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Welcome to SpaCeMonKeY UK, the blog of Helen Wells (nee Berrington, aka FieryFred) since 2002.
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Thursday, February 27

So... SETI@home.

I've now completed a total of 15 workunits. This has taken a total of 439 hours 35 minutes.

9 of these units were completed on my old computer, taking an average of 45 hours each.

6 of these units have been completed since Saturday, taking an average of 7 hours 30 minutes each.

Unit 1: 9 hours 26 minutes
Unit 2: 7 hours 31 minutes
Unit 3: 7 hours 17 minutes
Unit 4: 6 hours 31 minutes
Unit 5: 7 hours 08 minutes
Unit 6: 6 hours 32 minutes

My total CPU time amounts to 2 weeks 5 days.

I have discovered 0 aliens.

Odd, that. *grin*


Monday, February 24

Kept meaning to post the link to this Make Tea Not War photo. And now I've done it! Time for great rejoicing. :D


That SETI workunit only took 7hrs 31m. Cool.

In other news, Ainslie's single came out, so I bought that. Woo-hoo!

And was in uni for far too long. I have to try and get my DBA done tomorrow morning so we can put it together on Wednesday. Yikes!

Busy busy busy. :D


Sunday, February 23

Today has been... brain exhausting. I've tried to read two papers for a seminar tomorrow - both about Geographic Information Systems. And I've worked out and typed up a load of stuff for the Desk Based Assessment I'm doing. Panicked slightly because that's due in on Friday and I hadn't done the reading for tomorrow's seminar and... I have an essay due in a week on Friday that I haven't even started. It's a critique, and I've picked a paper that I skim read a few weeks ago, so it shouldn't be too bad. Aaargh, deadlines...

Whenever my brain went completely dead I played Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Didn't do much for my brain, but my heart started beating a bit faster. :)

That was in that pack of games. I quickly became tired of the stupid Sims and their stupid relationship problems. Honestly... I feel a bit daft since I've wanted it for ages and now... now I find one of the games that came with it, that I thought would be awful, is far more entertaining! I like First Person Shooters, although I'm not that good at them. Maybe I'll get better with practice. I did complete Max Payne, after all! I think Jedi Knight is based on the Quake III engine.

Anyway... yesterday I went to the National Space Centre. It was a pretty fun way to spend three hours. (Or something like that.) I especially liked the replica module from the International Space Station. Lots of toggley switches. Woo-hoo! And the cinema show was cool. Mark and Ali were pulling it apart, but I liked it. :)

Mark went all gooey eyed when it came to the bit about SETI@home. I downloaded the pretty version with pictures, even though Mark says it's loads slower. I'm sure there aren't aliens. Maybe I just want to prove there aren't. :)

So... my first work unit took 9hrs 26m. This is a vast improvement on the time it took my old computer to do them - 45hrs (on average). Seeing as I'm running it when I'm doing other (sometimes quite intensive) things, that's not bad. And I do use the blank screensaver option so that it runs faster then. I read instructions.

Oh, Ali thinks I was mean by saying the things about her that I did the other day. The musical taste things. She says she likes Blur. Well, three songs by them. (ONLY THREE?!) And she says she likes The Gorillaz. She'll only have heard the single versions, mind you. I don't think she'd like the album ones. I told her as much.

I keep getting myself into trouble.

*sigh*


Friday, February 21

Someone e-mailed me this so I thought I'd put it on here. The original article can be found here. It's by Terry Jones, one of the Pythons.

I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush

Terry Jones
Sunday January 26, 2003
The Observer

I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq: he's running out of patience. And so am I!

For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is.

As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one.

Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours.

They'll come up with endless red tape and quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a pre-emptive strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr Patel will be secretly murdering people. Since I'm the only one in the street with a decent range of automatic firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace. But until recently that's been a little difficult. Now, however, George W. Bush has made it clear that all I need to do is run out of patience, and then I can wade in and do whatever I want!

And let's face it, Mr Bush's carefully thought-out policy towards Iraq is the only way to bring about international peace and security. The one certain way to stop Muslim fundamentalist suicide bombers targeting the US or the UK is to bomb a few Muslim countries that have never threatened us.

