Saturday - Today

Picked up some postcards yesterday; will work on getting some of them written tomorrow. Anyone else out there want one? Then drop me a line!

Finished item 47 on the list, my replay of Metal Gear Solid 2. It's a great game, and still seems very fresh despite the fact that it is about six or seven years old now. For the most part it's hide and seek - the aim of the game isn't to run headlong into danger and take out the terrorists, but to be stealthy, to work around them, draw them away so that you can get past them. There's always more than one way to approach a situation, and it's extremely rewarding to come up with clever solutions in order to get around the security schemes that your opponents have come up with.

It's an older game, and I don't know if you can play it on the PS3 or not (backwards compatibility seems to be dependent on where you buy your console) but it should still be available on PC. Go for it, even if you never normally play games: the script is incredible, some people think it's longwinded, but it's deep, it makes you think - even if you disagree with it and all its philosophical musings. And the gameplay is sublime, it really is.

Ugh. Have felt a bit rough for a few days now. I think it's just the fact that I am waiting for the results of my corrections. Sleeping less. Lack of focus.

Short sentences.

More after the weekend, going to work on the postcards tomorrow. And a piece of flash fiction!

By the end of the weekend I will have written one piece of flash fiction.

There. Can't take it back now.

Yes Man

Yesterday I finished "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace, and it's a book that has really given me food for thought. Having read both "Yes Man" and his previous book "Join Me" I feel like Danny and I would really get on where we to meet in a pub. He has a really positive attitude, and a real determination to stick with things, and those are qualities that I wish I had more of.

Reading "Yes Man" has definitely made me feel better about 101/1001; whenever I tell people about 101/1001 I get a mix of responses between "Oh wow, that's interesting" to a bemused sort of look on their faces - since I first started thinking about this around six months ago I've only spoken to one person who has said, "Oooooh, I think I'll do that!" At times it feels like a really silly thing to be doing, and at times I think why did I put that on my list, I'm never going to get that done! But now I'm thinking Yes, come on, this is great! And all because of seeing what happens when one man says yes to every opportunity that comes his way for six months!

Still not heard anything back from my examiners about my corrections, though have no idea how long it could take. A few weeks? Let's hope...

Applied for one of the jobs in Edinburgh, and added my CV to a jobs site. One more application, then I'm leaving it. Let August 10th come around and then I'm going full steam ahead with the holiday and private tuition plan.

What else? Oooh, well, I've been working on the "stacked 4-tangle" problem that's in my list (and which, when I figure out the answer, I will explain in layman's terms for you all!) this week, and have made a bit of progress. When I submitted my corrections earlier in the week I celebrated by going home and immediately starting my replay of Metal Gear Solid 2, which has brought me a lot of happiness in the evenings this week. Waiting for my passport to arrive... 10 days or so and then in theory I can just leave the country and go travelling!

And as usual, lots of ideas for things that I'm just not writing down... This is something that I need to work on in the coming weeks.

Let's go!