There, I've been brave and put my new passport photo in the sidebar. Everyone expects passport photos to be awful, so if I look bad it's the booth's fault. Okay? I mean, it's one of those funky booths where you say "no" if you don't like it and it takes the picture again. Great idea, except that it always gives up on me. I suppose if it didn't limit the amount of times you could do it, some people (like me) would be in there all day. Drat.

Anyway, I had passport photos done because I'll soon need some. Not for a passport, but because I'm going back to University. For those of you who don't know, I have a degree (BA) in Archaeology. After a two year break to make some money, I'm going back to do a Masters degree (MA) in Professional Archaeological Practice! And I need the photos for library cards and the like.

This is also why it's taken me so long to blog. I moved back to Leicester, so it took a while to get the internet set up, then I had other stuff to do, and to top it all blogger wouldn't work yesterday. I was in the middle of editing it when it went down, which is why the sidebar had half changed. (Not that anyone would have noticed that!)

I wanted to blog yesterday because it was talk like a pirate day! Arr. Shiver me timbers. Splice the mainbrace. (Splice?!) It would have been hard to say all this in pirate talk, I suppose. Aye, t'would be most difficult. Arr.

I never even had the chance to say, "You fight like a dairy farmer!", or "Soon you will be wearing my sword like a shish kebab!". Drat...

Okay, if I'm honest, blogging would have occurred sooner had I not bought Max Payne. Yeah, I was addicted to it a while back, but I never finished it. I was on the last level, but I never finished it. And since I had to leave John and his PS2 behind, I had no option but to buy it! And it ran beautifully on my lovely Medion Aldi laptop (many keywords there, since people keep arriving here looking for info on those fantastic bargain computers!) Brian. Which was a surprise. (The games I want to play almost never work...!)

I've finished it now, just in case you were wondering. :D

I keep looking for a decent Max Payne community to hang around in. Something that's not so much playing the game, since I'll probably never try it on the harder settings. The reason I love the game so much isn't because I love playing it (although I do, this is kind of hard to explain!). I love it because I love the story. I love the way it's done. Hmmm... I think it would make a fantastic film. I think it would make some great fanfics!

But I still have that Stargate story I haven't finished, so you needn't worry about terrible Max Payne fics any time soon...!

I'm going to get weird now. Bear with me.

Max Payne is a great character. I love him. I love him!?! Aaargh, I start off saying I've never dated and then I talk about loving characters made of pixels. Would it be better if I found out the bloke's name that they based him on? Or the voice actor? No, I'd be an evil stalker. And it wouldn't be him. He's fictional! Ack. But people fall in love with actors all the time, and they're not falling in love with the person. Are they? They know nothing about the person. I know lots about Max Payne. And they've no chance of ever getting with the person, so having an emotional attachment to pixels isn't so bad.

It's not the same sort of love as human love. It's just that he's so cool...!

Ali's hiding in my cupboard. She's amusing. In a good way. That sounded patronising. You see, there are different levels of normality. Some people hide in cupboards. Some people have emotional attachments to people made of pixels.

Oh, and I'm not looking for a "I want to marry Max Payne" club. I'd like to straighten that out. :p

Hmm... It was nice to read that James has the same non-existent lovelife that I do, and I'd like to accept his offer of a date (if he ever travels halfway around the world and has nothing else he'd rather do!). But I don't expect him to agree with me on the pixel person thing.

Would I date Max Payne? I doubt it. Even if he was real.

Would I like to leap around the house pretending to be Max Payne? Well, maybe.

The end of the game said the pain had only just begun. I can't wait. :D