The Aperture Science Enrichment Centre

I wake up at 10:00 this morning ready to sit my Engineering Computing exam at 12:30. I check my calendar, to which I find 12:30 is the end time and I'm already 70 minutes late for the last thing I need to pass me this paper. Yes, my first thought was, "Can I turn up late?" No. 45 minutes after the start of an exam you are denied entry and you forfeit hundreds of study hours and thousands of dollars in course fees in an instant. With my heart in my arse, I spend the next five minutes checking up on my friends' blogs, looking for any way to escape the reality semi-truck rearing its headlights at me. Moments before I become a mess on my hard university dorm floor, I muster a thought.  What if... The date on my calendar was wrong? It's happened before, costing me erhmm.. 4% of my grade in another paper? I knew the likelihood of it happening again was slim, but a dying man will embrace any crumb of hope. So, I check online. Exam's on Tuesday. Today's Tuesday. H...

 I'll wear pyjamas into the grocery store before I'm ever caught self-diagnosing myself, I do NOT have ADHD. It may be just an affliction that runs in engineering students, but I cannot force myself to make any progress on an assignment before it becomes a grade-saving situation, and it has become a real problem.  What I believe it to be is that ADHD sufferers have a naturally low baseline dopamine level, the hormone that is responsible for motivation, hope, joy. When this is the case, any task that does not stimulate the monkey brain to make it happy becomes unbearable, and it is near impossible to become motivated enough to do it. So, the person waits until stress builds up enough, and adrenaline takes the controls, getting the job done.  I do find myself living this way, so whether I have the 'D or not, I want something I can swallow that will help me. Diagnoses cost like a thousand dollars though, my only other option is to detox from anything fun at all until study b...

 Everyone I meet these days is really big on physical media, and while I see the merit in novelty, growing up I never thought much of it. Thanks to my really cool parents I was exposed to a whole lot of "retro" technology during my upbringing, like watching Pac-man or Tom and Jerry on VHS late at night when I was five, gaming on the PS2, Nintendo DS, Super Nintendo and Atari, or flipping Laserdiscs halfway through movies. Even the radio alarm clock I use now is something like 70 years old.  \\  I do wonder if the push for simpler devices is in part caused by short form content / AI, making entertainment nowadays somewhat an exhausting experience. When you sit down and watch a film or series that has been pre-encoded into a polycarbonate plastic plate, You are served up a unique experience, leaving a lasting impression and feeling of contentment. Online media consumption for most means multiple hours scrolling, with no discernible progression leaving your senses overloaded...

First Blogger post in ... 10 years? kinda nervous  I LOVE Sackboy, and even more so the LittleBigPlanet series. I have so many things to say about how much I love everything lbp my head, but the amazing digital stage fright is clawing at my heels right now, so I'm off to pour a Fireball + Coke. With the game's focus being "Play. Create. Share.", I totally think Sackboy would be a communist. Or not, I don't know. Like most of my generation I land in the green square on the political compass, and also like most, believe I have any understanding of it. Nonetheless, LittleBigPlanet in it's prime was endless creative opportunity for anyone with a PS3 controller. This was back before you had to pay a subscription for online play, allowing all tax brackets to make whatever they liked; I fondly recall escaping killer sharks, dodging bombs in angry bird land, and distastefully making my brothers eat knitted palm knowing they hadn't the finger dexterity to retaliate...