Random ramblings of a psychopathic cucumber

Recent projects

2008-07-28T20:13:29Z

I've been quite busy with painting over the past few months, what with not really having much else to do (Something which will soon change upon the commencement of real work *shudder*). The first set of pictures is from a little painting project I did a couple of months ago, I liked the look of the tech marine model so I decided to invest some time trying to paint it up real nice. Also allowed me to try out a few new things, mainly mixing my own shades from paints I have knocking about. I'm pretty pleased how it turned out too, well worth the effort.

Shortly after I decided to splash out of some snazzy Forge World stuff as well. I picked up the renegade guard command squad and the ogryn berserkers (I've assembled them but haven't started the job of painting them yet). Quite please how the renegades turned out too. I was a bit apprehensive about using browns as they're not something I've really tangled with before. The trousers was done with a base coat of scorched brown with some graveyard earth highlights and then a quick dry brush with bleached bone. The hoods were done with snakebite leather, scorched brown with graveyard earth highlights. I especially like how the guy with the plasma gun turned out. He's tied with the aforementioned tech marine as my favourite project to date.

The Results are in and all bets are off

2008-06-13T14:24:10Z

Its that time of year again and I've clocked in my final set of results. Once again I have defied my critics and given the universe the finger.

In addition to the results from last semester are the following:

Molecular Interactions - 72%
Chemistry Research Project - 59%

This nets a year long average of 61.3% and gives me (by the skin of my fucking teeth) a 2:1. So all is well.

Was hoping to do better in my project but it hardly matters now.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Things and stuff

2008-03-05T12:58:37Z

Been a bit lax in the traditional posting of the semester's exam results so here they are in all their glory:

Special Topics in Chemistry 3 - 70.0%
Contemporary Organic Synthesis and the Construction of Bioactive Targets - 47.0%
Advanced Inorganic Chemistry - 68.0%

That gives a respectable 61.4% (ish) average which is the best since my first year and puts me back in the happy territory of the 2:1. Although the less said about the 47% the better, as that's the module half taught by my supervisor and the only organic module this year. It's quite an embarrassing result considering I'm doing an organic project.

In other news I've been going out a lot on Saturday nights to pubs, cinemas, rock city and the like over the past month. I am becoming dangerously sociable; this is a cause for concern.

The most recent event of interest is a small occurrence yesterday which resulted in a nice collection of acid burns on my face. Fun for all the family right there.

Other than that all is going quite well, which is quite unusual to be honest.

Urgh

2008-01-22T13:36:46Z

Exams are done, they sucked more than a big sucky thing that sucks for pleasure and profit.

Uni has started proper again, 9-5s are once again turning me to an empty husk of a man, cripplingly dependent on caffeine and the joyous moments I get off.

On the up side I got to go to the chemistry's "hydrog room" yesterday. It's effectively a room on the roof that looks like a cold war bunker (windows aside) and has big blast doors complete with rivets and red paint.

Still no idea what I’m going to do with myself next year, not sure weather its even worth bothering trying to get a PhD, what with me being so stoopid. Would mean I’d have to get a job though and the less said about jobs the better.

Now if you excuse me I must drag myself back to my lab and start filtering chemicals through sand again

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains...AND SCIENCE!

2007-11-01T14:13:56Z

As some of you fellows (and fellowettes) may know the John has begun the long slog of his forth and final year of his chemistry degree. This alas entails effectively having a 9-5 job that you have to pay for. Don't get me wrong though its great fun and all, it's just so very, very tiring and I spend most of it standing up which for someone with my dire posture can be somewhat unpleasant at times.

Since I started this laboratory based slog to grauatory glory I have spent almost every waking hour feeling extremely tired. There are numerous theories to the cause of this floating around my mostly empty head; is it a poor diet? Is it a lack of proper sleep? Is it the fact that I’m a colossally lazy git who is almost morbidly allergic to work? Is it because I am slowly dying of some sort of horrific disease? Who knows? I'm just chugging down gallons of tea to compensate.

