Wednesday, 26 November 2008

Christmas doesn't start untill after December 4th.

Previously on 24: "Well I would like to have a job as a teaching assistant but the people at Eggbuckland Community College seem to pick their teaching assistants before advertising that they need them so its pretty hard to get the job. Though it would be nice to be told if I have the job or not, I mean its not like I'm not in the exact same building as them every week day."

Good new everyone, there's been progress! No I didn't get the job so stop making that list of things you "need" me to buy you. While I didn't get the job I could have got the job if I had experience with children. Good experience, not catholic priest experience. Apparently I'm perfect for the job, they even said my degree was perfect for it. Never thought I'd hear those words. However the aforementioned lack of experience cause my perfection to become a branston pickleless sandwhich (Yes I've been watching Yahtzee, yes I like branstons pickle, no I don't need it on all my sandwhiches).

"This is sounding less like progress and more like teasing" I hear you say, hoping I get to the point soon. Well out of this came some good. Not wanting to let me down again and not being able to offer me the job they offered me volentery TA work =D. In other words I get to do what I would be doing if I were emploid as a TA just without getting money =D, just with less days. Anyway before any of that I have to do another CRB form cause I might have become a convicted fellon while working for them. This'll cost them £30 for me to tell them what they already know. Brilliant.

The bottom line of all this is that is a TA job does come up I'll be first inline for the job and as such progress =D. As previously stated a salery of £15,025 a year (about £1,252 a year) would be a lovely salery for me, one I could probably happily live with however this Teaching Assistant thing can lead to actual teaching so there we go. Though this does leave me a bit uncertain as to whether I should apply for a PGCE now or wait and see what happens ...

Anyway with good karma comes bad karma. Well slightly inconvenient karma. Ann was out at work today so I had to do 10 classrooms today. I was also supposed to sweep my passage and stairs but it was 5:50 when I'd finished my last class and I was supposed to be gone by 5:45 so I had to leave it. Another anoyance is their having some parent teacher thing tomorrow at 3:45 or something silly but the kids leave at 3 so I have 45 minutes to do an hour and a quarter job. Swell planning here. Oh well I get to go in to work in the morning on Friday leaving the whole day free for fun ^_^.

All I need now is for 3 of my bestest friends to make a random appearence for a brilliant weekend. Oh wait!

Sparky: Zombies? Zombies?! Zombies! Argh zombies! zombies! Zombies! zombi-

Monday, 24 November 2008

My astonishment becomes tempered by suspicion.

Oh hello, I almost didn't notice you there. Whats you name? ... Great to meet you LOVESBOOBS, I assume your here to hear a tale? My daughter's married thank you very much. Well I have a great story that will make your bones tingle. A story of such epic proportions it will be told through out the ages. Sitting confertably? Then we shall begin.

Yes another campaign of D+D (Dorks and Dr.Pepper) has begun and I've desided to let you, the masses (three people count as a mass), share in the hilariously epic adventure.

First let us introduce you to the characters of our tale; Alec Strongbow, a werewolf fighter who used to be a lawyer and look like wolverine from x-men, but now looks like Jesus. I'm sure from the mention of werewolf you've already deduced that this is Leigh's character, well you wrong! Ha! Naw I'm just joking its Leigh's character.

Rockster stone, an Earthsoul Genasai. Yeah Giles downloaded some new books that included a new race and new class; Sword Mage and being the adventurous person that I am I took both! And then let Leigh draw what I looked like. He drew The Thing from the Fantastic Four. However now that I've looked up what a Genasai is supposed to be the thing is pretty much a good representation. Basically its a human infused with elemental power and as such takes on some characteristics of that element. Myself being earth means that being made of rock would be accurate. Being a sword mage I seem to just set people on fire. Its awsome!

Glady's the Paladin dwarf. As Cooper and Marc'll remember Giles friend Dave made a paladin dwarf during the summer which Lew took over. Well he's made another one but this time its female, younger but with a longer beard. Though Dave in his infinate wisdom had taught me soemthing of great important; while epic boobs and epic beards are truely epic individually someone who has both is not good. Really not good, especially when drawn with a bikini top and thong. The biggest problem is Gladys has 18 charisma and is the best looking one out of us all. Good God help us.

Mr Sneeze from the Mr Men. I actually can't remember the name of Simons character but the portrait looked like Mr. Sneeze of the Mr Men. Just with a beard. Mr. Sneeze from the Mr. Men is a warlord and as such the leader of our group. This doesn't go well and ends pretty early on in the campaign.

Something the grey, thats a witty take of Gandolf the gay. Tim was given the party's rich wizard with the great spells of make things cold, make things colder and makes things sleepy or slow. You might think I'm mocking but so far he's been quite handy. Mainly in making sure me and Leigh don't do something stupid the first time were given a decision to make. God bless you Tim.

