Ouchies from Running, and A Journal of Computer Games RnD

Good afternoon people, I hurts in places I didn't even know I had places.

Apparently when you do a fuckton of fast walking, take a few days off, catch up on your sleep, and eat a lot pasta, you heal up and get a LOT stronger. I surmise this on the basis that I went running last night, took flight on the first length, then my lungs tried to implode before the second because my muscles can outpace my ability to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide, and then I made the full length of the run at a pace higher than normal without really thinking about it.

The effect of this is to leave me in quite a bit of pain today because I basically pushed muscle and bone weighing 90 kilos 20 miles at speeds most people ride bicycles at. xD

It was a fucking good run, I now just feel like a ton of zombie bits held together with caffeine.

Just parked in McDonalds instead of the library today so I can download some stuff the library blocks and stay here most of the day instead of going home at 17:00.

Listening to some Muse, the 2nd Law, which I've never heard before. Their older stuff, like Hysteria, was better than their newer stuff where they went more majestically epic instead of developing their harsher rage and screamo stuff but I'm always willing to give a band a second chance. That said the last and final My Chemical Romance album was dreadful apart from two songs and they decided to shut down the band before they totally crashed and burned in my view.

Anyway, plan on getting several hours of college work done today as soon as I'm done writing this and constructing the formatting for my new Computer Games Design journal in Google Drive.

I keep meaning to write my thesis and publish it as a technical manual on the basics of proper and correct computer games design, but asides from lacking the time to put my effort into it I keep losing it to computer's breaking down and running out of money to pay for the website where it's hosted or whatever.

Google Drive is a cloud service though and it's tied to a 'professional' email address I've held with Google for several years, and this time I'm not trying to write a formalized publication.

Given the ongoing persistence I've displayed with this blog [apart from when I lacked a PC or PC like object and this became a pain in the ass to update on a regular basis] this time I'm going for an A5 and design formatted [see Wikipedia link below] document in Google Drive which I update daily with articles on various games design topics. Then on a yearly basis I can publish or disassemble that document and reassemble the content into an organized industry journal on the subject.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_design

This frees me from having to formally construct a book on any given topic and instead allows me to pick an aspect of games design, wax verbose on it for however long I wish [writing monographically it's called] and then refer back to the topic via number and publication as and when I cover a related topic.

Meanwhile I regularly produce volumes of research for the industry to make use of, gain a continual stream of revenue from their publications, and construct a portfolio of work from their writing.

If I ever wish to actually work in the industry, even as a consultant as I dislike working on singular projects as they're usually too narrow to hold my interest, few heads of few studios would turn me away if I slapped down on their desk half a dozen thick volumes covered in quotes by industry vets saying things like 'this man literally wrote the book on games design'...alright, that might be blowing my own brass horn on the subject but I do know what I talk about when I talk about games design.

So there's that.

My lady friend is currently shacked up in a hotel room with her man friend.

One of her sentences included the line "He has nipped out to get some lunch so I'm sprawling out on the bed" and that she was sore, which my paranoia presented me with an image of her laying languidly satisfied after athletic sex and awaiting nourishment. Probably not that, like, at all, but that's paranoia for you.

I like my paranoia. Given the universe I occupy, and the planet I'm on, and the species I belong to, it's a wise and friendly adviser. But in this case I have little choice but to accept what she says as the truth because it's not like I can find out otherwise. *shrug*

...yeesh, I am totally running out of gas and I've only been here 2 hours. More caffeine I think but I'm done here.

Switched back to Kraddy about 2-3 songs into that Muse album because it was bland drivel and Kraddy's baselines sync with my soul. :P

Couple of matches of Hearthstone, polish off the formatting of my games design journal and then do college coursework till around 11 tonight. More of the same tomorrow.

Bai peeps.

New Levels of Paranoia and How To Get Goods for Online Stores...

Friday.

Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday...I didn't write that for funzies, I actually thought that, in varying tones of suspicion, because who doesn't suspect something everyone else claims is just awesomesauce?

Not much happened since last I posted.

Had a very large dinner after buying some more potatoes and bread, which I'm keeping in a metal draw built into the framework of the 3 layer bunk bed in my room in the hostel to prevent thieves from taking it.

