An astounding coincidence

I've done some research, and amazingly, it turns out that the period of time when I was a child was objectively the best time to be a child. Those who grew up either before or after me missed out on all of the best things. Here are just a few examples.

Literally everything I know about swimming

For school this week we were given this task:

Write for 10 minutes about a topic I’m going to give you. Start straight away, don’t think. Just write and don’t stop. The topic is swimming.

I wrote it, so I suppose I may as well post it, though I've no idea what educational value it was supposed to have.

A lot of words about Gat Out of Hell

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, this game is awesome. The story is much shorter than previous games and there are very few story missions, but that's what it says in the game's description so it shouldn't come as a surprise. To summarise the entire game in one sentence, it's a bunch of extra activities, targets and diversions for Saints Row IV but with a whole lot of tweaks and improvements and some really good dialogue. Considering its price relative to Saints Row: the Third and Saints Row IV, I'd say it's well worth it. Now let's get to some specifics. Make yourself a cup of tea, this is a long one. And there are lots of spoilers if you care about that.

Nutcase: A True Story About Being Cyber-Bullied

A few weeks ago I was contacted out of the blue by a man called Gilbert Ohanian. He'd found my name and email address somewhere and for some reason he wanted me to read and review his book. Little did I know, when I agreed, how batshit fucking crazy this guy was. I have since learned.

Microsoft HAL

There's a point when installing Windows 8 (and again when upgrading to 8.1) where your screen fades to black, and then after a few seconds the word "Hi" appears in the middle of the screen. And I just don't understand what they were thinking when they decided to do that. It's the creepiest software installation ever.

Comics Kingdom

An open letter to King Features Syndicate

Just read your "One Year of Comics Kingdom" email and I'm stunned at the audacity of your claims. You've "enhanced the look and feel of the newsletter"? Are you serious? They look like garbage now. Supposedly this was to make them look better on mobiles, but I don't read my emails on my phone, so to me it's a clear downgrade.

The biggest crock though is where you claim that the Comics Kingdom website is "quick-loading" and "responsive". I've got to wonder if you've even seen the site. It's slow, inconvenient and just generally awful. I cannot understand how anyone could claim that Comic Kingdom is in any way an improvement over DailyINK. From my perspective it's worse in every way.

And as for its mobile-friendliness, the site takes so long to load on my PC I wouldn't even consider trying it out on a mobile, especially if I were using 3G rather than wifi. Having archives access has become mostly pointless (even as you've expanded the availability) as it takes so long to load each strip that reading through old ones is more of a chore than a pleasure.

And this is not a new problem, nor can you claim ignorance of it as I've complained about it on several occasions. Your site is arse and your constant claims that it is somehow improved over the old one are salt in the wound. You've had a year to get this working. Fix your damn site.

The Worst Detective

Justified (A Madison Knight Novel), by Carolyn Arnold, is unbelievably bad. I don't mean that hyperbolically; I kept reading all the way to the end because I really couldn't believe it could actually be that bad.

Darkmoon

A guy on the radio today talking about the "blood moon" tonight reminded me of the video game Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon and I thought I'd download it and see if it's crazy hard as I remember it being or if I was just too young to be able to play it well.

Turns out it is crazy hard.

I Went For a Walk

I had to go to Centrelink today to sort some stuff out (which was, as always, massive pain), but on my way back I happened to see the above sign. It caught my attention. It seems like such an odd mix of things. So I stopped to have a look. Another couple of signs in the window also caught my attention.

Horse Vet

Here's a thing I wrote about what it would be like if Dave was a horse vet.

David Thorne: Horse Vet

Have you ever punched a horse to death? I have. My name is David Thorne.

She'd said the horse was behaving oddly. Show me a horse that isn't. They're mad creatures. But there was always the chance that it would have to be put down, and I'd enjoy that, so I agreed to come and take a look at it.

"Your horse needs to be put down." I said.
She seemed dubious. "You haven't seen it yet."
"You've heard of the horse whisperer? That film was actually based on me. Of course, in real life it's more like horse shouting. But I don't need to actually see a particular horse to know what to do with it."
"Are you sure you're a real vet?" she asked.
"Fine, I'll look at the damn horse."