That's why I want to blow up Mr Johnson's garage and kill his wife and children. Strike first! That'll teach him a lesson. Then he'll leave us in peace and stop peering at me in that totally unacceptable way.

Mr Bush makes it clear that all he needs to know before bombing Iraq is that Saddam is a really nasty man and that he has weapons of mass destruction - even if no one can find them. I'm certain I've just as much justification for killing Mr Johnson's wife and children as Mr Bush has for bombing Iraq.

Mr Bush's long-term aim is to make the world a safer place by eliminating 'rogue states' and 'terrorism'. It's such a clever long-term aim because how can you ever know when you've achieved it? How will Mr Bush know when he's wiped out all terrorists? When every single terrorist is dead? But then a terrorist is only a terrorist once he's committed an act of terror. What about would-be terrorists? These are the ones you really want to eliminate, since most of the known terrorists, being suicide bombers, have already eliminated themselves.

Perhaps Mr Bush needs to wipe out everyone who could possibly be a future terrorist? Maybe he can't be sure he's achieved his objective until every Muslim fundamentalist is dead? But then some moderate Muslims might convert to fundamentalism. Maybe the only really safe thing to do would be for Mr Bush to eliminate all Muslims?

It's the same in my street. Mr Johnson and Mr Patel are just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other people in the street who I don't like and who - quite frankly - look at me in odd ways. No one will be really safe until I've wiped them all out.

My wife says I might be going too far but I tell her I'm simply using the same logic as the President of the United States. That shuts her up.

Like Mr Bush, I've run out of patience, and if that's a good enough reason for the President, it's good enough for me. I'm going to give the whole street two weeks - no, 10 days - to come out in the open and hand over all aliens and interplanetary hijackers, galactic outlaws and interstellar terrorist masterminds, and if they don't hand them over nicely and say 'Thank you', I'm going to bomb the entire street to kingdom come.

It's just as sane as what George W. Bush is proposing - and, in contrast to what he's intending, my policy will destroy only one street.


Thursday, February 20

I've had a pretty cool two days, especially post-wise.

Yesterday a huge box filled with bubble wrap arrived in the post! The postman left it on the doorstep, so it was a good job we were in. I mean, if we hadn't been in I doubt the box would have stayed there long! Anyway, the box didn't just have bubble wrap in it. It had some Stargate movie figures that Mr. Geoff Random bought at a Car Boot Sale! I guess I owe him now. Yikes!

There's a death glider, O'Neil, Kawalsky (I think) and the fantastic Anubis Guard (who I like to think of as Ra's First Prime, because obviously the Horus Guards guard all those in the family of Ra. Everyone knows that. Anubis was special. And completely different to the Anubis that's in the series. Just so we're clear on that.) Plus all the odd plastic model gubbins that were packaged with the figures.

The figures always amuse me because they look so little like the actors. O'Neil's not bad, but the others... well. I think my favourite odd figure is the one of Skaara. He looks like Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted. Honestly, he does. If I had the figure here I'd show you!

So now I have lots of figures. I can never remember exactly which. It's like my collection of Star Wars Micro Machines. I have no idea which ones I own. They're all in their packaging hidden in the corner of my room, over a hundred miles away. I took a few out of their boxes and dotted them around the room, but generally I leave things in their packaging. So it's good when I get slightly played with unpackaged figures - I don't have to worry about removing them from the packaging! If you know what I mean. :)

That was rambly. :D

The other cool thing that came in the post yesterday was an issue of Edge. I subscribed to it, you see. This is the first issue since I signed up. It's the most exciting magazine I've found since Amiga Power, and that was a long time ago... It's far more interesting than normal computer magazines because it's sort of an industry publication. It takes me ages to read since I read it so thoroughly!