On non work related notes I have finally reclaimed 2 days of the week as "me time", this is roughly translated to you normal people as "sitting around in a semi-vegetative state time". In years past it's been gaming, gaming, casual robbery, gaming, nearly every night so it's nice to have the odd evening to myself in my old age. This time could be spent profitably doing work or tidying up or a myriad of other things that really need to be done. But nay I have been using this time to rekindle my love affair with little plastic people and small pots of paint. In the past few months (mainly since the release of Apocalypse) I have been slowly giving Games Workshop more and more of my soul. The current project on the go is the building/converting (which is now done) of some snazzy new chaos terminators and now the painting thereof. And all the while in the background the faint sound of Scrubs or Blackadder plays away to soothe my mind. These evenings are to be blunt: "bliss". Sure I still feel dead on my feet after the 5 odd hours of painting and what not but at least it's the content sort of tired weariness as opposed to the dragging weariness that seeks to lay you low. But I digress.

In more personal matters I have largely come to terms with the death of my Gran during the summer and although the fear of death and what lies beyond still lingers constantly at the back of my mind it no longer induces the hyperventilating that it did a few months back. Looking to the future is still making me soil my self though. What am I going to do after graduation? Can I wangle a PhD here in sunny Nottingham or will I have to get a proper job? Seems so far off, but also so close and here's little me quite happy to live in the now. My project supervisor has been thoroughly notified about my desire to do as PhD, so hopefully I'll be able to get my foot in the door that way. Weather I could actually cope with the rigours of one is of course, and entirely different kettle of paint.

And now I must leave you to journey once more back into the bowels of the Chemistry department, to my little cozy lab.

It would seem I've been somewhat moistend Old Bean

2007-06-15T16:17:57Z

There's a quintessential truth about rain, it never lies. It makes only one promise; a promise it keeps; "I will make you wet". And that it does. Today was a most glorious day for rain, sheets of opalescent joy cascaded down from a sky shot with graphite tones. Dancing across this grey field was that rare and fine tracery of electric blue accompanied soon after by its eternal bedfellow thunder. Its peels like the very splitting of the earth.

And through this torrent of precipitation I danced and ran. But the stalwart bulwark that is my coat and armour against the world for the first time failed me, for previously not a bead of water or sparkle of snow had penetrated it, but today it did! And this in itself is a cause for celebration, for nothing quite makes me feel so happy and alive as rain.

But flowery prose about it pissing it down aside I got my results today and in time honoured fashion here is the breakdown:

Bioinorganic and Metal Coordination Chemistry - 67%
Catalysis - 58%
Special Topics in Chemistry 2 - 61%
Advanced Laboratory and Literature and Communication Skills - 61%
Structure, Bonding and Reactivity - 62%
Synthesis and Reactive Intermediates - 51%

Coupling this with last semester's results gives me a happy year average of 58%

That means that should I have graduated this year I'd have been in the territory of the borderline and probably would have had to suffer a viva. But thankfully this is not the case and I have ample opportunity next year with the big project of doom to make it easily into 2.1 land.

In conclusion: I am t3h awesome

That is all

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch

2007-06-10T18:15:36Z

Once more the veritable horror that is exam time has sated it's hunger by feasting upon the hopes, dreams, sanity and nerves of students everywhere and has crawled back into it's cave to slumber for another 9 or so months. The air is full of rapture, joy and cute 'ickle butterflies and other assorted summery stuff.

Once more we are free...well until hayfever rears it's ugly head

The period after exams has once again been filled with stuff to do so John has been a very busy boy indeed. There has been Rob's BBQ, Rob's 3 day house party of gaming, the RPG Soc BBQ (we got kicked out of the usual spot in Wolaton Park as apparently BBQs are now banned there) and in the coming week there's 2 sessions of gaming, a game of B5 and a game of Twilight Imperium.

In some ways I'm more busy now than I was when I still had lectures, but I'm sure it's all just the trick of a lazy mind that would love nothing more than to collapse into a crude heap and sleep for the next few weeks. I also at some point need to get round to trying to find a job so I can earn the precious sterling pounds to finance my need for unsightly and irrelevant things such as food.

