John Walker's Electronic House

This takes far more work than it looks like.

The They’re Back Archive is now updated to match the theme.

Love me.

So, here it is. The reason I’ve been quiet.

An Almost Complete Review Archive

I think there’s one dead link in there, and a couple of games that shouldn’t be there yet. That will be fixed.

Tell me if it works.

Working very hard on something.

FOR YOU.

I have come to the conclusion that there are a whole set of muscles in the human body, as yet undiscovered, that are uniquely used for housework.

Today, at God School, I ran down the six flights of stairs and then ran back up them, and arriving at the top I found myself not even out of breath. This is fairly impressive, since about two months ago I was getting a stitch reaching for the button to call the lift. However, upon reaching the top floor, I discovered I was holding a piece of paper in my hand that rightly belongs on the bottom floor. I had brought it with me quite mysteriously, and were anyone else to have seen I would have been mocked. And rightfully so, in the way that someone must be mocked when they bring the remote control into the kitchen, or search frantically for their mobile phone only realising where it is when they explain what it is they are looking for to the person they are speaking to on the phone. So, I ran back down again, returned the paper unwitnessed, and ran back up. This time, sadly, my new-found athleticism reached its limits, and like a first year student at four am, I was out of puff.

The point (as if) of all this is to attempt to prove that I am not quite so unfit as I have been previously. I can run down and up six flights of stairs (two at a time, mind) without requiring a helicopter to carry me home. With that established, why is it that the very moment I begin anything to do with housework I break out into a hot-faced sweat?

Hoovering. Hoovering is just walking around with a noisy pole. Why does hoovering render me exhausted? Why does tidying a room immediately have me out of breath and needing a nice sit down? It’s not as if I have some sort of allergic response to the act of cleaning – and yet I find myself needing someone to set up a stall in my front room offering plastic cups of water a soggy sponges every time I pass by with a dustpan and brush.

The result of this is that our carpet in the front room is: beige.

They’re Back 137 now in the archive.

The second review is a joke based on the original review by Jim – seek it out.

Thank you so much.

I’m really delighted with the responses so far. Please, if you haven’t already, add your five words. This is, in part, for a project I need to complete this weekend.

In a much larger part it’s for something else.

If I weren’t in the midst of a nightmarish combination of essays and deadlines, there are many things I would have written about recently, some still in storage. One leaked out on Richard Passmore’s blog’s comments. (Two apostrophied words in a row like that always look ugly, but I’m too tired to rearrange the sentence). I will rewrite it for here at some point to annoy people who won’t think about it, like ‘Jon H’.

I’m kind of enjoying the confusion that life’s entered recently. Enjoying in a very perverse way, since it’s doing my mental health no good at all, and causing me all manner of anguish. But at the same time, I can see the tectonic plates shifting. Paradigm shift. All change please.

And with good timing – next year heralds a significant change in my life. Come June I’ll have both completed my degree, and finished my time working for St. Nicholas Church in Winsley. I’ll be free. Editors-willing I’ll still be writing, but two thirds of my life will suddenly be up for grabs. And thankfully only one third is going to get filled, the other third to be rededicated toward activities such as: sleep, evenings off, human contact, not being a mental, causing trouble, lying on hills, and plotting.

The question remains, what is that new third to be? The great thing is, with the qualification I’ll have, it can plausibly include: evenings off, human contact, not being a mental, causing trouble, lying on hills, and plotting. I am very clever indeed.

All suggestions gratefully ignored. Five words please.

EDIT: Slightly concerned by the volume of Douglas Adams quotes.

Ok, this is really important.

There are about 60 people who pass this way every day, and I want to borrow you for just five words.

Even if you never do this sort of thing, please could you add a comment below, anonymously if you wish, answering the following question. It’s not a simple one, but give it a go anyway:

If you had five words to say to everybody, what would they be?

Writing an essay on Soteriology today.

Please be entertaining.

As noticed, the TB Archive was looking a little out of date.

Editions 134, 135 and 136 are now up, and if someone reminds me, 137 should go up next week once the copyright becomes mine to dismiss.

Highlights:

I like the Project Nomads gag (134), because it’s quite so laboured.
Also in 134, the Alice review is done in my favourite way, where I take some literature and amend it to make it a game review. I think this one is more true to the original text than any other.

The Morrowind review in 135 was done in the style of one of those crappy magazine questionnaires, and was pretty fun to write.

The opener in 136 is probably a much longer version than anything Tony would have let through. I haven’t checked, but there’s a lot of nonsense in there. I always like that – I can’t imagine the final version survived intact. Also, Big Mutha Truckers manages to be quite the rant.

136 also has the Millionaire review – a favourite – in which I get away with barely discussing the game (why would you need to) and have some fun pushing my luck by libelling Kilroy.

Main TB page is here.

Today has been designated Officially the Weirdest, Worst and Most Confusing Day In Ages.

It has involved: one panic attack, approximately fifteen emails to fifteen people all involving disappointment, one instant message telling off (deserved), one phonecall from an angry parent, one phonecall from the nicest parent ever (not my parents, I stress), hours and hours wasted with attempts to write an essay, the realisation that the volume of deadlines and the small space of time in which to complete them were not at all compatible leading toward the first item, hours and hours wasted attempting to release a significant chunk of this time leading to the aforementioned disappointment, a sort of angelic response to what I didn’t realise was a plea for help from a man I don’t know whether to like or not and hence the release of a significant chunk of time, a phonecall from someone incredibly special who saved my brain today, and email from a good friend who made it seem more ok, and the purchase of some new underwear.

My main concern is that this new underwear will not be so suited to the kicking up from the foot over the head game, as it is less uncool than previous bottom coverage. We shall see.

I love that my lecturer reads this blog. And previous vicar. And girl wot I like. And complete strangers from the PCG forum.

Stay tuned people – it can only get weirder from here.