And today I had things too. Two CD's that I bought on eBay. One was a Sting single, This Cowboy Song. I had the album version, but the single version is the first Sting song I liked. It had Pato Banton doing odd Pato Bantony things on it. I bought the album Fields of Gold because it had a sticker informing me that it had This Cowboy Song on it, but it wasn't the same! So now I own it. It reminds me of Suggs's solo work, though. Specifically it makes me want to say, "Spicier than a Spice Girl". That remark hasn't dated well, has it? Heh... Pretty sure it's from a song called Girl. I could check. Yup, it's that song. But that's someone called General Levy. Let's say it's the same vocal style as Pato Banton's. :)

That Sting album was one of my first CD's. I bought it from WHSmith in 1994. I was one of the first people in my circle of friends to have a CD player. My other first CD's were the Jungle Book soundtrack and Now Dance 1993. I think. Not that it really matters. You get the idea. I can't imagine me buying a Dance CD now. That CD had things on it like All That She Wants by Ace of Base. It seems so long ago...

The other CD that came this morning (because you're so interested) was The Kinks Kontroversy. For some reason, I because interested in The Kinks while I was at university the first time round. In 1997. It was my first year, I was bored, and Dad mentioned that they wrote the same sort of storytelling lyrics as Blur. (Blur can do no wrong in my eyes.) I asked Dad to tape some Kinks songs - he has vinyl albums - but they were all too scratched. When I saw a "best of" album I bought it. Last year I saw The Village Green Preservation Society in a sale, so I bought that. And I figured I should buy more albums, if I saw them cheap. So I have been. I found another one on eBay, too. That hasn't come yet.

I've developed a strict policy in regards to second hand CD's from the internet. I probably shouldn't be buying any of them, but...

Ali keeps being mean about my "obsession" with Sting. Okay, so I want to but all the albums that he released, but what's wrong with that? I want to own all the albums of any band or singer I like. For instance, I own all the Blur albums and all the Divine Comedy albums. And Madness and Suggs. I even have the The Madness album. (The band most of Madness formed when Madness split up.) I could go on. But I won't. Let's just say when I find something I like I want to own everything by that artist.

Personally I think Sting has written some memorable tunes and insightful lyrics. I like to think of myself as a musician, and musically his stuff is spot on. He's experimented with so many musical styles over the years. Not so keen on his country efforts, but there weren't many of those. Plus, he plays the bass, and so do I. :) Yeah, sometimes I want to listen to Apollo 440 or The Gorillaz or something else loud and scary, but I know for a fact Ali wouldn't like those either. She probably wouldn't like it if I played David Bowie. She doesn't even like Blur. There's no way she'd like the jolly Latvian band Brainstorm.

I was beginning to doubt my musical tastes, but I'm sure at least some of the bands I love are listed in "best bands ever". My music tastes are definitely eclectic.

Make your own mind up about me. At the moment I'm listening to (or trying to watch on the music channels) the infectiously catchy Keep Me A Secret by Ainslie (if you visit that website beware of the font, and don't say I didn't warn you!) and the funkily retro Dreaming of You by The Coral. I think I'm over the Electric 6 madness. :p

And I love the Sugababes' reworking of Sting's Shape of My Heart. Which you'll hear over and over if you visit that website. Or the first tiny part of it. Over and over. (Who thought that was a good idea?!)

I'd better stop rambling. I was going to talk about website proposals and TV stuff, but I've gone on long enough!

Perhaps I'll leave you with some Sting lyrics that are kind of appropriate in the current political uncertainty.

You could say I lost my faith in science and progress;
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church;
You could say I lost my sense of direction;
You could say all of this and worse, but
If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do.

Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world;
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV;
You could say I'd lost my belief in our politicians,
They all seem like game show hosts to me.

If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do.

I could be lost inside their lies without a trace,
But every time I close my eyes I see your face.

I never saw no miracle of science
That didn't go from a blessing to a curse.
I never saw no military solution
That didn't always end up as something worse
, but
Let me say this first:
If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do.


Yeah, I bolded some bits. Just in case I'm stretching and it's not appropriate.

Maybe Ali's right and I am just obsessed. :)


Tuesday, February 18

I was looking at what people search for to get here. I decided to see how high I am up for various searches.

My favourite (and somewhat surprisingly successful) search is Spacemonkey.

Spacemonkey: 12/11,200 (Yahoo)

Wow, that's not a bad result!

Spacemonkey: 4/12,500 (Google)

Even better!

Cool.

