apologies for the lack of postage recently, it has something to do with me playing lots of videogames, a little to do with going to a cottage in shropshire for a week, and possibly a lot to do with distractions from strong bad emails. agie gave me the url to the trogdor one, and i was all uninterested at her¹, and i apologise, because it's amazing. simply fantastic. these emails are so good. i'm sorry agie. i will make you cookies. next time i see you.

so what've i been up to? super smash bros. melee, super mario sunshine, gta vice city² and to a lesser extent, revision. i have three 3 hour exams starting next week, which i'm not looking forward to.

in other news, it's my birthday on wednesday, and the legend of zelda: the wind waker is out on friday. also, i'm going to lazer quest with my friends and flatmates, so that'll be great.

if anyone wants to send me stuff, please feel free, i've got an address on my contact page, and there's the obligatory wishlist. emails will also be appreciated, but if i had like, a big spaceship, and it was going to take us to the magic space candy planet, and i only had limited seating, i'd pick the people who sent me cool stuff first. and maybe thora birch. but yeah.

¹ as i tend to get when people tell me i have to see something, or i must read something. harry potter fans, i'm looking at you.
² it's 98% complete. 98%. i can't find the last two unique jumps and it's killing me. i swear i've done them all.

so today i did something a little impulsive¹ and grabbed myself one of those gamecube thingies, a couple of controllers, a memory card and a couple of games - pikmin and super smash bros. melee. it's pretty good. i'm getting mario sunsine soon, and probably metroid prime, i've reserved a copy of the new zelda for when that comes out, and i'll probably import animal crossing². there's a fair few games out i really want, actually. it's strange. if anyone knows where i can get cheap gamecube imports, let me know.

i've been working though gta: vice city trying to get 100% completion with my flatmate marcus, and it's going slowly. we spent all night getting the hidden packages, now we've just got to do, um, everything else.³ it's nice having a task like that, although getting the gamecube is going to throw that way off.

i'm going away on saturday til tuesday, i won't be able to get online til then. i haven't really been online for more than a few minutes at a time the last week or so, but i've been on regularly. i drew some little cartoon people, and i've had a good reception to the ones i've done so far, so if you want me to do you⁴ then send me a photo and i'll give it my best shot! i want more subjects.

by the way, for all one of you who has an rss feed from my site, apparently i have some sort of illegal character on there somewhere, so it won't display it. so you can't read this. so uh, yeah.

my birthday's on the 30th of april, so, you know. amazon wishlists are just thrown around these days, but i know there's some really cool people out there who like buying presents and this is the only way they can. i'm not saying do it, but i'd appreciate it. if you don't want to amazon me something, then my address is in the contact section. i would love some stuff that's been made by people, mainly because i love making stuff for people⁵.

i'm off to either gamecube some more, or read fight club. hmm, decisions decisions..

¹ though not as impulsive as a friend of mine who went on a night out, came back drunk and bought a playstation 2 on amazon, but still.
² doug was meant to be getting this for my birthday, but he can't now, so i guess i better do it myself.
³ hence the 100% thing.
⁴ not like that! well, maybe.
⁵ usually to the point where it's not a good idea because the people i make stuff for feel bad.

wow, has it been a week since i last posted? i guess so.

i've been busy doing.. um.. nothing.

it's easter break! come on, you don't expect me to be doing anything post worthy do you?

i am working on t-shirts, i'll show you soon.

i am here, i am alive, i do appreciate the comments.

people keep telling me that i have to be happy with who i am before i try to be happy with someone else. i understand all that, and i realise that a lot of my problems when i've been in a relationship¹ have been that i've been wanting appreciation. i wanted my girlfriend to tell me that she cared or what she liked about me, and i overcompensated on my part in the hope that it would invoke some of this, because i wanted to feel loved. if i can feel this way without having to be told it it'll help a hell of a lot. but that isn't to say there isn't something for wanting to have someone to share moments with, someone to be close to and to love.

i don't just want a girlfriend to make myself feel better, i want to go on dates, i want to go the cinema and watch moves huddled up close, i want to win oversized stuffed toys and try and remember all their relatives' names. i want to have something intimate, something for me and her to enjoy together. i don't know when the last time i experienced something like that was. i want to feel that again. i am, i hope, an old romantic at heart, not some goody two-shoes that has an outdated way of thinking and no chance.

so anyway. why have i been away the last few days? i have three reasons:
· university assignments stressing me out completely.
· apathy.
· not being online for much of the last few days.

it's strange to me, but i haven't actually been online for longer than it takes to download email in the last 5 days or so, up until today. i blame this on the aforementioned reasons. i have been feeling incredibly stressed at my uni assignments, which suddenly got a hell of a lot harder to do, despite lots happening, i haven't been making the effort to write it down, and i have been avoiding the internet unintentionally. i've been distracted.
if you want a mammoth task² go download noah's ark deluxe from popcap games and set about reaching the high score on the strategy mode. that's what i did. and look how far it got me. yes. that's over 500 levels. yes, that's over 39 million points. i would have gone further, but my computer ended up getting slowed to a snail's pace, and i kept going so fast that the score counter in the game couldn't keep up. i had to leave it catching up overnight so that it'd have reached my score by the morning, possibly due to the fact i would be getting around 100,000 points per level and i'd complete levels in under a minute³. i would have gone all the way to get 999,999,999 points, possibly to gain the rank of 'god', but then there was the other reason for my distraction. the sims.

now, i'd held off getting this for a long time, i'd played it before, when it came out and later on with some of the expansion packs, but when i had an epithany and realised how to get the sims and all released expansion packs for just £20, i jumped at the chance, and now have them installed. it's very distracting in the evenings. as are poker nights⁴ and trips to the cinema. speaking of which, i saw another kaufman-penned film last night - confessions of a dangerous mind. very good. sam rockwell's arse seemed to be in the starring role, but apart from that i enjoyed it a lot, funny and bizarre, with amazing (seemingly) practical camera effects. fun :) it also had drew barrymore and maggie gyllenhaal in it, who i believe are two of the cutest actresses around, so i was happy :) slightly jealous of sam rockwell, but i think happiness won overall.

it's getting so late it's early again, but i don't really have classes anymore. after today i don't have uni for 3 weeks, then i have 3 exams and it's the end of the year. wheee. i should get a job. i'll miss my friends here. it's going to be weird.

i'll see you around.

¹ not all, and not the biggest problems, but there were some.
² if you're after a mammoth tusk you're too late by a few million years.
³ the screenshot shows 7 minutes, because i wanted it to catch up as close as it could to my current score after that level, and it doesn't increment when the level's completed.
⁴ of which the last four nights in a row have been, with showings of con air, the back to the future trilogy, almost famous, spaced and futurama. whee!