Stuff

Nothing much to report, so a post to say "I'm still here, somewhere".

Added a "Safer, Faster, Better" Firefox button to the template. I've been using it, and it's predecessor Mozilla for years now, and I can say they're infinitely better than IE. Firefox comes with tabbed browsing, integrated RSS/XML sitefeed support, various security features, popup blocking and much more. It's also fully skinnable. All in all, a very good browser, and now (unlike the early days with Moz) pretty much fully supported by most websites.

Away all week in Norwich next week with work, so won't be posting much if at all. Still, I've not posted this week so no change there then.

RGLDm

Via some convoluted series of links I somehow ended up here. Thought I'd give it a go, these personality tests are often amusingly 200 miles wide of the mark. I got "RGLDm" or
Random Gentle Love Dreamer - The Boy Next Door. The description is pretty accurate (as far as these things go, I'm a person not a personality cliche), so I'll copy it here.

Kind, yearning, playful, you are The Boy Next Door. You're looking for real Love, a lot like girls do. It might not be manly, but it's sweet.

We think the next three years will be very exciting and fruitful ones for you. Your spontaneous, creative side makes you a charming date, and we think you have a horny side just waiting to shine. Or glisten, rather. You enter new relationships unusually hopeful, and the first moments are especially glorious. If you've had some things not work out before, so what.

On paper, most girls would name the Boy Next Door as their ideal mate. In the real world, however, you're often passed over for more dangerous or masculine men. You're the typical "nice guy:" without just a touch of cockiness, you're doomed with girls. A shoulder to cry on? Okay, sure. But never a penis to hold.

More than any other type, Boys Next Door evolve as they get older. As we said, many find true love, but some fail miserably in the search. These tarnished few grow up to be The Men Next Door, who are creepy as hell, offering backrubs to kids and what not.

So there we are, all you single girls out there have a duty to come and save me from being one of those creepy guys who ask kids to sit on their knee, and hang out at playgrounds even though they have no children of their own.

From the front lines

As some of you will know (and as I mentioned in the most recent template changes post) I play in a Call of Duty league team every week (or almost every week). I thought some match reports might make a nice (if somewhat geeky) change from the angst and self doubt that fills many of my posts.

First off, I suppose an introduction and overview of what happens is required. The league is organised into several divisions (4 at the moment, Premiership, 1st, 2nd and 3rd, as with football etc). Each team in the division plays each of the others only once. We play in teams of 5 in "search and destroy" mode. The game environment (or map as it's usually called) contains two objectives (usually large artillery guns, AA guns, fuel dumps, and other such large immobile objects that would reasonably be the target of a special forces attack in a war). One team (usually but not always the Germans) has to defend these targets, while the other (one of the other 3 possible sides in Call of Duty - Americans, British and Russians) has to attack and plant a bomb at one of them. The Germans have the possibility of defusing the bomb if it's planted - but only for a short period. If the bomb is successfully planted and it's timer expires, the attackers win. If the round timer (3 minutes) expires before the bomb is planted, the defenders win. If either side is completely eliminated, then the other is the victor. This is repeated a number of times - 10 rounds for the first half, then everyone swaps sides (defenders become attackers etc) and do another 10 rounds, overall victory going to the team with the most rounds on aggregate after the two halves.

It's a simple enough concept, but victory requires that the team is well prepared with tactics suited to the map, finely tuned senses and trigger fingers, and perhaps most importantly, and ability to work well together as a team. There isn't much to say by way of a match report this week - our opponents were miles ahead of us on all 3 of these fronts. Less so in the tactics department - our team tactician, Phil, put a lot of work into finding the best vantage points on the map and the best routes to attack - we were just hugely outclassed in team working and shooting ability.

So the final score – a shameful 19-1 to them. But it’s only our first week in the premiership, and the standard here is clearly a huge step on from the 1st division where we’ve lived for the other 4 seasons, so we’ve got a lot to learn. Next week we play a fellow promotee – “Bifflan” and we’re determined to come away with a win.

More Singleton Angst

(disclaimer for the previous post: With my slapper-in-club comment I don't mean to imply that all women in clubs are pissed out of their minds, or all slappers. Nor no I mean that relationships formed in clubs are in any way less valuable or less likely to be successful than those formed elsewhere. And if you pick someone up in a club and take her home, then that’s great and I hope you get what you're looking for... it's just not my style, that’s all.)

Buried between all the other stuff in my previous post lies what is perhaps one of the main reasons I'm a professional single. I've never made the first move, nor am I likely to any time soon. The reasons for this vary with the seasons of my psyche just as everything else does, but basically it comes down to this: I'm afraid of rejection, and almost as scared of success.