I can easily see myself wasting all this "free time" doing jack-shit like usual but "hopefully" I might get some models painted up, might even manage to force myself down to Warhammer World to pick up bits for a new Inquisitor model I want to do and possibly another conversion for my chaos army.

Curiously I don't find myself hating summer all that much this year, sure there's the ever present threat of hayfever and temperatures that make me feel like my flesh is melting from my bones and require the almost constant use of Mr. Desk-fan, but I don't hate it all. As humorous as that may sound.

Anywho for now I bid thee people of the internets farewell

And so it begins...

2007-05-15T17:28:42Z

At 9am tomorrow morning the bi-yearly beginning of the end of the world commences.

This time we're starting off with a real corker; a 3 hour exam on a year long organic chemistry. Were I given the choice between taking this exam and having my eyes stabbed out with a spoon, I'd be inclined to go with the eye stabbage.

It promises to be a very, very bad day indeed, especially considering I really do know squat. Some say you can only achieve enlightenment by first admitting you know nothing, as nice as that is now is not exactly the best time to start down the road to Nirvana.

All the same wish me luck

God hates me

2007-05-05T11:22:29Z

Well my internet was supposed to "go live" and start working again on the 3rd, as it is it's still fucked and in a state of none workingness.

Now I have to wait between 1 and 6 days for BT to investigate the possibility of a line fault and then however long it'll take to get things sorted afterwards whatever the result. I am inclined to think that it probably isn't my fault as I still couldn't connect after trying two different modems, 2 different micro filters and having BT run a check on the "voice line" bit of the phone line.

So the only logical conclusion is that God hates me and doesn't want me to finished downloading Scrubs season 2.

Bugger

2007-04-14T11:09:54Z

The internet at my house has died. Know idea when it'll be back up

I intend to call the isp this afternoon and threaten to murder them

That is all

Oh Beards

2007-03-30T09:17:56Z

This afternoon I get the train home and return to the grim northern wastes for a whole week

What horrors and misadventures await? What treasures lay undiscovered? What is my mum going to be making for dinner?

Hopefully this great and noble quest northward will pass without event

Wish me luck :P

With these two hands...

2007-03-04T21:07:44Z

There is very little life that I have done and actually been proud of. However after the better part of 3 days my clumsy meat scoops that serve as a set of hands have wrought something that I can only regard with awe. I find it a thing of beauty that should be beyond my abilities.

I speak of my new Inquisitor model; Inquisitor Steele Witch Hunter of the Ordo Hereticus, defender of faith and purity throughout the Imperium, bringer of light and hope and scourge of the heretical. It feels as if I've poured my ~~heart~~ ~~soul~~ something into it, making it a symbol of something or other. Unless you haven't guessed I'm really, really, REALLY pleased with it.

Originally a Navis Nobilitai (how great is that name? It just rolls of the tongue like something that rolls of tongues, like words or spit...wait this metaphor's gone to shit) or "Navigator"model. After filling off his mystic third eye the real fun began. The psycannon (the thing on his right arm) was a wee bit tricky to place properly and get to stick, it is after all one big honking space gun. The halberd replaced the Navigators rather shiny staff and was pinned with ickle bits of brass rod I stole off Gareth (pinning! I was shocked too! I'm using fancy techniques that require effort and everything!). Then I went a bit crazy with purity seals with my left over green stuff, initially the "paper" bits were made using little strips of plastic (like the ones on the halberd and near his feet) before Gareth suggested I should try using actually paper and coating it in super glue to make it harder and more durable; the result was most satisfactory. I even went to town and put a big curling seal down the length of the halberd's shaft.

Next came the painting. After the obligatory black undercoating I began to indulge my crazy sense of aesthetics. The purple and gold is trying to give a sort of regal appearance and make him look a little overbearing, the marroony red seemed as good a colour as any to use on his inner robes.

