Over the last two weeks my priorities were:
To ensure my blood-alcohol level doesn’t reach a dangerous low,
To stay alive,
To enjoy the company of the lovely people here,
To sort out what I need for everyday life,
To procrastinate on Facebook,
To do my work,
To update this blog.

Warwick’s been great, but with one exception. Lectures and Freshers’ mix like heroin and cocaine. The Freshers’ was two weeks but was dimmed by 9 a.m. lectures the next morning and related assignments (that actually mattered). Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take any excuse to avoid clubs but getting in the way of a pub night is a big no.

The academic material is thankfully more interesting than A-level, but obviously I have to do more work. The experience in general is different, but overall better. It really is freedom.

I don’t have much else to say as I’m still getting used to it. Oh, I can cook now*.

*We’re getting there.

I haven’t posted in a while, and part of that is because I’ve been playing with my new phone. It’s been over two years since I got one, so I’m pleased to say I now own a smartphone, the HTC Sensation.

It’s top of the range at the moment. I actually bought it and will get a SIM-only deal soon. It’s great to have a phone that can surf the internet comfortably, can text quickly without straining my fingers, and is plain sexy. It runs on Android, so it has tonnes of apps to download (a lot of which are free). I went over the top, and now have over 120. I can’t exactly give a full review as this is the only smartphone I’ve owned, and I’m still in the honeymoon with it. Just to mention, there’s no Weebly app (and I can’t post from Weebly on the phone’s internet as the keyboard doesn’t come up when I try to write one – it’s something Weebly can fix if it wants to I’m sure).

As to why I bought it, I was promised a smartphone from my results. I found the iPhone unnecessarily pricey, and had a look at HTC Android phones as I wanted apps and HTC had a good reputation from my peers. I was thinking of the Desire Z because of the physical keyboard, then the Desire HD for the larger 4.3 inch screen (as opposed to the 3.7 inch screen), then finally the Sensation (after some self-debate) due to the 1.2 GHz dual core processor (as opposed to the 1 GHz single core processor).

This should get me through a few years at uni, depending on Moore’s law and the price of baked beans.

The final round. The deciding round. Here they are:

Maths: A*
574/600 UMS
Physics: A*
567/600 UMS
Chemistry: A*
571/600 UMS

I’m absolutely delighted, and into my course of Mathematics and Physics at Warwick. I did an AS in further maths this year, and got an A, so that takes me up to A*A*A*abb overall with the lower case being AS-levels. Unfortunately a fair few of my friends didn’t get what they needed, and were thrown out even with a differential of one grade. Well done to everyone and best of luck to those sorting it out!

And I understand the rules, my results make me officially a wanker.

The attacks on London by rioting youths was thought to be a minor problem that could be dealt by a large number of riot police. This was underestimated, and the army was ordered to be called in by the leader, David Cameron, who returned from a retreat in Italy to a heavily guarded bunker under the House of Commons. No army arrived, and the increasing momentum of the rioters will encircle London in a day, two days at the most. The revelation to the leader, David Cameron, is recorded in the following text:

Clegg: The enemy has made a breakthrough. They took Tottenham, Wood Green and Enfield in the north, Brixton in the south, and are advancing to the centre.
Cameron: The army’s assault to take care of things.
Clegg: My leader…we…
Hague: We couldn’t mobilise enough men. The army wasn’t deployed.
**A noticeable silence occurs as Cameron takes in this information.**
Cameron: These men will remain: Osborne, Hague, Clegg, and Johnson.
**All members of the cabinet leave the strategy room in the bunker except those listed.**
Cameron: That was an order! The deployment of the army was an order! Who do you think you are to disobey an order from me? So this is what it has come to. Everyone’s been lying to me! Even the Metropolitan Police! Our officers are a bunch of contemptible, disloyal cowards!
Johnson: My leader, I cannot permit you to insult the police.
Cameron: They are cowards, traitors and failures!
Johnson: My leader, this is outrageous.
Cameron: Our officers are the scum of the British people. Not a shred of honour! They call themselves officers! Years at a police academy only to set at the desk filing paperwork and fire the odd rubber bullet! For years the Metropolitan Police has hindered my plans! They’ve put every obstacle in my way! What I should have done was to cut every high ranking job in the police force, as Sarkozy did!
**A brief pause as Cameron appears to calm.**
Cameron: I never went to a police academy. Yet I managed to bring order in Britain all by myself. I’ve been betrayed and deceived from the very beginning. What a monstrous betrayal of the British people. But they’ll pay, they’ll pay with their own blood! They will drown in their own blood!
**Outside the room, a crying Mrs Cameron is told to calm herself. Mr Cameron’s tone is distinctly quieter.**
Cameron: My orders have fallen of deaf ears. Under these circumstances, I am no longer able to lead. It’s over. The war is lost. But, gentlemen, if you think I’m going to leave London, you are seriously mistaken. I’d rather blow my brains out. Do whatever you like.