Settled a concern with my lady friend over an incident with her ex where he's now harassing her, and she's reported him to the police, and I advised her, and checked my advice with my certificate in basic policing tutor, and he told me that my advice was good, and GG basically.

Told my lady friend I was jealous of her [which I am because he's like a better version of myself, or luckier anyway] and she made an effort to get closer to me and I gave her my phone number and that, and another bond got formed basically. Right now I'm just organizing nudes and things from her in places so I'm horny as hell besides. Either I need more pics/vids or I need her naked on my lap, one of the two.

Would do more about that, but she's still mid way through hospitalization and recovery and I'm still fighting my way through ridiculous bullshit to get into the police, so it has to wait. I'm thinking though that if I can sort things out by new years then maybe we can ring in the new year with a BANG, so to speak, hehe.

Then I downloaded S08E04-8 and watched them last night and this morning. Pretty good. More or less. Like the new Doctor. Got a few laughs out of the last episode, which is noteworthy because I laugh maybe once a month because I'm a cynical bastard and too intelligent to find all that much humorous.

Then I got the library and am updating this before doing quizzes and then going running tonight. My freaking right hip/thigh muscle hurts, and think I damaged something over the last week or so. The pain will probably vanish once I get going tonight, I've had enough food, so if it is debilitating I'll simply not run until next Wednesday or something, skip Monday, and see if that helps. It's probably nothing though.

Onto today's topic then; selling merch bought at auction houses on eBay.

A while back, when I was staying in the last hostel I was in, before I had a laptop to download TV, I watched broadcast TV whilst I was eating breakfast and given that it was daytime and I'm a fully fledged adult now, I enjoyed watching shows about airport staff and security operations, like luggage inspection.

A part of one of these shows, I forget which, included a segment on lost luggage and abandoned airplane cargo, which they were selling in publicly accessible auctions.

A Google search later and I found out that auction houses in London represent airports - Hearthrow and Gatwick being the local two - in selling their lost and abandoned swag to the public.

I always wondered how people on eBay and Amazon were able to sell their products so cheaply and where the hell they acquired the goods seeing as the wholesalers and actual manufacturers charged a litteral fuckton of coin to acquire anything, and always sell in bulk quantities.

Turns out, this is probably how. They simply find an auction house which sells this lost and abandoned but perfectly brand new and box sealed product that no owner claimed and no owner is traceable, then buy it for a fraction of it's value [the free SPACE on their property is worth more to the airports than the product is I think, which they were paid to move and keep safe to begin with in any case] and then the new owner sells it online for a 90% mark up.

They can't choose what, they can't choose how much, and they sometimes don't even know if it works.

The goods are sold on sight valuation, that is, someone glances at them, identifies what's sitting there to make sure it's not drugs or weapons or whatever, and then sells it without knowledge of operational status.

However it's a fair bet that inside the box is what's printed outside, you can sometimes get single items, sometimes incomplete items [laptops sans hard drives for example] and sometimes a stack of mint condition product.

It's a fucking epic deal for all concerned - the airports get rid of it at a profit, the buyer sells the product for a huge profit, and everybody wins...well, except the idiot or unforunate chap who lost it in the transportation network anyway, but we don't know who the hell that is.

So, that's what I plan on doing, and if anyone wants in on the game, go Google search auction houses which sell lost and/or abandoned goods from airports in your local big city.

I still don't know how much money it takes to enter play, but by the looks of it just a hundred or so is enough to pick up something cheap but valuable enough to make a few hundred back.

It's something I've always wanted to do; sell stuff online and then buy shop space somewhere. Be one of the links in the chain of provisioning people with products. Be a merchant, basically. But I've never had the money or sources of product to do it. I'm a thinker, not a trader unfortunately.

Nothing says I can't do it as a hobby though. The game designer's form of gambling perhaps. It's one of those things, like making an anthology novels using other peoples work, that I'd like to invest some time and energy in when I have the ability to do so.

And this means I need to gain the resources from elsewhere, such as police work.

Which incidentally, I should be doing right now.

When the time comes I'll post more on this because win or lose it should at least be interesting.

The future holds for me college quiz work, then running, dinner, more college quizzes tomorrow and Sunday, then Monday rent, organize acom for next week, laundry, and revising for the resits that I organized yesterday with my certificate in basic policing course tutor [a different guy to the admin tutor I had a go at last week].

YUP.

