On The Word '-Slash-'

An anonymous commenter recently told me:

When you're typing, you can use an actual slash, instead of typing the word "slash". Just so you know. :p

Bollocks. Bollocks I say! Of course I can spell out that mark of punctuation. Nay! I need to! It's no less than a necessity!

I blog how I talk, or at least how I would talk if I were on YouTube or trying to impress someone or something.

In the way of the talking, saying 'them/you' would come out "them or you" or even just "them you".

Contrast this with 'them-slash-you' which would literally be pronounced "them slash you", because I sometimes say stuff like that sometimes. Also spelling out the slash just makes it look better on the page. A literal '/' is one of the most ugly-arse punctuation marks ever invented, ever.

It's all about the aesthetic of the thing. The style. Without style the world is doomed. You think the Four Horsemen are fashionable? Hell no! They're not even coordinated! Red and pale and black and whatever the other one's colour is? They need that Carson dude realquickfast.

As you can see I really, really need you to know I mean "slash" when I type '-slash-', and that when I do funny things with grammar, I'm doing it on purpose. It's a matter of international, apocalyptic importance.

My Poor Baby

For those of you who've been living under some sort of internet rock - or for those people who just don't use Twitter. Twitter has been struggling the last week or so. But gosh-darn-it I can't stay mad at it for more than a moment at a time. It's just so adorable:

It's like it's saying, "I CANNAE DO IT CAP'N! I CANNAE BREAK THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!"

Jane's Army

Every time I need to go somewhere and I'm a bit early (it happens more often than you might think) I whip out my DS and play Pokémon for a bit. I've actually gotten really far in the few days since I last posted. Here's the team so far:

• Shaniqua (Clefairy) lv. 31
• Lilly (Jigglypuff) lv. 30
• Talon (Pidgeotto) lv. 28
• Charlie (Snorlax) lv. 30
• Razor (Raticate) lv. 27
• BenRobot (Porygon) lv. 31

Shaniqua has proven to be a very versatile Pokémon so far with her higher-than-average Special Attack stat. I've taught her Water Pulse to scare away the Rock Pokémon and Shock Wave to quickly dispatch the Flying and Water-types. Water Pulse was the most urgent though because the mountain paths you have to trek through are riddled with hikers who sport entire teams of geodudes. Ugh.

Also I only just picked up Charlie the Snorlax this afternoon. He's got a pretty standard set of moves considering he hasn't leveled up yet. He will though, in time.

I picked up BenRobot (will my obsession with that guy ever end?) from the gaming corner for a handy 6, 500 coins (he's cheaper in LeafGreen than in Blue!) He knows Psybeam which has been great. Lately I've been up against a lot of Poison-types. He'll come in very handy when it comes to beating Erika.

And that's about it so far!

One Word Movie Reviews

Just what everyone always wanted - one word movie reviews. Of course these aren't supposed to be exhaustive, authoritative, or even useful. I'm just testing my wordpower here.

This exercise is really, really difficult so for now I've allowed myself a dash-or-two.

If you want real movie reviews then go to the safe, loving arms of Margaret and David. They will look after you. Tenderly.

21 - "Confounding" 2/5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall - "Penis" 3/5

Iron Man - "Super-Roomba" 3.5/5

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - "Jaunty" 4/5

Horton Hears a Who! - "Fan-bloody-tastic" 4.5/5

Yes that's right. I put Horton above Indy. Indy-fans? Bite me.

The Little People Make Me Who I Am

One day when I am a very-successful writer doing my writerly things like drinking coffee and throwing things in fits of artistic passion I will stop and remember you.

I will stop and I will think "oh I wonder what happened to that person who did that thing in my life back when I was just a poor uni student looking for a job?"

Then I will go and look at your Facebook profile and reminisce. Then I will poke you.

Did someone get a ninety fricking percent on his Noir about the librarian? Yes someone did! Also did that someone get a favourable review on his Writing for Performance script? YES HE DID!

*squee*

Apparently I 'absolutely nailed' my characterisation. Also my script was 'very sweet and touching'. This is kind of funny to me, because when I was writing it I thought it was sappy.