Yes, I’m still alive. I was away for a week and blah blah blah…

So Google+ has been around for under a month, and by now I’m sure most of you know about it. It’s basically a social network that’s almost exactly like Facebook, with some minor differences. These are as follows, from what I’ve seen:
• It’s not run by Mark Zuckerberg, but by Google (I’ll have to double check that).
• Circles and more control over the share of information. In other words, you can post photos of that godless party but keep them to your friends without scarring your Google+ using parents.
• It hasn’t pissed me off (yet).

Facebook has angered myself (and many others) to the verge of embracing a similar, reliable competitor with open arms. It keeps changing and ignoring the cries of its users, its Chat is in the later stages of dementia, and in ten years or so I’m pretty sure the small print of its terms will have me by the balls (something slightly resembling the HUMANCENTiPAD episode of South Park). Still, when I joined Facebook I hated MySpace (remember that, kids?). I don’t want the déjà vu of leaving the abusive household of one social network to make a love nest with the other, only to walk into door knobs too many times and realise my mistake.

Anyway, I got an account a few days ago, and I’ll just have to see what happens when it picks up and everyone joins it (which will likely happen, it is Google after all). It’s still invite only, so if you really want an account and have no other lines, hit me with your e-mail.

As a man of Irish blood, every drink I enjoy must have a common drug otherwise it’s just wasting my time. During the feared but misunderstood period of study leave, this drink is mainly tea. In theory it keeps me awake and active to be more efficient with my (now running out) time, but in practice my laziness is unaffected and I go to bed at my ‘normal’ time, regretting the intake of caffeine two hours into my attempted stasis while I contemplate the universe and life as a superhero.

Here’s the steps to tea addiction, decide where you lie:
-1. You hate tea and wish the beverage was obliterated from the face of the Earth.
0. You’re indifferent. It’s as neutral as water. Its existence has neither benefited nor abused your own.
1. You’ll go for it if offered, like a Celebration Malteser from your teacher at the end of the year if you weren’t a complete dick to them.
2. You’ll more likely than not have a tea to accompany your café meal with yourself, a friend, or a (hopefully tea loving) date of yours.
3. You start asking females in your family to make you tea time to time.
4. You train yourself to operate kettles, and make tea for yourself time to time.
5. Tea is now the patron drink of early mornings.
6. Your average heart rate has jumped about ten beats per minute.
7. The lady at the school canteen knows your sugar preference while you scrounge silvers from your tea money fund.
8. You get hostile when supporting friends and family stand in your way, especially when they use your custom mugs.
9. You are a mere shadow of the gentle stallion you were. Your spouse has given up discussing your problem and has left you. You spend nights on a brown-stained floor.
10. You hate tea and wish the beverage was obliterated from the face of the Earth.

PS: Comics will be back in a week or two.
PPS: Three weekly videos in a row? Yeah, study leave has me by the balls.

I applied to university a day before the deadline, and I submitted my choices a day before the deadline. Like a boss. But what did I decide from my many offers?

Short answer:
Firm: Warwick
Insurance: Manchester

Long answer:
Firm: Warwick F303 (Physics)
Grades: AAA including maths and physics.
Change course to FG31 (Mathematics and Physics) when I arrive.
Grades: A*AA including maths and physics, with the A* in maths.
Insurance: Manchester F305 (Physics)
Grades: A*AA including maths and physics.

Basically, a while ago I was strongly considering changing from Physics to Mathematics and Physics if I went to Warwick, because I hate labs (which barely exist in the latter course) and I don’t mind maths (even if my prerequisites and ethnicity are substandard for Warwick’s maths). There’s also the fact that I suck at and hate physics, but you weren’t supposed to know that.

Having two offers probably helped as I suck at making choices. I chose Warwick as a university over Manchester mainly because of its setting (my eighteen years as a Londoner made me resent cities), and as a course from Warwick’s elimination of labs when changing to MathsPhys. I sent an e-mail a few days ago to change course, but it’s too late now for it to go through on Track (however, I’ll be fine when I arrive as long as I get the higher grades). The plus side of that is that I have two insurances, and won’t go into clearing with AAA. The downside is that it’s pretty much impossible for me to end up in Manchester.