OH: Also going to try and arrange some internet time for voice or video with my lady friend. She wanted to cyber sex last weekend but I don't have the ICT resources. I mean, seriously, get to know some people because I've found a highly sexual babe who enjoys being tied up and orgasm tortured and has a really cuddly personality. Fun times are ahead, but you need to meet some peeps to get this stuff, even if you ordinarily hate humanity.

Bai bai.

On Being Busy...

Sup.

Been a bit busy over the last few days trying to get my college work done around extreme (extreme for London anyway) temperatures.

Plus I think I over did the running some cus I slept from around 8pm last night till gone 9am this morning, more than 13 hours.

Things are going OK at the moment.

The lack of my own PC is a constant thorn in my side (never have I understood what its like to be wandless in Rowling's Wizarding World long term as I do now) but I'm so busy with college work I hardly  notice it.

I think the bug bites (which actually number in the low 30's, I only said 20 because firstly I didn't notice a tight patch around the backside of my wrist to my face and secondly miscounted because of the swelling) are finally healing (AFTER NEARLY A WEEK).

I'm getting my college work done, slowly. Finally answered every question in 63 fucking question quiz today after writing up my revision materials yesterday.

I'm more or less preped for the exam tomorrow and should be able to get a good nights rest for the first time in three lecturers (the last time I went sleepless due to being evicted, the time before that I had a bloody chest infection), so that's OK.

And Ive got plenty of nom left, at least enough to last until Monday when I get more monies.

Was going to spend Sunday reading Trapped, book 5 of The Iron Druid Chronicles, but the online store I ordered from only dispatched it today I think so I doubt it'll get here in time.

Going to go running instead. I should be recharged by my inactivity today and walking to college tomorrow.

And that's about it really. I've made some tweets I would elaborate on but its a pain in the ass to keep switching between Twitter and Blogger on my phone.

Yup; eating well, sleeping well, bites are clearing up, Iron Druid is awesome, getting my college work done, if slowly, exam tomorrow, running Sunday.

And its too fucking hot to breath. I'm a hot blooded animal and feel like Im cooking from the inside out in this heat.

Nothing to be done about that though, so I bid thee adue and good morrow.

May harmony find you, as my new favourite Druid would say.

PS: I think I need to be nurtured. There's just way too much nubile sexy lady flesh being paraded around this hot hostel and Im about two steps away from humping legs. xD

On ELO Hell...

Hai. Not a happy temporary resident of a tent at the moment. >:|

Went running last night, did one lap of stage one of my two hour running route, of which contains three stages, and then spent half an hour barely able to breath.

Once I could walk I went to the hypermarket and got some liquid mucus cough meds and drank about half bottle [so against the label but I'm built like a jungle ape and have a slow metabolism so taking more than recommend dose is recommend for me] by sipping every time I needed to cough or couldn't breath normally.

This resulted in it clearly enough for me to do two more laps of the course. Go in, showered, slept, and now my sinuses have thick [sorry] yellow mucus in them, which I'm assuming is the corpse of the growing strep that suddenly found itself bathed in poison last night.

Woke up, decided to give running a miss tonight, and played some Hearthstone to wake up.

---

I just don't understand that game. You build a deck, you find it works, win four or five matches, and then it stops working and you drop to the bottom of the table again. So you try another champion, Druid instead of Rogue, and the same thing happens again.

Mostly I lose because either I have a bad hand [sheer luck factor] or someone pulls out cards which are a] expensive/rare [like the dragon edged boss cards] and b] have this OP ability [the freaking priest champion, in 3 moves in the late game, can make a minion with 15/15 in 3 cards, including summoning the fucking minion, I mean how do you fucking fight that?].

---

I don't know...

You play League of Legends, and you encounter ELO Hell whereby the system puts you with idiot allies who can't possibly fight your opposition. You score 10-15/0-5/whatever assists every match outside ranked, but go into ranked and you lose because of your allies feeding the enemy and dragging you down.

So despite your skill and knowledge of that game, you leave because it's rigged and biased so you lose and can't possibly reach the higher ranked leagues. You could if the game, most sensibly, took YOUR own performance into account when ranking, so regardless of your allies you yourself would still be marked on your own ability, but it doesn't.