So it also seems like I've got the conceitedness of a high-falutin writer down too. That's a bonus. I thought it would have taken at least one book deal for me to develop that one.

No but really. I'm just relieved. And excited. It means a lot of the pressure of uni is off now for this semester. The writing lecturers are always so snobby, and it's difficult to impress them, so it stresses me out.

Things to do:

1. Construct a ten-page-or-so website for Writing for the Web (eek!)
2. Get this short film idea ironed out once and for all with my group (send that email!)
3. Write another Noir short story (1500 words), this time in third-person
4. Revise Writing for Performance script - load on the emotion at lecturer's request
5. Party like it's 2006
   

LOL

If one cannot laugh at oneself, one is not allowed to laugh at others.

LOL.

Going to watch that movie everyone's talking about. The one about the old man with the hat and the whip. Apparently it's with Communists now. The fricking Nazis were to lazy to bother or some such business.

Bloody Nazis.

Pokémon Normal Mastery II

Apologies to the people who are already sick of hearing about Pokémon. Not that I've gotten any nasty emails saying "OMG yr such a pokemon nerd i hat u" - these people currently exist only in my mind.

So yes! Apologies to those imaginary people, but I felt that my last post didn't quite cover everything I wanted to cover even though it was quite long and technical, and I also got a question in the comments that I want to answer. Prepare for a snappy into to Pokémon Normal and why the hell you would want to do such a thing in the first place.

I'm actually playing using a girl avatar called Jane. You know, plain Jane... geddit?! I like to imagine Jane got into Pokémon training because she has mild dyslexia and didn't want to go to uni or something.

Her mother doesn't like her wearing the miniskirt.

Professor Oak secretly thinks her hat looks silly, but hasn't the heart to tell her.

She is actually fluent in PHP.

She has exactly 84 friends on Facebook.

Also! My friend Az made a comment asking if I'll be using TMs or if I'll be sticking really rigidly to the 'normal only' theme. The answer is, yes I'll be using TMs and also mixed-type Pokémon, although I think the only normal-mixed types in the LeafGreen/FireRed versions are normal/flying.

Part of the fun of doing the game using only one type is using Pokémon you wouldn't usually use and using more common Pokémon in different ways than usual. It means you end up with freaky-yet-somehow-usable teams consisting of oddballs with crazy moves taught via TM as a workaround for weaknesses.

For example, I have a really, really big weakness against Rock-type Pokémon. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure Snorlax can use Surf (a Water-type move) and Porygon can use Ice-Beam (an Ice-type move, duh). Normally you wouldn't teach a Snorlax how to Surf, but we're consciously doing things differently here.

Currently the team looks like this:

• Lilly (Jigglypuff) lv15
• Talon (Pidgey) lv16
• Shaniqua (Clefairy) lv15
• Razortooth (Rattata) lv16
• Pointy (Spearow) lv15

Because I'm still at the stage of the game where your character is relatively povo, I don't have a lot in the way of money or TMs, so nobody knows any freaky moves yet.

Also thanks to Claudia who named my Clefairy!

Pokémon Normal Mastery

In my latest video I told my subscribers I'd be posting fairly regularly about how I will beat Pokémon LeafGreen using only Normal-type Pokémon. I guess I should actually keep them-slash-you updated since I told them-slash-you that I would.

At this very second my party consists of the following:

• Razortooth (Rattata) lv 16
• Talon (Pidgey) lv 15
• Pointy (Spearow) lv 15
• Lilly (Jigglypuff) lv 14

Hopefully soon I'll catch a Clefairy and call it 'Sassy'.

Right now you're probably most interested to hear how I beat Brock with only a Rattata, a Pidgey and a Spearow, so I'll briefly outline that.

I won't lie to you, it was hella-difficult. Brock has a Geodude and an Onyx, both incredibly resistant to normal and flying-type attacks (all I had available at the time, no TMs). The way to take him down is by using the status-affecting moves normal-type Pokémon tend to have early-0n.