That said, from my small experience I did really like Manchester’s department; it also helps that Manchester isn’t Durham. Just sayin’.

In an hour or so I will be an adult. Mmm that depends, to be honest. Midnight if you’re from a fairytale, around 2 a.m. if you admire the time one popped out, and just before 5 p.m. tomorrow if you do the maths regarding the Earth orbiting the Sun (yes, ladies and gentlemen, I did the maths).

So apparently this is the end of my childhood. The childhood’s not been too shabby. I’ve learned a couple of things, such as not to piss oneself and take further maths A-level when one can.

As everyone knows, it’s hard to be aware and keep track of your development through life, and after some years you look back on yourself as a different person. I love the nostalgia of old photos, and would’ve liked more videos. I’m working on that.

My mind has changed a lot in these eighteen years, obviously, and for some time now I would say that I think the same way as an adult, and I’m (believe it or not) as mature as one. I just lack the years of experience that separate the adult from this man-child. However, similar thoughts have happened before, and every time I look back I really don’t see myself as grown up then. To be fair, I don’t think I’ll ever resist sprinting to empty swings in a park, no matter how ‘grown up’ I become in the coming decades.

The whole ‘being seventeen’ package isn’t brilliant, I must say. Real men and women don’t treat you as a kid, sure, but the pubs do. It’s been a nagging problem that I get treated like my five year old self in the house of beverages because my mother didn’t shoot me out a week earlier. Voting is a similar game, I’m sure I’m at the intelligence to make the logical decision of which prick to grant some power to, as well with many of my seventeen year old peers, but perhaps these are just petty things I have to deal with in exchange for less responsibility. However, it’s really nice that trains, cinemas and ice rinks think I’m a big boy and give me a big boy price.

So there’s my 18 years of childhood, I wonder how these 68 years of adulthood will treat me (the malnutrition university holds might have other plans).

I’ve written this quasi-philosophical post as I go along, just to have the smallest memory of my mindset at this age when I read it a little later. I don’t care if it doesn’t flow. I’m just one who focuses on dates and numbers more than I should.

I need a drink…

If you don’t follow this blog at all, you probably won’t grasp the significance of this post. This is an obituary (yes, an obituary) I knew one day I had to write, but wished it otherwise.

I’ve made several posts about this remarkable man, with good reason. Walter Breuning was the world’s oldest man from 18th July 2009 until yesterday. His predecessor, Henry Allingham, I took some interest in, where my peculiar interest in longevity sparked.

Breuning was born a long time ago, and his passing leaves even fewer comrades from his era – the nineteenth century. Beyond the bragging right of living in three centuries (and thirteen decades), his mental and physical health was robust and he was largely his own man. He maintained his own diet, exercise, and was not on medication. That alone is nice to know, it really is. A human is capable of living 114 years with a great quality of life.

There was more to him than that.

When you live throughout the whole of the 20th century (and a little extra), you learn a few things. This man personally coped with the ‘dark ages’ of the 1900s, the Great Depression, and losing your wife back in the 1950s. His personal philosophy is focused on helping people, and despite his circumstances he had no fear of death. I’m not reiterating third-party news reports that pick out the numbers and key words, I’m telling you what I’ve learned from his videos.

At the end of March he was hospitalised. When I found this out I obviously thought that it may be the end. I thought he would pull through, from the  information given. His passing was not so much a shock. It’s sad, definitely. But I’m consoled by him probably knowing too that his time had come, and that he was ready to embrace it. This sadness stems from losing a piece of history, and above all, a great man.

“We’re all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die.”
– Walter Breuning (September 21, 1896 – April 14, 2011)

It’s been over two months now since I got Minecraft. Two months of getting progressively better at making homework excuses and losing the ability to walk. What can I say? It’s just plain addictive.

A couple of you were thinking, “what the hell is Minecraft?” Google is your friend, fools. But it’s basically the ultimate sandbox game. You mine shit, craft shit, build shit, fight shit. The philosophy behind it is logical (e.g., you dig up sand from a beach best with a shovel, and smelt it with coal (or some form of wood) in a furnace to make glass) and the potential is simple huge. If you’re genuinely interested, you might want to start with this old weekly video or Yahtzee’s review for a brilliant summary.

It started off with single player, but I wanted more. I now make shit on a server with real life friends with the aid of Skype. I have no shame.

Anyway, here’s a small gallery of some of the stuff we’ve accomplished over the weeks.

MEINKRAFT!