Choice

While blocking out the sounds of the ever sickening sweet Deck the Halls I sat down to write something. Anything. The infinite possibilities were stretching out in front of me. In my fingers I had the power to mould my creation to be whatever I wanted. Anything at all.

And yet, I faulted.

For you see it is often hard for people to choose something when given the choice out of, well everything because the opportunity cost is too great.

‘Would you like the Apple shavings or the Mango seed?’ is a much easier question to answer than ‘Which star would you like?’, at least to me it is.

The former you just have to ask yourself one question:

Do I feel like Apples more than I feel like Mangos?

Whereas the latter question would have you summing up the advantages and disadvantages of each individual star eventually coming to a conclusion that presented you with the star that you found the most profitable/closest/powerful. Either that or you could just choose the most prettiest.

And that is why I find it annoying when presented with a Menu from a restaurant. So much choice! So many different possibilities and all the time as I skim the menu hoping for some divine insight there is a niggling thought at the back of my mind going “But if you choose that then I won’t be able to eat the Lasagne or the Chicken!”

So I go through the processes. What do I feel like? What don’t I want? Oh, but I had that one the last time. But if I get that one I might not like it and it will be wasted. But Jade is getting that one already. That one is a bit pricey. BUT WHAT DO I FEEL LIKE!?

And all the time is the illogical thought running through my brain suggesting to myself that I would be insulting the rest of the dishes if I didn’t choose them. Curse you Beauty and the Beast and your improbable scenes.

My thinking and pondering would be greatly reduced if the menu had only two options but alas that shall never happen.

This is why all my major decisions are made by closing my eyes and pointing. Random chance is the way to go. I figure if I spend 10 minutes debating by myself between two options or more, carefully listing the pros and cons of each, just to say, when I eventually choose the option, ‘Oh, but what if I have this one instead?’

I find it much more logical to randomly choose one, decide “Oh not that one” and repeat.

Engineer Strategy

Of all the time spent playing Engineer on Team Fortress 2 I have come to realise that everyone often destroys your buildings first.
They don't understand the might of the shotgun or a whole clip of the pistol point blank and as such ignore you... which is a grave mistake.
I often set up a level one sentry just around a corner with me hiding somewhere on the other side of the corner with the sentry in my line of sight. The sentry is the bait, if you will, I am springing a trap.

The Soldier comes around the corner and sees a Level One sentry just sitting there, it shoots him a few times as he quickly ducks back behind cover. Any Soldier worth his salt knows that he can easily take out a sentry around the corner by shooting the ground near it. So he starts to position himself, gets in view of the target and shoots. All the while you have run up to him shot him six times point blank with the shotgun and he is dead.


Of course this doesn't always happens. The pyros just rush it and the spies just sap it and even a clip of shotgun shells won't take down a full health heavy but it is an interesting observation that more often than not people will take out your stuff before taking out you.


I sometimes use this to my advantage as I am running away, I plop down a dispenser which subverts their attention for a few seconds. While this isn't much I figure I am going to die anyway, may as well.


And now i'm off.

Interesting Question

I bring you two interesting questions today:

1)

So does an erect penis weigh the same as a flacid one?

Because of conservation of mass and all that.



and 2)

How did I start thinking about that?




These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Happy 50th!

Why thankyou myself...
Thankyou.

*cue tumbleweed*

But seriously, discounting oneliners, double posts, old news and nonhelpful information this is probably the 10th post.
So HAPPY 10th POST!

Not at all stolen from Google Images....I swear.

Reenrolment

For the past week I have been furiously searching the depths of my mind to find out what I would like to do next year in Uni. Not at all phased by the fact that this decision will most likely shape the rest of my life I started to look at my options.
There were... a lot.
An unseemly amount.
More than one.

Doing a double degree I also had to sort through the different combinations which, needless to say, there were a lot of.
Confused I resorted to Jeremy logic.

Well I can narrow my options down by cutting out the types of Engineering that I don't want to do. 5 minutes later I returned with a list with nearly everything on it. Nearly everything I did not want to do was written down, all except for... no wait.
Yeah, everything was written down.
"Well damn," I thought to myself silently questioning why I am enrolled in this course, "Maybe if I look at the different science majors and check their compatibility with the engineering courses I can narrow it down via that method."

What followed was another 5 minutes of indecisive decision making.
'Ah screw it," I thought, "I'll just close my eyes and point."
Useful for ordering at restaurants, deciding what book to read and now changing ones life.

So now, I address you all as a student at the University of Western Australia doing Electrical Engineering and Nanotechnology.
To be honest, I'm not that thrilled about Electrical. I would rather have done something more physical, more mechanical but this was the only engineering that is compatible with Nanotechnology.
And I believe Nanotechnology's awesomeness blocks out Electrical's.... anti awesomeness...
Even though most probably the jobs that pertain to Nanotechnology all reside in making sunscreen but give it 5 years and they'll have started making tiny exoskeletons for tadpoles. THEN I CAN RULE THE WORLD!

Of course there was the tiny problem of reenrolment that loomed above me.
Looking at the website I had the sudden urge to kill some people online, which I did.
Returning two days later I tried to tackle this momentous task again. Ignoring all the minor issues regarding majors and programs and core units I started selecting units randomly.
'Maths seem good, neh, may as well do Quantum Physics as well."
My logic was flawless, my reasoning sound, my stomach a little bit hungry and my brain a little bit running dry on ideas... much like now.
So I will leave you be now.