Now this bit on his back is something I was really please with, especially the skulls on his sleeves. To me it looks like I actually put some effort in to it (which I did) as opposed to just sloshing paint everywhere as I often do.

The almost finished article. The highlight of this for me has to be the piece of cloth down the middle, That blue splodge which hasn't come out too great on the photo is actually a small illuminated letter, a golden "I" on a nice blue background. The black "text" is another thing I'm really pleased with.

And here is the finished article. I gave him some big bushy eye brows that I think are befitting the general character I was going for, and the small dots of blue in his eyes really make him look like he has some sort of personality to him as opposed to the chunk of white metal that he really is. So there we go, something I'm generally proud of; an aged Inquisitor with a strong, regal bearing and a hint of sadness at those gone astray from the words of the Emperor.

Ok I think I'm done now, enough rambling about how awesome I think it is...even though it is awesome, dare I even say 256 shades of awesome!

I'll be quiet now...

Blargle

2007-03-04T03:12:09Z

ARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH! etc

Booze once again clouds my mind, I should really curtail how much I drink when I do drink. AS tonight I spent the better part of two hours punching my foot till my knuckles started to bleed, silently uttering to myself "why?" over and over.

I'm not entirely sure why I did this, but what ever the reason my hands hurt, as does my foot

crazy_johan @ 2007-02-23T08:45:00

2007-02-23T08:45:41Z

This morning I went for a run

Be affraid

Capitalism I salute you

2007-02-14T23:52:56Z

Ah valintine's day, what a hollow holiday in the capitalist calender. I'm sure I ouldn't be so bitter if I wasn't single, but meh

I celebration of this day of love tonight at sci-fi we watched Hellraiser and call of cthulhu. Very moving romantic films.

I also deny all claims that I ended up singing "I feel good" really loud while leaving Hugh-Stew

I shall never surrender!

Also beer may be effecting my mind....and by maybe I mean "oh god I'm pissed"

Yarr¬!

2007-02-05T00:32:11Z

My celebraritions resiluted in m usch drinkenness

Much fun qwe==was had by all!

May God smile upon you all one this most glorious of days!

Aharg!

Etc

Joyous day calooy calay

Battle Stations

2007-01-25T21:31:50Z

Well my last exam is tomorrow at 9am, this is irritating since my second last exam was at 4:30pm today. What this amounts to is I haven't really learned all I need to know for tomorrow and thus am trying vainly to learn all I need to know now. It's not entirely a last minute thing since I did some revision for this exam early this week, but that was over 2 days ago. I've forgotten everything.

It is not good

There is too much I need to try and cram into this tiny little skull of mine, too much I just don't know and can't remember, too much I'm sure I'll never know.

Panic set in about an hour ago and currently I am trying to not tumble over the edge into the abyss I've so very careful walked along my entire life. My breathing has become slightly erratic, hyper-ventilation is probably only a few steps away and after that panic attacks ahoy! Not something I've had the displeasure of experiencing before, but something my Dad got pretty bad about 2 decades ago. But my panic and paranoia engines are running at full steam so I'm probably over reacting.

I'm almost quite litteraly crapping myself with fear and I really don't like it.

It's not that surprising really, under this somewhat bouncy and crazy exterior is a sack of nerves like coiled springs just waiting to go *POING*

But soon it'll be over

I'll beat these bastard exams even if I have to get out and damn well push

Tis the season...the season of pain!

2007-01-15T13:49:55Z

Well it's that time of year again, the time of year when students everywhere (well everywhere that operates a modular exam system) weep with a thousand sorrows (or more accurately on average, 4 sorrows). Yes it’s exam season, a season which unfortunately is nothing like duck season; in that there’s no ducks, but a similarly proportionate amount of death and violence…the gun dogs are of course largely optional.