And if you search for my name, "Helen Berrington", this blog is the top result. FIrst out of 119 sites.

Woo-hoo!


Sunday, February 16

Have been hatching plans to make more hard drive space on my laptop. (I had over a gigabyte of MacGyver episodes on there and it was getting close to my one gig buffer zone on drive C:!) I moved some episodes onto a CD (I can't burn the CD's until I have consecutive episodes, you see) and there still wasn't much room... So I've told Windows to turn off the system restore thing. I wondered whether that was a good idea, but I didn't use system restore when I had problems before. I used the helpful Medion CD to reformat the drive. So... I reckon it's safe enough. Time will tell...


Saturday, February 15

Only in England...

"They cheered, shouted, sounded horns and banged drums, waving signs with slogans 'No War On Iraq' and 'Make Tea, Not War'."

- BBC News


Thursday, February 13

For crying out loud, I'm exhausted and there's this long complicated conversation between blogs going on and I feel compelled to join in but all I want to do is sleep! >:(

On the 9th Feb I said this:

Like James am contemplating chances of receiving anything on Feb 14th. Chances are not good.

Grandparents think Mark will send me something. They called him my "young man". Heh...

On the 10th Feb Mark said this:

I'm inclined to wonder what the "Heh" was for. It could be hard to tell. I accused Helen of sounding sarcastic in chat on Saturday night and she'd only said two words. Maybe I think she's more sarcastic than she really is. But what of the "Heh"? Hmm...

On the 13th Feb Ali said this:

So anyway, what did I have to add to this whole little blog conversation? Well, not much really, I just thought it'd be interesting to have a long complicated conversation meandering across blogs. Though I am interested in how Mark was interpreting the heh. I think this lack of clarity in meaning is one of the problems of purely text based communication... blah... blah... So, what did Mark conclude that the heh meant? I couldn't really tell from his comment. He seemed to imply that he thought it was sarcastic, though I'm not really sure how heh could be sarcastic. Did he think it was a dig at him? I don't know, maybe he didn't but will now 'cos I've said that. I probably should avoid commenting further or I'll just end up confusing matters further.

Also on the 13th Feb James said this:

Well, I chose to interpret the "heh" as a bitter, humourless laugh of despair at the innocent folly of the elderly and their simplistic interpretation of relationships in this, the fractured and post-modern 21st century; but that's just because I like rendering things as dramatic as possible *g*. I suppose it could be sarcasm, but to my mind sarcasm is far better expressed with a hearty "Hah!" than a trailing off "heh..." - of course that could just be an Australian thing.

And finally Mark said:

I should probably clear up my thoughts regarding the now infamous “heh”. I only mentioned the sarcasm in an effort to indicate that I sometimes find it hard to tell what emotion Helen is conveying over the medium that is the Internet. Personally I think the “heh” was Helen expressing her amusement at her grandparents’ decision that I was her “young man”.

Did I muddy the water more there?

Today I answer the question: what did I mean by "heh"?

I did not mean "hah". As James points out, "hah" would have been a sarcastic sort of noise. "Hah" would have expressed contempt that Mark could ever be worthy of dating someone like me. "Heh" was deliberately vague because I wasn't really sure where I was going with the sentence and just wanted to kinda trail off. :)

Hmm, Daisy has bought a piece of the moon. I hope it's not near my acre! :p

Did I change the subject there? Yes, perhaps.

James's bit about me finding my grandparents amusing is how I feel, though. My Granddad seems extraordinarily keen for me to actually date someone. He made me laugh. I could take this too far and embarrass Mark, but Granddad asked me how Mark was and I said, "Okay, he's starting being a policeman at the end of the month", and Granddad said, "Well maybe you'll find out more on Friday." Slightly confused, I said, "Yeah" and started talking about something else. And then I realised what Friday was. Yikes!

Interpret the "Yikes" how you will.

I don't care.

I'm allegedly married to James, so...

And to think Stephanie has an actual love life and she's blogged so little about it! Perhaps such things are best kept private. Or perhaps she's out actually doing things.

Bah. ;)


Sunday, February 9

Han: "Alright thumbs, let's get down to business. I'm Han Duet, this is my friend Crutchy."