The first bite of the toast is not always the last.

A few moments ago I made a choice. It was to decide what I would be doing now. The choices were more gaming or do something constructive. Unfortunately no good servers are open at this time of day so I will have to resort to doing something constructive.

This brought me here.
Realising that the majority of my entries are random musings about life with the occasional dip into the surreal I decided to write some fiction, just for you guys.
"Awwww..." I hear you say, "He's so nice, just like a liddle bunny wabbit, who is a liddle bunny wabbit? You are....yes you are..."
To which I slap you in the face, "Don't patronise me."

So ideas for my story...
I know! I'll make it interactive! That way, I don't have to think of major plot points or characters... why all the hard work is already done for me!
Of course the down side being that no one will give me ideas resulting in no story but if no one gives me any ideas it will be because they wouldn’t have read it and most likely wouldn't read the story as they didn't read this post...
So really it is self fulfilling and quite nice.

Aw, screw it... I have nothing better to do right now. TO THE PEN MOBILE!


The Pen that Loved too Much
It was a pleasant day in August, the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. People were strolling down the sidewalk while teaching their children about kindness and humility. Overall not a good day to get hit by a truck, which is quite fortunate as our protagonist does not fall to this dreadful fate.
Our protagonist wakes up, slightly confused as his brain runs through the rountine checks before full consciousness kicks in. He thinks to himself: 'Where am I? Who am I? Why am I holding a Monkey's tale and WHAT THE HELL happened last night?"
Stumbling at the second question as the narrator hasn't named him yet, Charlie goes about his day.

Toast.
Coffee.
Newspaper.
All registered in his brain as he sat down to eat breakfast.
He stared blankly at a scratch in the wall opposite him and took a bite of toast.
'Toast.' He registered once more.
The doorbell rang.
'Door.' His brain registered. It then ignored this signal and turned to more important business, like his toast.
The doorbell rang again.
'Door.' His brain registered again not quite making the connection.
The doorbell rang the third time, this time followed by frantic knocking.
'Door.' His brain registered, it was sure he was forgetting something important, it just couldn't put a neuron on what.
"Duh-or" formed Charlie's mouth, slowly getting the hang of the state he now occupied 'awake'.
The knocking increased and much like how the Swallow flies south for the winter Charlie's brain was undergoing the slow and gruelling task of getting from Point A to B.
"Door!" Realisation struck and within the span of ten minutes he had collected all his belongings he could fit in a briefcase and was out the window running down 5th.
He hadn't even finished his toast.

The Holidays

Ah yes, the holidays.
The perfect time to kick back, relax and realise how slack university really is.
I mean, come on, more than a quarter of the year is spent doing absolutely nothing but don't take this the wrong way, I'm not complaining...
Merely pointing out facts.

And along with the long days of the internet drawing upon us as a direct consequence of so much to do, so much time to do it in but so little 'can be botheredness' that can be mustered, I have come to realise that, like this sentence, it is going to continue for quite a while, ignoring all sense of structure or grammatical correctness which would surely make my Yr 12 Literature Teacher shed a tear, if not because of the horrible grammar but because her eyes would be straining to make it to the inevitable period that is the oasis of this dry and desolate sentence.
But do not worry, for I can hear your cries but am just ignoring them. I have been doing constructive work over the past two weeks I have tasted the salty air of freedom.
For instance I...I...

I updated my blog! Or at least...AM updating my blog but by the time you read this I will have already updated my blog... just not yet.
Talking to the future in present tense is confusing.

But I hear you scoff, I hear your jeers, I hear your calls of 'FATTY BOOM BOOM" which I frankly find quite insulting and rude but nevertheless ignore as this is the internet and I am the better man. Oh and by the by... I believe the correct term is "Obese Boom Boom"... Just pointing that out there.

But I spit in the face of my hecklers (so much for turning the other cheek) and point out that my friend and I made CARDBOARD BOX ARMOUR!
This is as constructive as I can get.
Let me put up some pictures for you.





This was my armour, sporting a spiffy movable visor to keep my face pretty and a heavy hybrid Cardboard/PVC Battle axe that not only keeps the environment happy but the wielder even happier.



My friends armour was much more advanced than mine. An Optimus Prime inspired helmet complimented the swinging box on the end of a rope as well as his giant shield. This was all topped up nicely with his leg armour which personally I found impractical as your movement agility is greatly reduced. This led me to believe that my armour was better... you should think so too.


Later we are most likely going to don our gear and have a massive battle royal... with the two of us.
This will most likely end up in smiles, excellent footage and a ton of bruises. You are welcome to come and join us if you want, provided you provide your own armour. Unless of course we have already done it then there would be no point in inviting you as it has already happened....
Talking to the future from the present with the mindset of the future that is even more futuristic than the future the reader is occupying is hard.

A while back me and my friend made a more primitive version of the armour and tested it out. While it isn't sporting killer weapons it gives you an idea of how durable cardboard armour can be.



And as my shameless plug to our YouTube account is exposed the creativity of my mind slowly drifts down the drain into the unknown depths of despair leaving a bewildered Jeremy, slightly dazed and ever just the slightly more confused to deal with the block that has formed from the hairs of bad ideas...
Talking to me is confusing.