Exams are something that I, like most (in)sane people despise. I however do not hate them solely because of what they are; several hours of torture by another name, hard work and often the be all and end all of what you’re studying where one slip us fatal. Exams spell doom, e-x-a-m-doom. I hate these horrors for what they represent in today’s educational system and the rut that society now rolls along. Quite frankly we are not taught information in the classic sense, we are taught to pass exams. I myself suffer from this, quite often as soon as the exam has passed all knowledge pertaining to it seems to just slip away from my mind to be forgotten. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that were are forced to take so many of the damn things. At school we were subjected to endless mocks before the real thing. So as it stands I’ve now probably taken in excess of 50 or so of the damn things. And to what end?

Not a very good one I’d say. I believe that the sole reason I am where I am today is not because I know my onions, nor because I’m a spark bright enough to ignite the earth’s atmosphere. It is largely because I have leaned to pass exam after exam and although this talent has faded somewhat in the university environment where some knowledge of what the fuck is going on is necessary the fact still remains.

Our education system doesn’t produce geniuses, or even moderately clever people. Those who fit into these brackets, are to be perfectly honest, exceptions. Those lucky enough to somehow drag themselves through their school lives still retaining some bit of their own sentient thought process that distinguishes them from everyone else. What the education system makes these days are mindless drones, who are trained in completing a task that is largely irrelevant to how the world really works.

The government has pushed through literacy and numeracy initiatives that although on the face of it all don’t seem like to bad an idea, making sure the new kiddie-winkles know how to read and count. What it essentially amounts to is the furthering of the process of teaching us what to think. I at least was told repeatedly that I should do such and such as it was a superior way to learn and remember, do things a certain way as studies said it was better. Throughout all of that one thought was always in my mind and that was simply: “Fuck you! This way doesn’t work for me and on top of that it’s bloody stupid!” Seems that those who make the decisions to teach us this bollocks fail to realise that everyone is different. Even though we are repeatedly bombarded with statistics saying that exams are getting easier, but there’s also a lesser known statistic I heard the other day on the news, which was that apparently 50% or so of GCSE kiddie-winkles are failing to get above a C grade. What we are faced with is almost total stagnation of the education system, the naturally clever people are getting cleverer and the naturally stupid people are getting stupider. The clever people don’t need all this being lead round by the nose and…well the stupid people are stupid and thus it makes no difference at all what they’re taught in all honesty.

Two things are for sure, everything is a load of bollocks, EVERYTHING!

And that the education system gave me only one thing, although it is a thing I am eternally grateful for it gave me my cynicism which has in turn lead to my hate and distaste of most things I encounter and see today and without that my life would be very dull indeed.

And lo doth he return

2006-12-27T16:11:56Z

Just a little note to say I've made it back to merry Nottingham alive from Christmas at home.

How much longer I remain alive is another thing entirely, the heating hasn't been on for probably about 4 days and the ambient house temperature is compareable to that of outside so probably just above freezing. I've alreqady lost feeling in my fingers and it's taking ages for the place to warm up.

On the up side if I do die from the cold at least I wont decompse straight away :P

I'm going home...and I may be some time

2006-12-16T21:24:05Z

This is the last entry before I leave to journey north on my quest home

So I leave wishing you all a merry christmas and God speed

Tis the most wonderful time of the year...alegedly

2006-12-15T14:46:50Z

This weekend I return to the grim wastes of the north that are my childhood home, a place I haven't seen for nearly a whole year.

With the advent of this most festive of holidays, that through some quirk of fate has been designated a time to be with your family and share in the joys of each other's company, I am face with the propect of 10 days with my family.

Even though to call us dysfunctional would not do us justice and even though I have on occasions quite publically expressed a deep rooted loathing of my step-dad, I'm actually quite looking forward to the whole thing.

Weather this be due to the fact that I haven't seen my family or for that matter really talked to them for almost a year, or maybe jolliness and festivity has finally infected me with it's insideous spores, it good even be that after watching the horror of the star wars holiday special last night that I am seeing the world through rose tinted lenses and realising that maybe life does have meaning and purpose afterall.

Whatever the reason maybe, when I finally set foot in the house of my youth it is likely to be, at least for a short while, a joyous homecoming that will warm my stoney heart and maybe make me smile.