Crutchy: "Grrrr."

Han: "A one armed man killed my wife, Sabrina, a working girl. Now I'm a fugitive and in clear and present danger. I should be presumed innocent but they're playing patriot games with me. Raiders, regarding Henry, blade runner, air force one..."

Luke: "I'm sorry, what was that last part?"

Han: "Look, I'm trying to keep a low profile, I owe Gabba the Butt a lot of money and he's right over there."

Gabba (translation): "Look over there, it's Indiana Ford."


Feeling sort of odd. Dizzy. Not too bad as long as I sit still and look at monitor.

Also grammar peculiar.

Hmm.

Have felt rather pointless since Friday evening. Came on suddenly, thus spoiling my trip to London. Possibly felt slightly useless before that. On Tuesday church people were considering how everyone has a job to do within the church. They all pointed out the cool things each other did. Like Ali's kids work. But no-one could think what I did. Jokingly pointed out that I'd made the coffee twice. But felt sad. At least at home I have a purpose. I love playing my bass guitar at Emmaus. Probably wouldn't be the same here. More organised. Less "freeform". :(

London full of horrible selfish people. Train crowded home crowded and hot. Ticket barrier ate ticket and didn't open. Bleugh. But was also fun. We visited the British Museum illustration department. Saw several reconstruction projects they'd worked on. The Mold cape was one of them, and Iron Age "jewellery" wearing people was another. And horse "cheek pieces" for bridles. Or else they were duffle coat toggles. Hmm. Very cool. I like going behind the scenes.

Also went to Museum of London Archeological Services (MoLAS). Commercial archaeology unit. Much bigger than the other two I've seen - University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) and York Archaeological Trust (YAT). Scarily businesslike and efficient. Made me think I haven't got much chance of ever getting employed. Ah well.

Hmm. Not done much else.

Like James am contemplating chances of receiving anything on Feb 14th. Chances are not good.

Grandparents think Mark will send me something. They called him my "young man". Heh...


Wednesday, February 5

Well, it's all swings and roundabouts, isn't it?

I mean, after saying I'd lost that auction I received a "second chance offer" for the games. So I signed up with Nochex (because that was what the man preferred) and sent off the money. Since it's a pack of six games and I don't want them all I reckon I can offload some of them. My brother John's already offered me 20p for Medal of Honour: Allied Assault. :)

I figured out what my Minidisc player's main problem was - a loose wire in the remote. It had one of those inline remotes, you see. But whenever you moved the cable it changed track or played or stopped (and so on). Which is why it only misbehaved when I was walking! So I took it to the Sony Centre and the man said it might be possible to get it fixed but it'd mean taking it somewhere else (somewhere I couldn't walk). I thought I might as well see what they said in WHSmith, since I bought it in the branch at home. I hadn't been keen to ask there because they don't sell electronic equipment in the Leicester branch. I needn't have worried.

It took a while for them to figure out how to do it, but they gave me a full refund! I was a pain because I'd paid partly in cash and partly on my debit card. Plus I no longer have the debit card I'd paid with, since I had to have it replaced. But they sorted it all out. Lovely people! I kind of wanted a Minidisc player that worked, but I have £108 instead. Which isn't so bad. Well, I did have £108, but I've ordered a replacement portable audio device. I can't really afford another Minidisc player (and they weren't quite as cool as I'd wanted them to be - strangely noisy in the whirring department) and MP3 storage devices with lots of memory cost loads, so I've gone with a more advanced Discman. It's the Panasonic SLSX390S. It has an excellent 40 hours of playback time, an inline remote (I wondered about the wisdom of that, but it is convenient), it plays CD-R/RW's (woo-hoo!) and I've been happy with my Panasonic CD player, so...

All my Minidiscs and stuff are on eBay. Hopefully they'll get an alright price - especially since I only just bought that lens cleaner! Drat...

I didn't link to Nochex correctly, though. Must have left out the http. Drat..!!!

Oh, and the other swing and roundabout type thing is that it looks like John might get all the sound stuff that was stolen from his car replaced! They send men round to install it, too, so it'll be a better job that John did. :)

But Mark is going to the Stargate Convention and I'm not. Boo. Mr Random pointed out that if I managed to get a job they'd let me have the weekend off, if I'd arranged it prior to the job, but I still have the money problem. Even with the Minidisc player refund!

