The Apprentice

The new series of the apprentice started tonight, with the explosive debut that saw bad accounting and negligence by the female managers; yet prudence, maturity and triumph from the male team. I’ll say no more on THAT subject.

First of all I’d like to say that sir Alan’s decision on who to fire shows that he’s long stopped looking for an apprentice, and is now trying to make the most entertaining show possible. A quick peek at tvguide.co.uk only cements this, as the series is only 12 weeks long, but even after the last minute withdrawal of one of the candidates, there are 15. Obviously there are going to be a few double firings.

Now to today’s show itself. It was vastly entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’d say it was a brilliant job of editing, except a little blip near the beginning, where it was obvious that the scene had been cut together that way to create a bit if tension. I especially enjoyed the part where the team leader (at least I think she was) picked up a duster and asked a colleague what it was, and whether they would need it [for cleaning cars]. Another great moment for me was when the looser was sitting in the taxi, and had the audacity to think that Alan would “look back in 10 years time and wonder if he had made the right decision”. In that fleeting moment she was too full of herself

In conclusion, a great show tonight, although the veneer of the whole program concept seems to be wearing off slightly, so its good to see even Alan himself trying to stir things up. Next week: cooking. I can’t wait.

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Bonus:

I found this excellent rick roll on teh internetz today, and lets just say i’ve found a new desktop background

The wonders of addictive gaming

While I’m not much of a gamer myself, I recently had a brief addiction the the game red alert 2….

When me and a couple of friends realised that we would have ’study’ periods for the first 3.5 hours of  school, we decided that we just HAD to play a LAN game. Rather than impose ourselves on the school network, and get ourselves suspended for a week each, we had the genius idea of setting up our own temporary LAN. With each person bringing their respective expertise to the table we managed to secure our favourite room for the entire 3.5 hours. (Its our favourite because its out of the way, and has blinds on all 3 windows). After a lot of faffing around, and visualising because vista doesn’t have support for the IPX protocol, (sort it out Microsoft) we were able to begin. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and promised that at some time over the holidays when we weren’t engrossed in study we would throw a LAN party.

That evening while at home I decided to have a bit of practice, seeing as I wasn’t used to playing RTS games. 3 hours later, I’m finally too tired to even keep my eyes open long enough to watch the cutscenes, and call it a day. Over the next week, I spent at least 24 hours plating this brilliant game, on Friday night up until 3AM despite the busy morning I knew I would have the next day. In the end to save myself, I’ve had to delete the game to prevent myself from playing it. And my body wants those 3 hours of sleep back from Friday.

The moral of this story… Don’t play games… Or do, but only in moderation. Or get some will power.

Wow! Last post was back in November

Well, I’m back the rescue this blog form the grave, but rather than go on a meaningless rant, this time I’ve decided to share a list of favourite websites with you. They are all ‘blog’ sites with frequently updated content.

1. Graphjam – This is a god one for math(s) geeks like me (but everyone else as well), with a collection of user submitted graphs, depicting the results of many comedic situations. While works of PURE genius are few and far between, your sure to find something that a least makes you smile to yourself most of the time.

2. Fail-blog – This website is a vast collection of ‘fail pics’, which basically comprise of something or the other going wrong. Whether it be a baby getting kicked in the face by an overzealous street dancer, a man disgracing himself with nunchucks or a deliberately suggestive headline.

And who can forget the epic drainage fail.

3. The daily WTF – From even the title you can see that this site isn’t for the uninitiated. Giving a daily meal of what they refer to as ‘curious perversions in information technology’, this website is for the true computer geek.
The average post can range from a delightful (usually true) anecdote about the turmoils of a particular job, to a cull from an exceptionally bad piece of code.
Sure to get you staring at the screen on disbelief. (If you get it of course)

4. Live.pirilo.com – I don’t visit this one too often any more, but Chris is a VERY clever man when it comes to IT, and since he used to be a TV presenter, he always has the skill and eloquence required to describe complicated IT concepts to even beginners. I he also often popularises useful apps and websites. He’s just in the know!  This site also has a very vibrant, and friendly community.

So thats it. A selection of 4 of the websites that keep me from this blog.

PS: From now on I hope to do at least one post a week, so keep your eyes peeled