juice left in that scrapheap the mother and daughter died in. Don't worry about respect for the dead. They're not using it.

Home sweet hovel.

Stay away from cities. It may seem obvious, but there are a lot of people who'll stay to die where they were born. if you've read this far, hopefully you aren't one of them. Find a way out of town and to a quiet area. Contradictory, many others may have already thought of this, and are seeking refuge in the countryside. In this case, find a quiet part of town, left the undead army follow them, then forget everything I just said and take shelter here. If you want to make it more than a day, you'll need a place to sleep. Find a large building, stay a few floors up, and destroy the stairs. I'm certain you're not in a hurry to leave, so stock up beforehand. If there's someone in your group you think can be 'let go' if you still need food, let him/her runs down to the nearest shop, and devise a system of pulleys, where the food can be placed in a basket and brought up. Don't worry about the friend getting back up. No-one really liked them anyway, right? Watching them scream and jump, attracting 'friendly visitors', might give you something to laugh at in this bland wasteland. Which brings me to my next point:

Entertainment.

Ok, the section title was nothing special, but it fitted with the outing sentence of the previous paragraph. Go English language! With the rest of the world on standby, the internet might be a little boring. 4Chan might be a little repetative, with the zombies incapable of speech or human emotion spouting rubbish incomprehensable to the rest of society. Actually, nothing's really changed on that front. Sure, there may be a few small blogs cropping up telling people of their plights and where the nearest safehouse is, but between saving friends and looking at porn, I doubt many will have enough time to update regularly. Your best bet is to get out a good ol' board game, or if electricity isn't an issue, find a good game to play. Constantly. Though I'd stay away from FPS's. Many of them include some sort of zombie, and you really shouldn't bring your work home with you.

People.

Think of four people. The first four that crop into your head. Done? Good, because they should be the four you travel with. Hopefully you weren't thinking of supermodels, or that girl on the internet who you're pretty sure is a girl, and who really likes that picture of you from 4 years ago, before you got all those spots or got a tattoo on your face. Hopefully you thought of people you can trust, people who are good with weapons, and people you can tolerate for months on end. Stay small, since it's easier to travel. That car you took earlier would get pretty cramped with any more people following you. Stick with these people, and make no attempt to go searching for that partner or mother. Pretend they're dead, and follow the above rules. The second you leave to find your long lost love, you'll get bitten. Then you'll spend your last few minutes questioning whether or not she was really worth it, which kind of brings a downer to the whole relationship.

Hopefully this guide should be nothing you're unfamiliar with. If that's the case, I'll see you when we've found a way to make them our slaves. Hopefully, I'll have all those photos of zombie punching and videos of screaming friends uploaded by then.

This happens too often

I'm usually awake at 6am again, so I may as well have a place for all those strange thoughts to go again.  Just a sampler over the past few days:

- I joined Netlog for some strange reason.  Deleted my account about a year ago, but out of sheer boredom I crawled back.  Under the heading 'What do you want from netlog' or something similar, it had radio buttons with 'Friends', 'Relationships', or 'Networking'.  Now networking had two other sub-options, one of which I can't remember.  But the other one was called 'Job Search'.  Who the hell is searching for a job on freaking Netlog?!  Sign up (or just look around) to see what I mean. 

- Hats are awesome.  You disagree, and we have a problem.

- My 'friends' are idiots.  Not my actual friends.  Those people you add on Facebook because you have the same therapist or found out that they, too, share a fondness for bananas.  Every other word is 'lol', which is reason enough to hate them, and their comments are unreadable and uninteresting.  Maybe I should start deleting people.

- Finnish metal + Sub woofer in your chair + Lots of bass = Cheap massage chair!

I'm online again!

Today marked the day I bought a year's subscription to Xbox Live. If you've not added me already, do so.
Gamertag: Dizturbd666
I get bored easily.
Quick post as I have other things to do. Expect something insightful soon!