I mean, imagine taking an exam where the nearest four people to you in the hall's marks were added to yours and you were given the average of that. You know the material and they don't, so you end up in the 'special' class and can't leave because you're surrounded by idiots. That's how I feel playing League of Legends.

So you go to play Hearthstone on the basis that it's single player so there's only your own ability taken into consideration in ranked. But here you encounter a randomized system with a edge of power-for-pounds, the UK version [the two P's make for eloquent pronunciation] of 'spend cash to be more powerful than other equally or greater skilled enemies'.

Personally I'm of the point of view that both games are rigged, only Hearthstone is a tad more obvious about it's biased game maniacs as if you spend money you can afford more powerful cards.

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Consider this:

Both LoL and Hearthstone are free-to-play computer games. This means that they don't ask players to spend money to gain access to the gameplay. Instead they give you access to the game's content, for free, but you have the option to pay for customization or unlock devices which expand the content gained by playing the game itself.

In LoL's case customization comes in the form of champion skins so you can make your favorite champions your own. Unlock is then provided in the form of Riot Points which allows access to other champions not on the free roster [the free set consists of two handfuls of weekly rotating champions, and then you can pay either money or RP to unlock new ones quickly or slowly respectively]

And in Hearthstone additional cards can be acquired at a faster rate than what you can gain by playing the game itself and earning gold to buy packs if you spend money. This is indicative of power-for-pounds because those who spend money have a stronger deck than those who don't.

Now, you own the studios behind these games and you want people to pay money for the game and you can achieve this in two ways.

The first and public way is 'Optionally'. This is where you tell people the precise mechanics of the system. Play the game to unlock content. You can unlock content faster and customize your version of the game by spending money. People play the game, become invested, and then spend money of their own free will.

The second and secret way is 'ELO Hell' or 'Rank Bias Failure'. This is where the unranked modes are fare and set up so people of equal skill fight on even footing. However, the ranked modes are designed so that anyone who has not spent money on the game is allied with noobs so despite their own ability, they cannot win matches.

But surely your playerbase would notice this? You'd have a lot of players who play the game for the game for ages and don't care about customization or quick unlocks, or can't afford them, who find that no matter what they score outside of ranked, they can't rank up because their allies all feed 0/10 in minuets and drag them down.

Well this is precisely what Riot Game's have. A large quantity of their playerbase complaining about ELO Hell.

So what do you do about this so the facts of the matter don't make your company seem like a right bunch of assholes?

Well two things:

Firstly, you swear blind, black and blue that ELO Hell is a physiological perception issue, negativity bias, that the players only think it's their allies and is in fact they themselves who are not as good at the game as they believe themselves to be.

And secondly, and concurrently, you play on the fact that this is a partial truth. There are plenty of players who, because of their own personality flaws, will either confirm Riot's statement on the matter [surely it's other people's ineptitude because Riot Game's is the god-king of the universe and other people are garbage] or will play badly and then blame others for their own personal failure [because if there's one thing the average human hates, it's taking responsibility for failure, it's a survival reflex].

Personally, as usual, I discount anything anyone says and just test to see what happens.

I can't be asked right now to go rummaging through my image folders, though I will post this in 'On Games...' at some point, but I've played matches in non-ranked and then played ranked, and found that whilst non-ranked is with fairly good allies, ranked is almost terminally with abject noobs.

Additionally there's this:

On LoLKing they have access to feeds from player accounts which show ranked histories, what champions you were playing, your current rune pages, etc.

And what I noticed there was that when I first started playing the ranked mode of LoL, having a really good go to get to Challenger mode, I discovered that my progression through ranked went diagonally up. OK, I lost a few matches, no one's perfect, but on the whole I was rising steadily. Then my score dropped like a stone as ELO Hell took effect and booted me down two or three divisions.

This happened a couple more times before I gave up.

---

In my own mind I know ELO Hell exists. It might be speculative to suggest that it's tied to how much money you've dropped on the game, but there's a definite biased to ensure that certain highly skilled players are not placed with equally skilled allies and against equally skilled enemies.

Riot Game's denies it, the majority of their playerbase is with them, and no one gives a flying fuck to anything about it. Developers still takes home profits, players still enjoy the game, and who cares if a minority are ignored and treated unfairly. It doesn't concern those who rigged the game in the first place.

