Work ethic I have none: Part II - Second Year edition.

This blog update is a bit of a cop-out, given that I'm more or less continuing from a previous post from May, entitled: "Work ethic. I have none." However, it seems relevant to me, given that today I have been on a somewhat lacklustre "job hunt," (the quotation marks are completely necessary).

As previously mentioned, my attitude to work is a rather... lazy one (which goes to show how lazy I was just then, for I would've preferred to find a better synonym for "lazy..."). 

However, I've realised one thing over the course of my employment history - I actually don't mind paid work. 

I realise that seems a fairly broad and, to be frank, non-conclusive statement (what kind of person doesn't mind paid work...?!) but hear me out. I could quite happily spend several hours at a time in an undisclosed supermarket chain, doing the ultimately mundane job of... 
SHELF STACKING :O, regardless of the social stigma that seems wrongly attached to peskily cheery customer service assistants... and indeed, the customers who shop there (mental retardation being the numero uno). However, when it comes to certain "work" of the uni variety, I find myself looking for practically ANY excuse to get out of it. "Killing bad gaiz on COD" has worked wonders thus far...

Curse you scart adaptor hell... 

What is my point exactly? Why can I find myself happily trundling into that aforementioned undisclosed nondescript soul-sucking supermarket chain... yet working towards a degree I'm supposed to have a (here come the quotation marks again...) "passion" for is comparable to spending an eternity in hell with a TV, Xbox, an unlimited number of Xbox games...

 and NO scart adaptor... :|

(OK, well I guess it wouldn't be quite so bad... I'm just a sucker for hyperbole.)

The answer, is quite simply: money. The root of all evil, and apparently can't buy you happiness. Yet I seem to prefer earning a regular wage than being the stereotypically poor student bum. However, my inferior powers of foresight mean I can't see the most obvious solution, which I have summed up in a rather wordy equation:
Working hard at uni = better job prospects = more money in the long run. 

A picture that actually combines and demonstrates both my points... however, it is 
copyrighted,  so I'll expect to hear from The Sun's lawyers soon enough... 
(This isn't actually me in the picture this time ... though he does seem mysteriously happy) 

I'll be more inclined to make this a reality, having written it down, but I digress... I - and I'm sure many students have repeated the following immortal words - have said many a time that I would "work harder this year," or "not leave things to the last minute..." But it means nothing unless it's put into practice. To be honest, I've never revised for an exam, and seem to get by on the absolute bare minimum or effort... How I ever got into uni I'll never know. But, things need to change... It's getting silly now... :')

So... here's to my coming year two at uni... my new (academic) years resolution: quite simply to actually be a 

student this time... 

Just... no one buy me Modern Warfare 3... D: 

This is how I envisage I'll be spending my THIRD year at uni...
If all goes to plan... :| 

"A NEW blog post you say?! WHAAAAA -" Autumn edition.

Yes, I have a new blog post. It's been a long time coming, as I'm sure many of my die-hard blog-fans were eagerly awaiting what wonders I have been up to during my Summer months off from uni (all two of you). 
In fact, it's been so long my laptop has forgotten what my default text style and size is for my blogger account... (and ergo, so did I). BUT YES! Here goes: a new chapter in my blogging "career".
To start with, a picture of a cat: 

Now that that's out of the way, I'll update you on how I spent the majority of my summer - (If you'll refer back to my earlier blog post entitled: "Summer - Not all sugar and rainbows..." you'll know I endeavoured to accomplish an exhaustive list of non-stop summer activities - three in total...).

So, appropriately, I realised three things:

This is how I imagine I'd look in my superhero costume - 
saving lesser beings from campers. 

1) I am awesome at COD: Not even in a way that most teenage boys can show off to uninterested girlfriends - not least of all because I'm neither a teenager, nor do I have a girlfriend - but in a way that means I fight with a degree of honour and righteousness (like a modern day superhero, trolling Xbox Live... THAT'S what I am...). My good friend Sebalicious can attest to my superiority on COD - I have no need to prove my point via a one-sided blogpost. 

This is how I felt when it happened...
I also tried growing my hair out for the summer. 

2) Pianos break. I don't know how it happened, either through overuse or intense use - but two of my keys are broken; namely the G# and A an octave above middle C. Weirdly enough, it started with the F# and G a tone below, but mysteriously "spread" to the aforementioned keys. Like some weird... piano breaking virus. On the subject, the neighbours decided to launch an official complaint regarding my "excessive" piano playing. I didn't realise 8:00 on  a Saturday morning would be a problem, but these neighbours are in a league of their own. The word on the street (literally; from our curtain-twitching busy-bodied neighbour Karen) is that they do drugs and all have ASBO's... so I'm guessing they were hungover and/or high on that particular Saturday morning (or planning their role in the London riots) Ahhh good ole' St. Albans... :') 

This is how I was. 100% accurate, even down
to the bloodshot eyes and blue-tinted skin tone. 

3) Blogging over summer is surprisingly difficult. Not because I didn't have a particularly uneventful one, but it quickly became tiresome and contrived. Moreover, it feels like the stuff that happens to me when I get back to uni is more blogworthy than telling strangers on the internet how I just owned several other strangers on the internet, via the medium of COD. There's only so many times you can brag about your incomparable K/D ratio, or that you've just covered that new Rihanna song on piano. 

