Well it's been a few days since my last blog so I think it's about time to post. Had a pretty uneventful few days nothing really that exciting to say. Yesterday (which is part to blame for the lack of blog) Civilization 4 arrived, crazy American spellings. It's a great game lots of improvements have been made since the last civilisation game.

For those that don't know the civilisation games allow you to run civilisation of your choosing. Which for me yesterday was the English. You build cities which grow over time, armies to defend agaisnt war or go and start your own, research scientific advances which allows you to improve your cities/armies etc. The games take a long time to play, you start in 4000bc and work your way up to modern times and beyond. The game I played yesterday took 6 hours. It's good fun though one of the new things in this game is they've put religion in the game so I spend a lot of my time building Christian Missionaries and sending them into other civilisations territories to convert them. This got the Spanish annoyed at me though because I had "Fallen under the influence of a heathen Religion" I think they were Buddhist or something. Anyways they eventually started a war with me which they lost. There musketeers and cannons weren't much use against my Tanks and Machine gunners, although there were more than a few occasions where my tanks or helicopters were destroyed by guys on horseback... Which I think is a little unrealistic.

Another area that's been improved alot is the graphics it's all 3D now and there's all kinds of stuff going on all the time that you can see. For example you zoom in on a mine and you can see the little mine carts bring stuff out of the mountains, you can see the sheep and cows moving around in the fields and you can see your cities grow in size and the improvements and wonders that you build in them. So if your looking for a good strategy game then I highly recommend this no complaints really only that it's too dammed addictive.

A few days ago I also got my first placement application to fill out. Next year I have the option of doing a years paid placement somewhere which I'm hoping to do providing I can find a decent one. The application I got if for the Ministry of defenses statistics department in London. It sound incredibly boring and I really don't want to do it. So I'm gonna fill out the application (which we have to do) tomorrow and try to do a bad job of it and just hope that something better come along soon.

Also tomorrow Marie-Claire is coming to stay for the weekend and I'm excited about seeing her again. We didn't see each other very much at all over the summer because she was up in Leeds working and I was down in Kent so it'll be great to catch up. That probably means that there will be no blogging either which is why this one is extra long.

Last Day of 6th Form 18th of May 2001.

6th Form was the Greatest!

Church today was cool. Got to see lots of crazy Holy Sprit stuff people with the shakes, falling over etc. I guess it's just something that I don't see that much and when I do see it now it's even cooler! There's a lot of new Christians around too and I like to think how much it must freak them out! God's power is awesome though. I want to get used to seeing stuff like that again because it doesn't happen enough!

Here's a picture from the school in Canada of some early morning fire tunnel fun!

I realised today that I have a bit of a problem with this blog. I've got at least 4 different groups of people who are likely to read it. There's people from home, people from Uni, people from the school in Canada and people I know online. I don't really know what to talk about. I can't just gear it towards one group of people because then the others will louse interest. So I guess the only way around it is to vary what I talk about as much as possible to try and keep everyone interested.

Anyway its November 5th today which means it's been like a warzone out side all night. Fireworks going off all over the place thankfully we didn't get any through our letterbox, but it is still only 12:40 so I guess there's still a chance but lets hope not!

Also... I keep getting sent these damned invitations to join peoples friends networks and to stop the spam once and for all I decided to join one. From what I can tell it is a spamfest inside too. I sign up to this thing and its sent a load of invitations off to people asking them to join my network, people I'm sure I don't know. I'm beginning to think that it was a bad move! I think I'll just stick with the blogging :D

Here's a pic of home - how I miss it...

Today has been rather uneventful and I really can't share anything exciting with you. However I did make it into the top 10 of our new speedrun league on concspeed on our server. Pretty proud of that, ok I'm at the bottom but I really suck at conc maps so to see me in there at all is a real achievement! Here is proof because I doubt the time will stay there very long!

Yeah that sadly really is all I have done today... Went to a few lectures that kind thing but it has been pretty dull. Also got a bit pissed off with one of the guys in our World of Warcraft Guild basically for getting us all killed a whole bunch of times in SFK but hey it was fun.

I have to leave you with something a little more interesting than the screenshot above so I've had a random scan though some old photos and found some classics. Here's a blast from the past it was requested a long time ago by the man himself so here it is Mike with his Mohawk - enjoy.

Gretchens English Page

Came across this today by clicking for a random blog. If you've never read the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe that this guy is talking about then it's worth a look. You can find it here.

On a separate note today is my computer free day. Note the my computer there because after all I am a computing student and need to use computers everyday so today I'm posting from University. When I started back at University this year I decided that I would have one day a week where my computer at home will stay off. That might not seem like such a big deal to many of you but I got to the point where I found my self turning the computer on first thing in the morning and then sitting there all day and finally turning it off at night. This is not good. Too much of anything is bad so I quit using my computer on Thursdays and I think it's done me a hell of a lot of good.

I have a picture for you all too but I'll have to post it tomorrow see you then.

Well 3 weeks later and I'm back at blogger. Time to make an actual post I think! I just finished reading Joshua Harris' book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye". Those who know me well joke about my past relationships and how all my ex-girlfriends have been married within 6 months of breaking up with me. It pretty harsh but I can see the funny side (Thank God!). So reading this book again has reminded me of a lot of things. The main thing being that I'm not ready to get married or even be in a relationship and I'm fine with that... For now.

As always I'll leave you with a picture (or try) here's one from Charlotte and Neil Coverly's wedding a bit later than planned. When I get hold of Graham again I'll get some photos of the happy couple posted. Well done to Willgoss for not sending me any pictures of the actual couple..