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Hearthstone may have sometime similar in it's design, although it's easier, as I've said, to spot. There's no way you can break out of the lowest ranked division [lv20-21] without dropping some serious cash on higher tier cards. The Dragon/Boss cards are just way too powerful [and can't realistically be earned by playing], and the lower level higher utility cards [which I admit you can gain fairly easily by simply playing and earning gold to pay for packs] in abundance can smash any lower tier deck.

---

In my professional opinion, both games are at least definitely 'Probably' rigged so those who spend money on them are 'Permitted' to rank up.

These games might be free-to-play, but skill is no where near enough to be crowned monarch of the playerbase. As with most things in this world, quality of character isn't enough to jack unless society has decided to give you great riches to go with it.

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Alright, I've not had breakfast or anything to eat since yesterday afternoon and it's not gone 3pm so shower...Lunner [Lunch/Dinner, lol], and then college work until snooze.

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Got two and a half days to get through one and half weeks because I need to switch to exam revision on Monday - Thursday for an exam Saturday [got my Day 2 interview on teh Friday at the police recruitment center so].

That's not as impossible as it sounds, doing a weeks worth of work in a day or two.

Each college 'Week' takes place every two weeks in an eight hour session with eight hours of homework, and is easily doable in a day or two.

Although really what my tutor does, because he's a bloody pillock, in 'Class' is simply repeat what the homework states in text. I don't know why I go to them to be honest. Spending eight hours reading and answering online quizzes would be a better use of my time.

When I mentioned this to him he said that 'you wouldn't be able to have the homework set in a proper context'...I have an IQ of a couple of hundred points, more or less, I probably understand and could document this content in greater context than you have you fucking asshat, was my mental reply.

I think the guy has the intellectual capacity of a turnip, and got his rank based on rigid observation of protocol. He sure as hell didn't get there by intellectually adaptive, imaginative and naturally curious like me.

I have this thing with people, like a mental perception memory link where I link people with animals. It's one of the issues, if it is an issue, with being a genius who makes connections between packets of data whether or not they want to.

Sometimes I think of someone and instead of their face I get another image, like you look up someone in a computer database and you get the name and information but you get this picture as their avatar and it's an animal or object instead of them. They are in there, but so is this 'Thing' as well. I mean, I know the thing isn't them, it's just related to them in some way, shape or form.

This one guy from YouTube strikes me as bear like for example. It's like metaphor only it's my perceptions doing it automatically.

And my course tutor for my policing certification course, he's a pig. It's not an insult, it's not a descriptive phrase, it's just my brain looks at him and a couple of neurons are saying 'this chap, in another life, could've been a pig with a curly tail and trotters, and he's the mental image to go with it'.

My personal universe is a very strange place, or would be if I had any other to compare it with, but I hardly think that's bloody normally, anyway...

Can't skip the college class sessions though because otherwise I'd miss the written exams, in themselves a load of fucking nonsense as the 'Exams' consist of a test of half a dozen questions, which you're given access to from Week 1. Essentially all you need do is formulate your answer before hand from your notes, online handouts and text book, memorize it, and then write it down during the one hour 'Exam'.

Dam silly nonsense, the lot of it.

---

Anyway, I's need's food's. :O <---

Bai.

On Minds...

Sup, it's 00:44 Tuesday, I've just finished running, and thought of a couple of things I wanted to blog about so I'm taking care of Tuesday's post now.

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Firstly, yup, went running.

Ten minuets in I could barely draw breath. It wasn't gradual either. Runni-jogging, jogging just fine and then it was like trying to breath through glue in all of thirty seconds. Walked for 20-30 minuets and got to the Hospital ER, which is on my longer running route anyway, and tried to see a doctor. 40 minuets or so later and I was breathing normally at rest. It's like cold activated pneumonia, if pneumonia is what I think it is and is fluid in your lungs as a response to cold.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pneumonia/pages/introduction.aspx

...In fact, if I'm reading this right, I've had pneumonia caused by a streptococcus infection.

Go running in the cold night air, generate lactic acid, this causes me to get low grade pneumonia, which I fight against as I do with strained muscles. The strep fed off the lactic acid and infected my bronchial tubes, giving me a wicked cold for a few days and then settling down into bad tasting coughs. I haven't been eating and sleeping right and stopped running, so I've not had the white blood cells to kill it. After I killed the bacteria with a better diet and the new meds I've just started taking, the cold air tonight just made the pneumonia flare up which made me choke for half an hour tonight.