BUT - with a new year at uni ahead of me, I'm more than confident that I'll devote myself more fully to blogging. After all - It is my duty to keep strangers on the internet informed of the happenings in my life. FOR THAT IS MY TRUE PURPOSE! XboxMan - AWAY! 

The COD effect. I hate it.

Sadly, this is NOT the type of camping I'm talking about... 

Preach. 

This blog update features a very specific topic in mind. Whilst I have previously mentioned my adoration (bordering "obsession" some would say...) for video game, I must reference my fondness for one such particular brand of game:

CoD... *dun dun dun* o.O

It's prevalence amongst gamers today is second-to-none. Mentioning "CoD" to most people over the age of say... 30,  they would probably expect you to be talking about a species of fish. However, to many people under 30 (if we're talking about the key demographic of 18-30 year-old males), their reaction may vary from: mouth-frothing, increased heart-rate, profuse sweating and indeed... an urge to "eliminate the opposition." 


In fact, as previously mentioned in my "Summer - not all sugar and rainbows..." blog, I myself am a CoD fan. Black Ops was the game in question that I looked forward to as being an unashamedly enormous time-sink for my Summer holidays. However, the excitement soon wore off. The thrill of killing anonymous online Xbox Live users was short-lived. I realised that COD, as a franchise, manages to both encapsulate and frustrate it's audience - including myself - in equal measures.

I'm not an angry person, by nature... Playing CoD has given me a chance at self-reflection. I'm a much more terrible person than I thought... D: 

This is me in Hulk-Cat Hybrid form. 

I find myself having to take breaks from CoD (or rather... play it in intermittent bursts... the first one made it seem like my entire summer was devoted to CoD - which would only be half right...), for fear of developing some adverse side-effects - like turning green and feeling unexplained urges to "smash." (for the astute comic book fans, I was likening myself to the Hulk... :| but... whatever...) 


A "game" should be fun... it shouldn't have the ability to elicit any negativity. But maybe that's what make me more... bloodthirsty?! 

This makes me sick... It requires no skill...! D:

... bastard. 

When a game harbours elements that frustrate me, such as so-called "camping", (whereby a player sits in a corner of a room, using equipment such as a motion sensor, or claymore to defend themselves...), I feel like it's such an injustice. Like the whole ethos of CoD multiplayer has been made of mockery of.  Is there any justice in "camping?" (I talk about "justice" as if there's a higher power of CoD police who could deal with such players... sadly - there is not). 


I then realise something else... these campers don't care how annoyed I get. And indeed, if we were in real modern warfare, you would use whatever so-called "dirty" tactics you could to survive... 


Still... It doesn't annoy me any less. 

Summer - Not all sugar and rainbows...

This blog post centres around my plans and ideals of my forthcoming summer vacation.

I'll be honest - I likely have a somewhat "different" view of what most people would consider "fun." My interests span to:-

1. Playing video games... 8)
2. Playing piano. 
3. Blogging now, apparently.

All of these activities require me to not leave the house (unless there's some outdoor piano somewhere... or I took my laptop outside and blogged from there - but those are technicalities... -_- ) and also, coincidentally, can all be executed alone. Does this therefore mean that I'm "wasting" my summer holidays? Can you call me a "geek" for staying indoors and owning the masses on COD, or working on piano covers for my youtube account? You could... I suppose. But where others feel the need to be outside, "making the most" of our paltry British summer, I find myself more inclined to cut out the middle man. It's more in my nature to act like a hermit all year round, regardless of the weather. 

What exactly are the benefits of being outside? "Fresh air" you say? Fresh air is overrated... 

This cat is a metaphorical representation
of how I intend to spend the majority of my
summer... I can't wait... :'D

I should point out, when I say "hermit," I'm not exactly an unsociable person. In fact, quite the opposite. I like spending time with my friends, and undoubtedly have more fun playing co-op RPG's with them for days at a time... ahhh TOV... you will have been missed... :') It also means I won't be seeing my friends any less than I normally would... but most of the entertainment that can be had with them can be achieved inside - going outside is, more or less, superfluous when it comes to attaining optimum levels of... FUN. 

But I'm not going to go out of my way to do something I don't particularly enjoy with my free time, to do something more "socially acceptable..." Like... having WILD house parties, or crazy road trips to completely arbitrary seaside destinations... those things would only appeal to me if they were "Xbox House Parties..." or if the seaside destination in question had some form of arcade...(wow, I can sense the geekiness in my words just seeping out into the interweb... :| ) 

This is NOT my ideal summer... these kids may have learnt to defy gravity, but can they do a 
Britney Spears mash-up on piano, or get a flawless FFA match on COD? ... Point proven.
(also, the ones on the left and right look in pain...) 

I guess what I'm trying to say is - if you hear about my plans for summer and start judging how "lame" they may seem in comparison to yours... you needn't bother. If your "warped" view on summer involves frolicking through fields of flowers, with overhanging rainbows, and picnics under a tree with friends, (or, seemingly more appropriate for people of my age-band, messy nights out getting drunk...) then all the more power to you. 

I'm as excited for my summer holidays as you are, and they can't come quick enough... :D