Supergrunch

Method of loci, Derren Brown style. It actually works pretty amazingly. Points to anyone who can actually decode what the hell I'm on about.

Yay, I know the names, structures and properties of the 20 main amino acids: I walk into my year 8 form room, and notice the sum "1+2=3" marked with a tick on the door. My teacher is standing on a chair, afraid of a puddle. Alan Bennett is standing by the lockers; he looks lonely all by himself. I look round at the desk, and see a glove with an eye on it and pick it up, but it contains nothing. It is now that I notice a toilet dumped in the middle of the floor, with an arcane symbol on the lid. The water leaking out of it appears to have frozen, and leads in a trail to a poster, where a variation of the symbol is written. At the desk sits Takemiya Masaki, who has made a circular three stone moyo with tengen and two star points. I've seen everything here, so I charge into the next room, and am greeted by a spartan who has knocked a car-like box from the top of a pile of three - he is unable to knock down the other two because they're glued together. Ignoring the angry warrior, I walk towards a friend of mine, who appears to have nits. I watch as he remove four white ones and one black one, and places them on the desk. Two more of my friends are fighting - the first punches the other three times, and in response the second throws a punch and grabs his opponent in a headlock. I notice a pyramid drawn on the board with a spike coming out of it... my French teacher appears not to like the picture, as she is hissing at it and rubbing it off. I leave the classroom, and on my way down the corridor notice a sulphurous smell coming from the toilets. I go in to see what's going on, and am suprised to come across my sister, who silences me by holding a finger to her lips. I notice three scraps of toilet paper on the ground, and comment "you've made a bit of a me-", but she silences me midway. I give her a quizical look and leave. Going through the stairwell I sense a far more pleasant scent, emnating from below. I lean over, and trip and nearly fall, but my bag catches on the railings. Luckily my teacher has arrived (I think she ran from more water); she lowers down a balloon to pull me up with, then insists I have to pay her a fee for this service. I leave, mumbling "God, what a tyrant...", but she shouts that she heard me, and throws the balloon, which is surprisingly heavy (I exclaim "oh!") and knocks me into another classroom. There are polar bears in this room. Three of them protect some sort of holy man who is sat upon the ground. I look closer and see there is a plate in front of him, containing two pieces of asparagus, both blackened at one end. I watch as the man tries to pick up the longer of the two (it's about twice the length), but he can't pick it up as it's glued to the plate. I try to grab the other one before him, but he sets the polar bears on me.

I think they'd need to do three things to make it decent: give it an extremely good story (with Triforce etc. optional and if present used originally), and drastically alter the gameplay, yet make it clear that it's still a Zelda game. But most fans would complain, so yeah, it isn't going to happen. As for letdowns... hmm, Starfox Adventures. That was rubbish.

Haruhi is based on a series of light novels, not on a manga, though there's a manga now. That aside, KyoAni broadcasted it in a crazy order for a reason... if you got confused, it was because they wanted you to be confused. Watching Haruhi in a sane order is like cutting up Memento and watching it chronologically. I knew nothing about the show and watched it in broadcast order.

The Microsoft Word grammar checker is so strange, I still fail to understand the bizarre rule it uses to decide whether something should be "which" or "that". Today, it's pretty much acceptable to use them interchangeably, but if you're going to use a rule then it should be that "which" introduces a non-restrictive relative clause whereas "that" introduces a restrictive relative clause...

Wow, that sandwich shop he is working in (JK Palmers) where he complains about the white coffee is in St. Albans, I used to go there for lunch practically every day. I recognise the guy behind him. I have to say I find this guy pretty funny, though I feel kind of sorry for most of the people he pranks. As a random note, in Go, black goes first, but the only time I've ever played a black guy in a tournament, he took white. (and also won) Interpret that however you wish. :wink:

Happy birthday.

That's got to be better than sleeping through 50% of alarms, including fire alarms directly above your head...

My condolences Daniel, it must be strange... I've never really had a grandparent die when I've been old enough to understand it properly. Anyway, yesterday was... odd. Had a godawful tapas meal where each person got a few bites and was charged £20, then talked with people about geeky things until about 5am, at which point I went for a walk around Cambridge with one of the people. (everyone else had dropped out by this point ) Odd seeing the place all empty like that. Anyway, I'm going to have to say goodbye temporarily - I've done a Blackfox and requested to be banned until my exams are over (June 10th), as I'm spending far too much time procrastinating on here, and need to work to get the 2:1 I need to change to linguistics. So see you guys soon!

Ah, you haven't been spoiled by Kanon, which kind of took the wind out of Fuko's sails. I reckon the best episodes of Clannad are the last few, but some of the earlier ones are pretty good too.

Dude, Clannad season 2! It'll be so awesome, I much prefer it to the stuff covered in season 1. Which episode?

That looks like you've just started going through all the noteworthy films in alphabetical order. :wink:

I think the appropriate response is an flawlessly polite "kochira koso". Actually no, you want to live...

I've always wondered why Haruhi was so amazingly popular... I mean, I really liked it, but it always seemed like the sort of show I'd like and most people wouldn't.

Well, from what I understand in Japan he's considered like Dan Brown or something, in that he's insanely popular but people who claim to like "real literature" are sniffy about him. Which just seems to be a reaction to his popularity and Western style, really.

I'm afraid Norwegian Wood is the only really realistic one... he wrote it to see if he could. I still think it's one of his best. Oddly enough, despite his popularity, Murakami's style isn't very Japanese, which is perhaps why lots of Japanese scholars aren't so keen.

The only other Murakami you've read is Norwegian Wood, right? Heh, you're in for some more standard Murakami, expect surreality to the extreme. :wink:

That's actually in the past tense, with a bit of past continous. You can only really use the present tense in narratives with appropriate cues, and it's usually spoken, apart from in poetry or occasionally in written jokes. Anyway, I should stop saying pointless things about tenses and start writing my essay.

"Hardcore gamer" is merely a label, and it clearly has different connotations among different groups, many of which are negative, so perhaps it's not the ideal term for self description, or indeed description of any kind. I make a distinction between people who mess around with games, and those who play them seriously. The former type of person tends to fiddle about with a game for a while and then tire and move on; the latter type is more likely to go on to try everything possible in the game, and if not 100% complete it then at least play through the majority. Like all such dichotomies, this is somewhat false, as there'll always be people in limbo between the two states (myself included, these days), but I find it a useful mental guideline. The is no disgrace in being a casual type, it just means you appreciate games differently... what I'm not keen on, however, is the recent sparsity of games pandering to the, for want of a better term, "hardcore" type - it's a sad fact that such games are getting less and less likely to be worth the commercial venture. Oh well, I guess I'll stick to playing go.

If you put them together it's pretty uncanny: Ashley should be informed!

Happy birthday!

I used to play this loads at primary school, it's an awesome game, cool to see you can now play it for free online.

Anyhoo, I think the idea of there being a meaning to life is based on shaky foundations... I mean, what the hell is "meaning of life" supposed to mean anyway? Yay mean.

I know which I'd hire.

I don't live in St. Albans, I just went to school there - I actually live near Knebworth, which I'm pretty sure is a different line to yours. But yeah, it'll be Knebworth rather than Cambridge by that time I think.