Bad diet, lack of sleep, dust in my room, running in the cold, and not taking meds which attacked the bacteria in my lungs. That's why I've been low grade ill for a good two months.

Idiot. I should notice this shit by now. I'm meant to be intelligent. Keep taking Benylin, eat more, sleep at night, run to invigorate my blood's resistances and I should be fine. Dumb ass.

ALSO: Maybe get a flu shot from now on designed to resist strep. I don't want this happening again.

---

OK, secondly, when I was in the Hospital ER a girl came in from a car crash badly shaken up.

There were two things about this for me personally.

The first was good; empathy. I wanted to help her and felt sorry for her on reflex. I know about bad injuries.

I've cracked my skull open in two places at the same time, shredded my left bicep, damaged my knee caps, and shattered my left wrist in my time, plus broken both my legs in my teens [not at the same time], and crushed both my toe nails.

These days a car crash would've been an invigorating experience for me instead of requiring therapy like that girl will probably need.

Advised her to put her head down when she said she felt dizzy to help clear it, but that's all I could do for her.

I think if I can respond to road traffic accidents with the same need to help and care about the victims in the same way but actually be able to be the first response assistance and do some real good, I should do just fine as a copper.

The second though was...I don't know what to make of the second to be honest. The girl was young and attractive. And lately I've been rather interested in others.

Fun fact, I'm bisexual, which basically means an attractive girl or guy is perfectly acceptable as a sexual partner. Not that I've ever had any you understand.

People with my intellect find it hard to relate to others, and people with my background of social abuse find it hard to like and trust others. Empathy, care, consideration for others, those are reflexive, but for me, I need to feel something for someone else before I could let them touch me and touch them back.

And the combination of feeling something for someone and actually liking and trusting them and getting the same in return has just never happened for me. I don't expect it to really, but that doesn't stop your automatic urges from kicking in when you see something that makes you horny.

She, the girl in shock, was attractive and needy and just a part of me was thinking 'help, protect, gain trust of, fuck and make babies'. I've had girls present themselves naked to me and try to get in my pants before and that's the same voice I heard and ignored then, but it's slightly disgusting that it activated in response to a girl in shock after a car crash.

Cave man at heart I might be, protect the young and the womenfolk I might believe in at my core, but ye gods, time and a place.

Last Saturday on the way to college for example, hot girl with big melons rushes giggling by me, I stared openly and made her blush [don't like it, wear a sweater or something lady], but in an ER like that, down boy, seriously, down.

I like Mr. Brain who replied with 'Oh that poor young girl, we must do what we can to ease her suffering'. The part that wanted to assist so we could get in her pants, not so much really.

Yes, dear reader, I am that honest. I know what is and what isn't and what the difference is, as that's all that counts at the end of everything, knowing.

I know what I am, and because of this I'm better than other people who do what they do because they don't think they have a choice. There's always a choice. Even if the only thing you want in the whole world is to do this thing right now, you can choose not to. You don't have to do anything, or not do anything. But only those who realise they have an option can take it. And I do.

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Getting tired now so I'll wrap this up with this: gotten to the terrorism section of my certificate in basic policing college course, and suicide bombers are hair on fire raving madmen.

'How beautiful it is to kill and to be killed...for the lives of the coming generations'.
- Mohammed Al-Ghoul, June 18th 2002

How freaky insane do you have to be to believe that?

Destruction of any kind is a failure. Yours because you failed the humanity test and shamed your species by destroying the effort of labor of your peers. And someone else for never teaching you that to destroy the work of anyone is a corruption of the very principle that makes you a human being.

We are a tool using species, creators one and all, and if you use this gift of intelligence to burn the world then it only goes to show that you're a monster, worse than animal who doesn't know any better and still doesn't actively hunt and kill it's own species for an imaginary friend.

If there is a God, Allah or anyone beyond the veil responsible for this mess, I hope that He patiently teaches these creatures why what they did was such a betrayal of their own existence.

If not...well, that explains why it happened in the first place really.

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Gods dam it, YES, also worked out emergency accommodation for when I move out of my current residence if I can't find anywhere else to live.

I stayed in a hostel a few years ago for more than a year. Low cost, weekly rent, good location, in the same borough I'm in right now.