At this stage all my Pokémon were on level 12, except Razortooth who was on level 13.

Pidgey's have sand-attack, which lowers accuracy. This is a very very useful move for this battle. I used that on both the Geodude and the Onyx to ensure they weren't actually hitting with their attacks. Spearow also has growl, a move that lowers attack. Finally Rattata gets hyperfang, your most powerful move so far, at lv 13.

You've just got to sand attack, switch to a Spearow, growl so when they DO hit they cause almost no damage, then chip away at them 1hp at a time. Onyx is actually easier to faint than Geodude because Onyx can't artificially inflate his defence with defence curl. This means you can also use Spearow's leer, a move that lowers defence, to make despatching him very easy!

Hmm... sorry. That was a bit technical. Brock is probably the only problem trainer you'll ever have to deal with if you're doing this my way. Later on you can teach TMs to Jigglypuff etc that will help defeat problem gym leaders. The later entries in here will be much shorter, and hopefully more entertaining!

Youth Announcements

I told my friends I was going to bed about 20 minutes ago but I forgot to post this and I need to post it before it's old news!

Mitto (the grey area), a few other people and I make video announcements for our church's youth group called Youth Street. We've made three so far but for some reason, the person who takes care of the Youth Street YouTube channel has uploaded our third one first, and assured Mitto and I that the earlier ones are coming later.

Anyway, for now enjoy last week's youth announcements. They've proved to be a bit of a hit!

BOOKS and... Pokémon.

This post is completely not about YouTube. Okay I might mention it once but that is it.

I was reading this book about a dude that flies using industrial contraptions - Airman or something. It was by Eoin Colfer who is a favourite of mine, although nothing will beat his Artemis Fowl books. According to Wikipedia there is a sixth book and a movie in the works - and that fills me with all kinds of happiness.

Anyway, what happened was when I was about five chapters into the flying-person book the library sent me an email telling me that An Abundance of Katherines by John Green had finally come in. Of course I dropped everything and read it. I read it and finished it. It was very good, although I personally prefer Looking for Alaska - that's just me.

Currently I'm reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. I've never read it before and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's very subversive in a nonsense kind of way - not Disneyfied at all.

NERD ALERT! <--(Oh go on. You love it.)

There is, however, one problem. I might not be reading much right now because the fiveawesomeguys have set the Pokéchallenge. That is, we all have to complete the oldest version of a Pokémon game we can find and talk about it in our videos. I figured I'd do the completing bit but leave the updates for the blog, rather than making videos that just say "I got a Snorlax! And... that's all. Kbai."

Also because I'm a sucker for punishment, I'm completing the LeafGreen version (a remake of the old Blue version) using only normal-type Pokémon. I've done this before, but I used fire and then water-type Pokémon. I might have done some other types too - but I can't remember. It was ages ago!

It's very fun. If you want to do it using only one type of Pokémon then let me know!

Statistics

YouTube expanded the Insight feature to show your overall statistics and demographics and other nerdy things. Since then it's become super-compulsory for the vloggers-with-blogs to post what their demographics are. Here are mine, because I'm a sheep who doesn't want to get left out and not be cool anymore. Baa.

Looking at the stats from the other peeps it looks like YouTube has an overall bias to users of the female persuasion anyway, but obviously my good looks and amazing charm are attracting an extra smidgen than normal. I've got nothing on Joe though, who pulls a whopping 77%. Ahem.

It appears that most of my viewers are in their mid-teens, which can be expected I suppose - considering that people over the age of 18 obviously don't know how to use a computer. Oh, except for the people between the ages of 35 and 45 who are INEXPLICABLY MY SECOND LARGEST AUDIENCE.

Also what's with the 55 to 60 year olds? I know I've always been "such a well-mannered boy" but that's very strange. It's obviously not my Gran watching my videos over and over, she died over a year ago. Also she was eighty-one.

(NB: Innapropriate? I dunno. My aunt and uncle read this, as does my Mum. They're like, related.)

So essentially my statistics are so scattered it doesn't actually tell me anything about my viewership at all. It concerns me slightly that my 18-35 bracket is so impoverished, but who knows?! Maybe it will improve later on.