My irrational thought processes follow the path that the object of my affection (themselves relatively few and far between) is bound to reject me, and if she doesn’t, it’s clearly because she thinks I’m something I’m not. I therefore couldn’t possibly live up to being whatever it is she wants me to be. It would be cruel of me to deceive someone like that, so I don’t give them the chance. I don’t believe I’m what they need, so I save them from the mistake of believing I am.

I want very much to be the perfect boyfriend, but since perfection is unobtainable I’m doomed to failure. I’m strongly of the opinion I’m not even close. And since I can’t tolerate failing, I don’t try. - An attitude I mock in other people. I hate how hypocritical I am too sometimes.

My mum always said I’d need a strong willed girl to set out to get me, and do all the running. This is pretty accurate, but since I’m clearly not the sort of man who attracts girls like that, I’m probably going to a singleton for a while yet.

Eligible Batchelor

Why am I single?

It’s a simple enough question, with a million different answers. Depending on the day of the week, angle of the moon or some other bizarre factor, my answer varies from an unshakable belief that I’m completely unfanciable and always will be, to some vague hope that I’m so likeable that everyone just assumes I’m already paired up. (The mistaken belief of the Jigsaw café staff that I’m somehow involved with Tsuki should be discounted from all arguments, they’re quite clearly insane) and a great many places in between (and to the left and right of) the two.

Maybe I’m too sober? Maybe I don’t spend enough time in places with drunken women? Maybe I’m too insane? Geeky? Young looking? In this enlightened age, should it still be me that makes the first move (because this is highly unlikely without about 3 years to work up courage and steel myself for the inevitable rejection)? Maybe my old-fashioned concept that I should at least know them reasonably well before I consider anything more serious puts me at a disadvantage? (it probably does… zero chance of me picking up some drunken slapper in a club and taking her home, because I don’t want to)

I could argue I’ve got a lot going for me – I’m solvent (unlike many graduates) with a decent job (when you factor out the IQ-inhibited management making stupid decision after stupid decision). I’m intelligent, with a good (at least in my opinion) sense of humour. I’m loyal and conscientious when I put my mind to it. While I’m not supermodel stuff, I don’t like I’ve had my face run over by a herd of wild horses either.

But then… I’m about as geeky and nerdy as they come, and to a large extent proud of that. I live and sleep computers, and don’t care if you think that’s sad. My apparent lack of any vices or dirty secrets probably makes me boring rather than attractively reliable. Maybe my inability to do proper small talk, and resultant habit of turning most conversations into debates on 3rd world poverty or the value of space exploration in a world faced with such terrible poverty scares girls off?

So, why am I single? Agony Aunt replies or mocking insults on a postcard (or in the handily placed comments section) please.

Template Updates

Eyes Right!

You'll notice a new blog link, that of Cleggton, a friend from work, and a newcommer to the Blogging Scene.

Also are links to TeamPlay UK and Intactive Gaming UK. Teamplay is a LAN/Internet gaming center I visit regularly, and play on their Call of Duty league team (we got promoted to the premiership this season!). IGUK is the group of centers they are a member of, and runs various leagues (including the CoD one) and competitions every week. Both worth checking out if you're a UK resident and into gaming.

Thats all for now.

Disjointed Thinking

Was I a fool to think.... yes, I undoubtedly was. I should probably have stopped thinking a long time ago. Thought, the foundation of my life, and driver of my actions, betrays me as often as I believe emotion would if I let it. Rational analysis of the situation seems to lead to greater confusion as often as it does clarity. It means only that I know all the arguments, not that I know which is right. If I cannot trust my heart, no amount of analysing it will tell me what is right.

Do I miss her? Of course I do. Barely a day goes by when I do not think of her. Maybe just the briefest recollection. A small and unimportant thing that reminds me of her in some way or other.

Do I wish things were different? Yes... and no... in so many different ways I can't even begin to sort and classify my feelings like I usually would. And regardless, wishing gets me nowhere, whichever way I would wish. I am where I am, and got here because I did what I thought was best at every turning. At every crossroads I choose what I believed to be the right path.

Do you know what and who I'm writing about? No doubt... even if I'd like to believe otherwise. I once thought I was being very clever, walking the tightrope between being obvious and nobody being able to tell. Now, after a couple of things people have said, I've changed my mind. I think a number of people knew all along. Did she? Maybe... no doubt I'll never really know - I don't think I want to either.