Since I stayed there last they dropped their rent by about 20 a week whilst only renting beds for weeks at a go too. Move in and stay there pro tem until I find another privately rented room to transfer to.

At around 3/5ths what I'm currently paying in rent I'll have extra money for travel and that too so no worries.

Focus on getting my college work done and I shouldn't have any issues with the exam. Pass that and my Day 2 whilst staying in this inn of sorts and become a police constable on full time pay.

Those are the main things: somewhere to sleep and employment.

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ALRIGHT, DONE, FINISHED, going to sleep.

Doing college work tomorrow, collecting papers and forms on Wednesday whilst checking in with the job center and cancelling that fucking Tribunal and making arrangements to repay housing benefit I was entitled to.

Thursday > Sunday focus on getting my college work done.

Monday get stuff into storage via taxi that I don't need in the Inn. Then college work, including exam revision until the 20th when I have my Day 2, and the 21st when I have my week 5 exam.

Somewhere in all of that try to find new acom and move out before the 20th for preference.

I might actually be able to sort this fucking mess out actually...

GG then.

On Bureaucracy...

For all my intelligence I'm amazingly stupid at times.

Sensible would've been to, on Tuesday, do college work after tidying up my room and getting some exercise.

Stupid is what I went with, which was to play Hearthstone for two days almost straight, noticing how the skin just under my ribcage is tightening up against what little muscle I have there because I haven't been eating. Not, not eating right. Just, not eating at all.

My budding anorexia is surprising though seeing as I have one of those metabolisms where I could eat a cracker or two and live for like a week. 6.1ft, built like a jungle ape [including body hair], and yet I could live on airborne plankton, if such a thing were floating through the ether.

I just forced myself to consume two platefuls of beef curry, but didn't really want it. It's not that I haven't been hungry, it's just I haven't eaten because I've been playing bloody Hearthstone.

Idiot.

Currently been awake since 11am yesterday. It's not 7am the following morning, I'm seeing blotches of color on my vision, missing keys, and still behind on my college coursework.

Plus my landlady said something about the property owner [I'm subletting from my flatmates] coming by today to check that the place is ready for viewing or is in one peace or something, and she needs to see everything, including my room, and I haven't cleaned in over a week.

So stupid. I need to do my college work and I need to get sleep at night like a normal person. Why don't I do what I'm meant to. Why does a little voice in my head keep saying 'One more' and 'Last one' every time I go to shut Hearthstone down? Stupid...

Anyway, after my shitty Tuesday I did finally get some good news.

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Somehow, and even I can't believe I managed it, I passed my in-person aptitude interview with the Met Police Service where they graded my intellect, communication, and observational skills.

I did it on 4 hours of sleep, no food since 6pm the night previously, and more or less dehydrated, plus wearing street casual [blue jeans and a tee] instead of business casual like everyone else. Why was I not prepared to take an important interview I can only take every six months? Because if you weren't paying attention above, I'm an idiot. Oy vey.

Somehow I still passed their tests, which either goes to show I'm just that dam good, or their standards for judging the aptitude of police offers is really not that high. Worryingly so really given that they're hiring budding law enforcement personnel who are future peace officers, detectives, and wielders of firearms.

Need to start prepping for the Day 2 now. This is much easier as it's only medical and fitness testing and a boat load of paperwork to fill out in the next two weeks.

Granted, in the way of my life, my lungs are currently painted with vile tasting mucus from a bout of bronchitis I had two months ago, gained by running the frigid night air in early spring, which is really worrying me. No illness I've ever had lasted more than two weeks. It doesn't hurt or anything, it's just an occasional wheezy cough with bad tasting mucus I can't quite clear out of my throat and into the sink.

The issue with this lingering side-effect is that in two weeks I need to take a bleep test, which is basically running. If I can't breath heavily without coughing my lungs up then there's no way I can run now and get ready or on the day.

At the moment I'm taking mucus cough meds made by Sudafed, after trying Beachems and some other brand. This one seems to be working. I was coughing hard last night but I'm two doses in and seem to be OK. Maybe this one has a different drug in it which works focuses on the lungs instead of the sinuses and it's clearing it. Hope so cus I really don't want to fail the Day 2 since winning the Day 1 by a hair.

