Blissful Return

So, I'm back. It's been a fair while and I can't really be arsed to fill in any of the boring details, but I'm back anyway. The main reason I didn't update this thing was all the different icons and shit I decided to put into each post - well I can't be bothered with that any more, so don't expect this blog to look as wonderful and sparkly and awesome. But if it really affects you that much, you should go sit under a rainbow and write a poem about it - that joke courtesy of South Park's most recent episode.

I've dyed my hair blue-green, but I'm sick of saying blue-green so it's teal. I did it yesterday by myself with the aid of a couple of spotters - Phil, Dan and Simon standing around saying, "You've missed a bit at the back...yeah, now rub it in...bit more on the sides," and stuff like that. Which was actually pretty helpful, otherwise it would look even worse than it already does. But I think it looks cool, which is all that matters. My rents were shocked when they came down for a couple of minutes today, so that cements my feelings.

Got a couple of awesome nights coming up - another Guerilla Rocks tonight, then the BioChemistry Social on Thursday. It's a fancy-dress do, along the theme of rockstars and popstars, so I'm going as Marilyn Manson, which will be pretty awesome. I'm waiting to see who comes as Kanye West. Then punching them in the face. It's the closest I'll ever get to punching the real man. All the BioChem socials so far have been pretty messy, so this one should be pretty awesome too - 2-for-1 deals and the like abound, so we'll see how it goes.

In case any of you are wondering, I don't do BioChemisty or any such thing, but I do design their posters, thus giving me a place on the commitee and a free bracelet thing to all their events. So being a designer has its perks.

After that, I've got Halloween at my girlfriend's house in London, which should be great fun - firstly because I'm seeing my girlfriend who I've been missing, secondly because the house parties they hold are always fun, and thirdly because I'm dressing up as Rorschach from Watchmen, meaning I can sneak up to people and scare the shit out of them without them knowing who I am. Which will be fun.

I've made some new comics and such, all of which can be seen at my deviantART page: http://suvarius.deviantart.com/

StickLife Chums - Strike

Dan decides to have a snack. Once again, this is based on a real quote, but I can't remember how the whole thing actually happened, so I made this scenario up - enjoy!

O Brother, Cheers For Visiting

My brother came down over the weekend, which was pretty cool - he's been promising to come and visit me for a year and half, or basically ever since I started uni, and he's finally done it. Being 22 and out of uni - for a year at least, he's going back in September - he wanted to be shown a good night out in Brighton, so we took him out and crawled a few bars, ending up at a seriously heavy-metal club night called "This Is Noise".

I personally couldn't agree more, but while some of it was stuff I didn't know or particularly like, there was plenty of noise that pandered to my eclectic tastes. Overall, he said it was a good night because he couldn't remember getting home, and since we were all in pretty much the same state, 'twas a good night had by all. Now I've got to visit him down in Portsmouth, since I still haven't in the three and a bit years he's been there. Ah well, one step at a time.

Expect something new from Plinky soon enough, they've been chundering up some interesting questions over the weekend that should prove at least a bit fun to answer.

Animal Matchup - Bear vs Shark

So, which would win between a bear and a shark? Plinky asked me this, and a number of further questions popped into my busy little head - what turf would they be fighting on? What kind of bear? What kind of shark? How the hell would such a fight get started?

So, let's go through these in a steady, methodological manner. Firstly, the issue of where they would be fighting. Of course, a bear would have the upper hand - or paw - on land, and I'm pretty sure a shark would be more adept in the water, so let's make this fight happen in some sort of environment where both are at their peak- which would probably have to be in some sort of virtual environment where both can survive and move with the greatest of ease.

Now let's look at what type of bear or shark we would have fighting - in my opinion, the clear choice would be a hulking great grizzly versus a great white bastard, as this would give us an epic fight of two titans of the animal kingdom. Since we've got that sorted, lets focus on method of attack, and how the two animals hunt and/or fight. Please bear in mind that what I've learned here I've gleaned from documentaries, some of which I haven't seen for a while, so my information might be off.

From what I know, bears tend to stand up and paw at the enemies, or just in general try and swipe and bite and claw their way through any unfortunate bastard that gets in their way. The great white, however, launches itself at the target from a distance, building up speed for one huge slamming chomp that completely incapacitates and generally dicks the poor son of a bitch.

Looking at these facts, it seems to me that the shark would have something of an advantage in its tactics, because unless the bear can get in a good clean swipe in the few moments before it gets conclusively chomped and mullered, it doens't stand a very good chance. So, there's my opinion - in a fight between a bear and shark, where the odds are stacked relatively evenly, the shark would come out on top.

The Wonders of Plinky

So, in an effort to put something up here that might get noticed, read, laughed at, and most importantly my ego stroked, I've taken to the blogger.com-suggested Plinky, a wonderful site that gives you things to write about daily. Naturally, some of these suck, so I'll be using the more interesting things here, or making them up myself. The problem is I have some trouble figuring out what to write about, and Plinky negates all thinking ability by coming up with subjects for me. Thus I can be laze in body and (finally) in mind.