And finally, normal views normal views normal views normal views normal views normal views DOUBLE AUTOPLAY normal views norm...

Totally going to stop talking about YouTube now. Like, for real this time.

Friendship

Watch as I deftly discuss this new issue with wit and candour! Ooh and aah over the parry and trust of my words! Be amazed at how I don't ramble even a little bit!

Long story short - Riverbasil and John Lacey (JohnOfJordan) wrote on the topic of friendship over the internet. I wrote a response to it, but it was boring and awkward so I didn't post it. Now I'll try and talk intelligently using only half the words!

I use the terms 'online' and 'offline' when referring to friends. The line gets blurry around the grey area that is Mitto, because I met him online but now go to his church and see him multiple times a week.

Why do I make the distinction? Well it's not because 'online' friends are anyhow less important or less real (in fact, I try not to use the phrase "in real life" for that very reason). It's because I do it for different groups of offline friends as well. I have my 'school friends' and my 'church friends' and my 'Darwin friends' and I also have my 'online friends'.

These are more-or-less distinct groups of people which I call by these collective names. I guess the impression people get from those names is up to them. There's not much I can do about it, and it's another issue altogether.

Nick! We should chat more! Do you have Skype? Of course you do. Add me and we'll have a good old yarn. With my microphone, even.

John! Don't be shy. I haven't spoken to you in too long because that rascal Rob has been taking up all my time. Don't let him do it! =P

Metafiction

Collaborations are such a buzz! My good friend Liam (aka littleradge) and I did this video together and I'm rather pleased with the results. Liam is one bad-arse video editor, even though he's using the full-of-fail Windows Vista Movie Maker.

After this went up on his channel, I got 60 new subscribers (and counting!) making me the 15th most subscribed Australian Comedian of all time.

Mum says when I mention things like that I'm being egotistic. I have to say I agree with her, but I'm very excited about it!

I Live In Two Worlds

Online and offline, and that little offshoot from the online people are the people I know via text-blogs (the remains of the Windows Live Spaces crowd). My two worlds, they do not intersect:

Dear Lord What Have I Done?

Felix Returns

After posting about Felix the first time I never really got around to telling you how he's going did I.

Well I'm pleased to say that despite some general neglect when it comes to cleaning the outside of him he's chugging along very nicely.

In fact - I made a video while sitting inside him.

I know. Made a video. Wonders never cease.

Honours, Subscribers and Songs

When all else fails, talk about YouTube.

That's become the eerily repetitive motto of my life in all things - blogs, daydreams, everyday conversation...

I think the internet has broked me.

So anyway, lets wax lyrical about my burgeoning success on that everloved video site. I talked about honours before, and how I suddenly got some. Well today I overtook a guy who I don't know who goes by the name "sirguyofsebastian". He looks like a decent enough fellow by all accounts, but now he has been (temporarily?) overtaken.

I'm gloating while I can.

In other squeal-worthy news two partners (HalfScottishGuy and Walllofweird) have put my video The UK Hates Me on their autoplay. As a result it is on track to get over 1000 views. Somehow I think this is Rob's evil plan to make me apply for partnership myself. He and Katrina are clearly in cahoots.

Of course, by telling you about this I obviously want you to click on their names in the paragraph above. It'll get the video two extra views if you do. Oh yes and they are both very awesome people (made of the stuff in fact), so there's the side effect that by checking them out their awesomeness may just rub off on you.

You can then share that awesome with the world at large you see. Nerdfighter channel visitation is incredibly philanthropic.

And speaking of Nerdfighters, the lovely Lauren (devilishlypure) has written a song I enjoy singing out loud when my parents aren't home, and sometimes even when they are.

Here is that song:


EDIT 2/May/08: Well now The UK Hates Me has (so far) 2339 views making it my second most watched video of all time. Also I'm the 8th most viewed Australian comedian today (so far). I realise not everyone who racked me up a view actually sat and watched the whole thing, but I still heart Rob and Katrina.