Unless the stuff I'm selling goes for an awful lot of money. :D


Tuesday, February 4

I've just finished writing a "non technical summary" and "introduction" for my Desk Based Assessment project. (Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. Now I feel compelled to come up with an explanation.) A Desk Based Assessment is a paper-based exercise that units of archaeologists conduct to show the archaeological potential of an area that someone wants to develop. Basically, companies are required by law to get a survey done if it looks like a site might have lots of archaeology on it. It's part of the planning process. So, this DBA that I'm working on means I have to go through old O/S maps, government records of interesting archaeological things that have been recorded, topographical maps, fieldwalking data, geophysical data, crop marks and so on. When I've gone through everything I then have to decide what it all means and what should be done next (should a few trenches be dug to see what's actually there?).

So far I've scanned lots of maps in, adjusted their size and orientation so they work as layers in my graphics program and printed them onto acetates so that they overlay. That didn't take as long as I thought it would. Plus I've already spotted a few interesting things. Woo-hoo! Oh, and I plotted the fieldwalking data and Sites and Monuments Record data onto maps so I could use that too. And today I wrote rough drafts of two of the "chapters", although you're supposed to include your conclusions in the summary and I couldn't because I haven't thought of them yet. :)

I went on a field trip yesterday, too, which was fun. It wasn't snowed off like Friday's, although it did snow while we were there! You couldn't see very far at all, it was a veritable blizzard! Not that it settled, which was probably a good thing, otherwise we would have been stuck there. At Donington-le-Heath Manor House. Which is one of the options for my archaeological reconstruction project.

The Manor House (although it was never the home of a Lord of the Manor, so that's misleading) was first built in about 1290. It was altered quite a lot in the 17th century, but it was never altered a lot because it was occupied by tenants. By the 20th century it was used as a pig sty! They made a hoist so that they could lift the pigs upstairs. Honestly. :)

Anyway, in the 1960's it was renovated (which means they ripped bits out and made a lot of it much neater than it should have been). They were trying to make it look like it would have done when it was first built, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. I mean, buildings are fun because you can see how they were altered over hundreds of years. The changes are interesting archaeologically, too.

So, my reconstruction project (unless I change my mind and do the Anglo-Saxon houses) would involve reconstructing what the place looked like in the 13th century. There was probably a Great Hall which is no longer there, as well as out buildings. I have a few ideas. I'm not sure I want to try and reconstruct the Great Hall because it'll take far too much work (and I have so many other things to hand in!) and the reconstruction artist working on it at the moment has done such a great job that my efforts would pale in comparison...

What else... ah, I managed to get the third issue of Stargate United out on time. You can read the back issues without signing up, if you want to.

Issue 1, December 2002 - It's Christmas!!!
Issue 2, January 2003 - Happy New Year!
Issue 3, February 2003 - Extreme Fandom!

And my Minidisc player is behaving very oddly. It always seems to work for a while, then it goes completely mad. It lulls me into a false sense of security. I'm still conducting tests, but it changes its bass settings and things like that when everything's on "hold". It shouldn't be doing that. And it makes odd sound distortions (a bit like when your headphones have a dodgy lead, which mine don't). And it still mistracks to the extent of constant track changing.

On the plus side, I found my receipt. So if it keeps doing it I can take it to the Sony shop. (I thought I'd lost it! But I'd actually put it in the box it came in!! It'd folded itself up and slipped underneath one of the folds of cardboard!!!!)

Or I could try taking it to the Leicester branch of WHSmith. Not sure how long you have to take electrical goods back - it's still just inside six months.

I'll go and eat lunch then. Yum.


Sunday, February 2

>:(

Someone was mean because I said that the Stargate game info might not be true. BOO!!! See if I care. I do research for the fandom and this is how it treats me. *sniff*

I feel that I must reply to things in other people's blogs.