Although this my come as a shock, this year, I don't seem to be hating Christmas this year. I really am looking forward to it.

Life's odd isn't it?

I need a bucket, my brain is trying to escape

2006-11-28T16:19:37Z

I'd forgotten how much I despise long essays. I can never seem to conjure up enough words to fill up the pages.

As it is I've just about hit 2500 words and now I've just got another 2500 to go...

...oh and I need to have it done by next Thursday.

~~I swear one of these days I'm actually going to get off my small boney arse and do my work before a reasonable amount of time before the deadline.~~ Sorry that was all lies.

But seriously, I can only ever seem to write anything of vague worth in essays when the deadline is threatening to crush me beneath it's metal shod "Skullcrusher 3000 Xtreme" boots.

The sense of futile panic and despair seems to focus the mind wonderfully.

crazy_johan @ 2006-11-18T12:52:00

2006-11-18T12:52:20Z

Today I saw an old man with an eye patch

That is all

Why Am I Waiting?

2006-11-09T10:33:36Z

Soooo I was supposed to have a meeting with my supervisor about my literature project on Tuesday at 2pm.

I went.

I waited...

I waited some more...

I waited for nearly a thrice damning hour and he didn't turn up.

I hope he was erstwhile engaged in matters of science! (What with him being head of department and all). The most puzzling thing is the fact I waited for so long. Why did I wait? Perhaps deep down inside there was a fluttering of hope that he was just a few minutes late to be quickly followed by the foolish delusion of "I'm sure he'll turn up any minute now".

What it inevitably boils down to however is plain curiosity, a morbid fascination to know when exactly he would turn up. It's a painfully human concept really any other animal would have gone to eat it's own shit after about 5 minutes, but noooo, us people are above that and thus we wait, not ever knowing if what we are waiting for will ever arrive. Be it love, salvation or the pizza we ordered for the place up the road.

The same happens with queuing. It's one of Britain's favourite pass times. We see a vaguely linear gathering of people and seem to subconsciously attach ourselves to the end through sheer curiosity as to what the queue is for. Not like the Russian's who have purpose in their queuing, to them queuing is an occupation and they want that bread sooooooo bad.

What sets individuals apart is how long it takes for the novel concept of reason to assert itself in our primal hind brain and make us think "what the fuck am I doing?" spurring us to continue with our small existences.

As it turns out my hind brain is a particularly stubborn bastard who should probably be put down.

Concerning scavenging

2006-09-28T12:49:23Z

Well fresher's fayre is done for this year. AS always it was hot and noisy and laden with more free stuff than you can shake a stick at.

It is something curious about human nature that we will go to extraordinary lengths to get something if it’s free. In the case of fresher's fayre it is to suffer heat, noise and the badgering of soulless sales people determined to pry your money from your pocket, and people even for just a moment consider caving in if it means they get a free pen. Many people would quite freely sign away their souls if they got to keep the pen. And then there are people like unto me, the freebie vultures, those who stalk the stalls and wait until the attendants are distracted and pilfer their prizes when they're looking the other way, refusing to sign for anything. This year was different for me in that I spent all my time at the fair manning the stalls of the 2 societies I actually grace with my presence. All we had were flyers and flapjacks, but still the vultures and soulless fools fell upon us.

I did little scavenging this year, instead sending forth minions to bring me the spoils of their searches, I got 12 pens and 4 spatulas out of it as well as two sticks of mint flavoured rock and bizarrely what I assume to be 2 mint flavoured condoms. I did not myself brave the mindless hoarded except when I deemed it necessary to flee home for lunch. The true prize this year I pilfered from the stall right next to my own, a 5 foot long inflatable banana, something that was not a freebie, but I claimed as my own anyway. Thus did I descend from the simple freebie grabbing of old unto the pits of rampant kleptomania. Weather this will seal my ticket on the express train to hell is still unknown, weather I saved this banana from a grim fate is also unknown.

What is known however is that it is indeed, a very nice banana and that I will never listen to URN for the rest of my life...well until the fayre returns anyway