If it's not sorted by Monday I'll find a doctors and see if they can give me something industrial strength or the precisely correct drug to clear it and then hit the track. I mean, the bleep test isn't long, I don't need to run for two hours like I normally do, and it'll be indoors in a hall at the recruitment offices in central London, but I need to do SOME running before hand.

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In other news, SEGA turned me down for a games testing position I was interviewed for last week.

Their reasoning was that the candidate pool they were screening had a lot of good people in it and I just didn't make the cut.

Well, fair enough, games industry position, lots of people want in, it's understandable that...wait...let's just evaluate this for a second...

I go to the Met Police service, those fine ladies and gents who patrol London, who are responsible for keeping the peace and catching criminals, take their communication, observation, and intellect test and pass it, GG.

Once I finish my training I'll earn 1.5-2x minimum wage, with excellent job security and promotion prospects plus a benefits package and access to career training programs.

Then I go to a computer games developer, SEGA. This company badly damaged one of the best games franchises of the Megadrive/Super Nintendo era of computer games from a rival for premier gaming icon to an internet joke. I take an easier test than the one I did for the police [in more or less the same physiological condition btw cus I'm just that stupid], and fail it.

If I had passed I could've looked forward to a zero hours minimum wage contract, with no job security, no chance for real career progression, no benefits, and if I wanted more training I'd have to pay for it myself.

Hm. Dodged a bullet there maybe?

I planned on doing it whilst at college for the next few months to make some extra money, and my vocation is that of games developer so if that had worked out I might just dropped my application to the police all together for real entry level experience at doing something related to what I love; games.

I'm fit to be a policeman, an officer of the law who needs to cooperate with people and protect them from crime, but not fit to be a games tester, a bug hunter who just needs to be able to play games which I've been doing since I was five.

This is the world we live in apparently.

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My 24+ Advanced Learning Loan, which I applied for and have now received to pay for my Certificate in Basic Policing course, went through yesterday.

Only took a speedy three months, the course had already started, the college had asked me to cough up or they'd boot me, and I had to lodge a complaint with customer services in writing before they'd finalize it. Wasn't bloody annoying or anything.

What was the hold up?

Apparently when I sent in my application form I hadn't ticked two boxes regarding prior loans. I didn't tick them because I didn't know if I was in arrears on my prior 3 years plus maintenance loans that I received to attend the University of Portsmouth for the Computer Games Technology course [don't even ask about that, bloody morons]. I assumed that they would email or phone me, I could ask them to check it out [they have it on record anyway], and that'd be that, job done.

In a sane world, yes, it would've been that easy.

It doesn't go through and my college blocks my access card which is scanned in at their gates for access to the campus. Phoned them up and they said what information they were missing, after I confirmed who I was via a security check and told them what the answer to the information was, but they had better check their systems to make sure.

They did and confirmed I was right, but asked me to send a letter which I had signed to confirm it anyway. I agreed on the basis that it was nonsense but nonsense that would take all of ten minuets in the library and post office. Same information - not in arrears, check your systems - and no reply.

They get the letter but then sit on it for nearly a month. Eventually I get annoyed and file a complaint with their internal complaints department who look into it. They phone me up [waking me up twice in the process and costing me about 4 hours of sleep total by the way] and tell me to send them another letter, but this time to make it the form from their website with the correct boxes ticked.

I say 'OK, just to be clear, I've phoned you, confirmed my identity, told you the answer, then send you a printed and signed letter with the correct information, and you've checked your systems twice now and confirmed it, but to finalize my loan you need me to print off a form you've already received to tick two boxes?'.

I felt sorry for the women on the line who started quite literally to splutter at me as she tried to justify the reason I should do as she asked.

After I got up and ate me wheeties my college then emailed me and told me it's gone through, they've received the money and that my place on the course is secure, at last.

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Can't work in the games industry for minimum wage, but I can work in law enforcement for a pension.

Can't get an adult learning loan because I need to feed information into the human machine with the right hole punched as they don't hire people who can color outside of the lines.

That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is bureaucracy at it's very finest; retarded actions done because it's protocol with a complete absence of good judgement, common sense, and intelligent thought.

But that's OK though, because if I don't go do my college work I'll never pass the CKP course, and be able to take the training which will lead to employment, and then be able to pay the loan back once I'm earning, so it'll work out alright in the end heh...heh...oooh...

Bai.