First of all, feel free to think what you like about me and Christopher Judge. James is sending out a slightly mixed message with his odd insistence that I don't like Chris in that way. Well, I don't, but hey. More people have accused me of being Chris than wanting to rip all his clothes off in a passionate frenzy. Although I suppose people might just assume... Yikes!

Secondly, Mark seems to think he could persuade me to go to the Wolf SG-6 Stargate convention. It's not really a matter for persuasion. I'd love to go, except for the fact I don't know what I'll be doing by the time October comes around. If I have a job I might not be able to get time off and if I don't I won't have any money. If anyone can think of a way to solve this puzzle then I'd love to hear it!

Were there just two things I meant to say? Oh, there was the MacGyver thing. Ali was right, it was good! And if the pilot was good then the series must have been. Pilots are generally a bit ropey. (And RDA was roguishly handsome. Not that he's not handsome anymore. Yikes!)

That's two "yikes" in one blog! TBH I think this is a Guybrush Threepwood thing, which is odd, because I haven't been playing Monkey Island games constantly. I haven't played any of them for ages. I started playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, but I can't really be bothered. Not at the moment.

That's what I say, whilst frantically bidding on other PC games that I'll probably never have time to play... I think it's turned into a matter of pride. I didn't win something I really wanted a bit earlier, so I'm bitter. Plus that person on the UK-SG1 list made me sad. *sniff*

I only wanted the Sims.

Aaargh, he beat me at the last minute! I'm so... exasperated!

Maybe it's for the best. What with not really having any money.

I typed monet by accident, then.

But I don't have any french painters, so...

Hmm.


Saturday, February 1

Hmm, wonder if someone got the wrong end of the stick?

Clearing Up The Unreal 'Stargate Video Game' Rumor 12.09.02 [12:38am] by Tycho

A rumor has been floating around the net lately about a new Unreal Tech Engine project. The details were that Epic was going to lease the UTE to a company to do a video game based on the movie Stargate. Well when we finally caught up to Mark or rather he caught up to us he had this to say. "There is no project being worked on by Epic. The rumor is false." Not really surprised on this one but I gotta admit it is still a cool idea.

- Unreal Ops


Right, haven't blogged for a bit. What can I blog about... Hmm.

Looks like the competition is hotting up in the Broken Sword 3 Box Competition. Yikes! I never really expected I'd turn out something that'd win, anyway... I was just bored. I entered both colour versions, if you were wondering.

And I went for the non-framed version of Jaffa Kree. Sadly, moving the site has caused my Google page ranking to drop all the way down to 1! Drat.

My fieldtrip was cancelled yesterday because of snow. There was no snow here, mind you. It was a bright, sunny, cold day. I bought a Minidisc lens cleaner because my Minidisc player was acting very oddly. It seems to be behaving better, but I'm reserving judgement until I've tested it more. I won't talk about the trip until I go on it. Which might be a while. Rescheduling is evil.

Wow, I'm an archaeologist. :)

I ought to make the most of that. Because I'll probably end up unemployed at the end of my MA. :D

"Hello, I'm Helen, I'm an archaeologist." :p

Someone on a Stargate mailing list said they'd read about a Stargate game that was in development. Apparently Epic Games (of Unreal fame) have acquired the rights.

Using Altavista to translate, the news looks like this:

"Top secret information to consequence Epic Games of studios works on a star gate 3D act ion game of roles. The rights were already acquired by MGM. So that also everything becomes perfect, co-operates Epic with the effect and equipment designers of MGM/Stargate. The action is to become very complex, so also the Multiplayer mode with infinitely possibilities. Officially these information only at the beginning of of 2003 should admits to be given, but stargatezone.com source got this Top News by a quite reliable one. We will continue to report!"

I could only find the news online at this German site. Who knows how accurate it is? Apparently there was a tiny bit in December's PCGamer, too.

What's weirder is that MGM have (apparently) been cracking down on people producing Stargate mods for things like Unreal and now Epic, the creators of Unreal, are going to be able to make an actual Stargate RPG. In which case it'll probably be the "wandering around shooting things" type of game, rather than anything else. Interesting.

It might be okay. You never know with licences. Lots of dodgy tv/film based games around. And a few good ones.

Bye then. ;)

 
He has a bowler hat, go figure.















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