Okay, I’m back in Manchester now and therefore have proper internet access back, as opposed to the pedal-powered effort at my parents’ house.

You can probably work out from things like this that I wasn’t exactly the coolest, best looking or most popular guy at school. That may, in fact, be something of an understatement. Anyway. Like all desperately unattractive, awkward, geeky guys, I had a hopelessly unrealistic high school crush; she was called Sarah, and she was one of those girls who hung around with all the other really attractive girls and who constantly had a much older (and invariably bigger) boyfriend. All a bit Disco 2000: We were friends, but that was as far as it went, etc.

Anyway, at the reunion last night, we got talking and she said that when I’d turned up she completely failed to recognise me, because I now looked “really cool” and she could only remember me being “sort of… you know… geeky”.

That made me so very happy.

And the smug thing? Well, that’s because my dear girlfriend has been whinging at me to get my shaggy long hair cut for quite some time now. Sarah thought it looked cool and told me not to listen to her. So, if she does finally decide that enough is enough, I can take heart in knowing that there’s girls out there who like my hair. Yes. Smug.

I am so cool.

I’ve just been to a high school reunion. I am so smug right now. I shall explain more later.

The game I was working on before I quit the games industry and got a proper job* has finally got a proper website, with a bunch of videos and new screenshots and things. You can find it at: http://www.starshiptroopersgame.com/. It’s looking quite shiny – the night-time movie in particular looks very nice; the screenshots don’t really do it justice. A bit disappointing that they’ve used year-old movies and screenshots in places, but I know how long it takes to produce those damn things and it doesn’t half eat into your development schedule. I’m not sorry to have quit, but I’m pleased to see that the game is still looking good. So long as I still get my free copy, eh guys? 🙂

There’s also a fansite here, which looks quite a lot prettier than the official site, but don’t tell anyone I said that.

I appear to have developed the somewhat bizarre habit of sticking the plastic cups you get from the water cooler to bits of my face by squeezing them slightly to create a vacuum suction effect. No-one here has yet commented. I’m wondering if they’re all secretly laughing at me. Or hiding.

What the next generation of games should be like. Dubious claims about “in-order processing” and AI aside, this guy talks quite a lot of sense.

Courtesy of BW comes this. I’m sure comics were never that filthy when I used to read them.

Heh. Boner. Heh.

Been meaning to mention this for a couple of days now, but former iCandy resident Jane has moved to a new home at Ephemera, following an extended period away from blogging. Nice to have her back and there’s some very lovely photos of Manchester on her blog at the moment, so go and say hello.

Our team went to the Earth Cafe for lunch today. It’s a vegan place underneath the Manchester Buddhist Centre, and it’s really very good indeed; I had a chilli and some freshly squeezed orange juice, but they sell a decent range of very enticing looking salads that I only discovered when the (almost annoyingly meek) guy behind the counter had loaded up my plate with rice and chilli. And the best bit was that, as today is the anniversary of Siddhartha Gautama achieving enlightenment and becoming a Buddha, the food was all free (although donations were “encouraged and greatfully received”). So, although I won’t be giving up meat, shaving my head and moving to Tibet any time soon, I can thorougly recommend Earth Cafe as a thoroughly nice place to eat.

WigWam, the Norweigan Eurovision entrants, have a website. With MP3 downloads. This is pure dead legendary stuff. If anyone is looking for ideas for a birthday present for me (12th June, don’t forget, mmkay?) then their album would go down very well indeed 🙂

I awoke this morning not to the soothing sound of John Humphrys voice, but to the rasping trombone solo of the theme to “Monte Carlo or Bust”. Yes; the BBC News team are all on strike, and so instead they were repeating old episodes of I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue instead. Which, frankly, is a much better idea and much more entertaining than hearing politicians worm their way out of questions – which is fun, but gets old really quickly.

The slow news day has spread to the BBC News website, too. As evidenced by the fact that they’re reporting on a new American (it had to be, really) diet called The Jesus Diet – apparently, we should all be eating unleavened bread, drinking red wine and not eating meat more than once a month. And it’s not just for our physical health; oh no, by following the Jesus Diet, you’re bringing yourself further into line with God’s Will and therefor buying yourself a shortcut ticket to heaven. Dr Colbert’s website is fantastic, and well worth a browse around if religious fruitcakes (no pun intended) are your thing.