Also, I'm putting a stop to those status images - I can't be arsed to make a new one every time, and putting them into my posts is annoying, because moving a picture around a bit of text with a laptop touchpad is harder than it's worth, and I'll be buggered if I'm going to attach my mouse every time I need to shift an image.

And thus, you realise how lazy I am.

Anyway, onto the subject for today, which I have chosen from the Plinky archives - name three songs that are overplayed but you love them anyway. This is fairly hard, because I haven't listened to the radio properly for a good few years, so I'll have to draw on some of my old - and very old - knowledge of popular music.

The first one to slither into my mind is Nickelback's "Rockstar", an up-beat tune that's simple enough to learn and easy enough to sing without having to either consult a dictionary or resort to sign language for the rest of the night. Something about this song makes it so accessible to me, and I'm not entirely sure what it is.

Maybe it's the easy-going nature, the tempo isn't too fast, and it's the musical equivalent of going to the pub and having a couple of drinks with some of your more relaxed mates. It could possibly be the song's content, exalting and saluting all of the wild excesses that the super-rich indulge in while at the same time satirising them in a way that makes them seem to superficial, except if we were to have them. A bathroom I could play baseball in? Hell, just give me a swimming pool with a shower attachment.

The second would have to be "Tribute" by Tenacious D. I am a fervent admirer of the work of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, and when they burst onto the music scene with this - following their TV show which I still haven't watched to this day - I was shock-and-awed by a barrage of musical, lyrical, comedic and acting genious in a way that I had never seen before.

Needless to say, I now know all the moves according to the music video, as well as both lyrical parts to that crazy vocal breakdown just before the devil busts out his epic guitar solo. There is nothing more satisfying than acting like a complete arse, singing inane lyrics at a volume that really shouldn't be allowed and air-guitaring, -drumming and -bassing every single section while everyone around you is either doing the same thing or is loving you for doing it, rather than stoning you with cacti. Thank you Tenacious D - you made it ok to rock out too much.

Thirdly, I'm going to put up a seriously old favourite - and if you don't know what it is, then you are obviously a mountain-dwelling cave troll devoid of ears or eyes, with no contact to anything anywhere. My final choice is "5, 6, 7, 8" by Steps. I know it's gaudy, I know it's obnoxious, I know it's painful, but I also know that everyone who was under 13 when it was released will know both the words and the moves. Even the guys. Now how many songs can you say have that kind of power, save the Macarena? Exactly.

It's a song that's just so sickly-sweet that it's impossible not to like - as we've grown, the song stays the same and reminds us of how we were, how we used to dance, and how we still haven't really grown up at heart. It's a song that, when put on, urges us out of our seats and onto that dance floor, urges us into lines and to assume the first position before engaging in a ritualistic line-dance that many deep-south dancers would be envious of. It's just a stupid, idiotic, ludicrously fun song, and I love it.

StickLife Chums - Lecture

Just throwing this new one up here, detailing recent events.

StickLife Chums - Nude (and other news)

The weather down by the Brightonian coast, while pleasant enough, is bloody cold - my nipples look like tiny pink traffic cones. I could probably take someone's eye out if I turned round quick enough.

Anywho, aside from the new and possibly controversial StickLife Comic above, there are several items of news to address. Firstly, I am terribly sorry I haven't posted on here for a while - I was moving down to uni again for the beginning of my second year, and as such I had an epic time with that and my birthday presents and Christmas present and drink and the like. So I apologise, but I regret nothing.

Moving on, I've got a fat new TV sat in my uni room - seriously, this thing is epic. It was partially a birthday present (I had to put around five hundred pounds towards it) but the new table it's on and the surround sound and DVD player were Christmas and birthday presents from my rents, for which I thank them loads. Since I can't put a picture of this wonder up yet, I'll just throw down some stats and stuff - the TV is a sleek black Samsung 40" LCD HD ready jobby, and the DVD player/surround sound unit is also black and a Samsung, with DVD upscaling to make regular DVDs look closer to HD. The table has three shelf levels if you include the top, and the TV takes pride of place on there, with the DVD player, my PS2 and PS3 on the next level down, and all my PS1, PS2 and PS3 games on the floor level shelf. Both the TV and the DVD player have remotes that look like I could call a nuclear strike against Russia, and the two front right and left surround sound speakers are epic floor-standing ones that reside either side of the table. It is a gamer's heaven, a film-addicts nirvana, and a thing of beauty, and it's sat right in front of my sofa.

So as you can understand, I am a very happy boy, and I don't think I'll be moving much for the next few weeks, except to get more Blu-Ray films and to go to uni. And possibly to eat.

In other news my mate Annie (who also has a blog which can be found the "My Mates Also Have Awesome Blogs" section on the right) told me today that she's working with the engineering team to make a formula one car, which they will pit against other uni-team-made formula one cars in tests at Silverstone race course. Which in my opinion sounds like the cat's pyjamas.