And thats our crew! A fighter, Paladin, Warlord, Sword Mage and Wizard. Pretty balanced team I'd say. Though we have no healer but I can't actually remember a time when we've played D+D and someones actually chosen a character who's main role is to heal. Though we do have a paladin who has some healing powers so I'm sure we'll be fine, that is if we hadn't already played.

Whatever you might think of Giles after the summers D+Dage I consider him to be a pretty good DM and I think he's shown that again with the start of our new campaign throwing us into a dwarf mine thats been over thrown by orcs and we've been told to take it back. The reason why this was a good idea is because were basically a group of strangers. Sure me and Leigh have had a mutual disgust of each other for a good 8 years but I'd only met Dave and Simon once or twice, and while their nice guys I don't know them. Now Leigh didn't know anyone and I didn't know Tim so trying to open a D+D campaign with role playing would have been awkward at best. The way Giles has done it means we can get aquinted with each other and as such making the role playing less painful, especially seeing this is Simon and Tims first time and only Daves second.

So were in a dwarf stronghold (though can't be that strong if its been taken over) taken over by orcs, what do we do first? Kill some orcs. Pretty much the staple of all fantasy adventures, but a nice way to getting new and old roleplayers into a story. This first battle went well I think, even though Simon did charge into battle completely missing his target, but the rest of us fared pretty well. Including myself actually doing good in combat =D. As Cooper and Marc might remember my Rogue was how you say ... ineffectual at many points. But this time I set things on fire and they burn =D.

I think Simon took a bit of damage but not enough to actually matter and we pretty much cleared up the field with a little amount of fuss. Though Glady's did fail to get up a flight of steps and Alec Strongbow managed to convince an archer on a 10 ft ledge to jump off due to being on fire and going to die the next round. Leigh said it was to make his last moments on life better but to be honest I personally think it just added insult to injury. And death. Though between killing the last enemy and waiting for the archer to die a painful humiliating death we decided to see if any of us knew anything about the stronghold we were in. And we did! Kinda. Simon "knew" that the next room was pink with fluffy clouds. Me, Dave and Tim knew something more substantial in the form of knwoing that there was a creature of great power inside. Well it wasn't phraised like that, Giles said it a lot vaguer and forbodding but its so something of great power.

Then came the looting! Which Leigh was quick to remind us of and then only managing to claim some mangy gloves and 3 copper. I got some chainmail boots and 5 silver =D. But quickly after that came decision making and roleplaying. You see the room had two exits; one a corridor, the other a ricketty bridge over a dark seemingly bottomless pit. Me, Leigh and Tim decided to discuss which we thought would be the best route deciding on the nice secure darkened corridor, while Dave and Simon were more proactive and decided to just cross the rope bridge without any thought what so ever. This actually went better for the fat dwarf than the muscular Mr. Sneeze from the Mr. Men who slipped and almost fell to his doom but managed to grab on to the rope bridge.

Once over the bridge Dave and Simon decided to get chatty. Over whether or not to get one of us to cut the bridge so they can climb the down the 10 foot rope bridge and try to get to the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pit. I think you can see a problem with this however Simon did not and proceeded to test Giles's patients who had only made the pit to give us a harder decision than "Right or left" though probably now wishing he hadn't given us a choice at all as he'd hoped we'd take the darkened corridor. Eventually Simon forgot about this idea, Leigh cut the rope bridge and Dave failed to gather the rope bridge up so he'd have some rope incase of an emergancy.

So Rockster Stone, Alec Strongbow and Tim the wizard (isn't that the dude from Monty Python?) broke away from our leader and paladin to form squad awsome and took the dark corridor to find some orcs huddled around a corner. Being squad awsome we first discussed what to do. The verdict being beat them up then when their most vulnerable Leigh'll hulk out and intimidate the leader for info on the place. This went exceedingly well with Leigh also getting some loot from the scared orc. However I did not so next time we play I think flaming death will be bestode upon.

Meanwhile squad going-to-die-a-slow-and-painful-death ventured in the next room to find it not pink nor fluffy. A terrible disappointment engolfed the squad as they fell to their knees screaming in anguish. Not really, though I personally almost did as Gladys used her charm on Mr. Sneeze and claimed control of not only the aquad but also the whole warband! Thankfully being apart of squad awsome we're yet to realise thisebut I'm predicting mutiny in the near future.

Finding the room grey, stoney and empt they ventured to the doorway of the next room, but the room is dark and our entreppid adventurers are pussies so they devised an ingenious plan! Mr. Sneeze would throw a gret axe into the centre of the room where Glady's will use her lowlight vision to see if she could see something in the axe's shiney surface. While Simon was successful with his throw hearing a grunt from inside Dave was less so rolling a 1 so was convinced nothing was inside. Being the now leader she ordered Mr. Sneeze inside to find a room of orcs starring perplexed at a great axe and then looking up to notice the intruders.

And that is where this part of the tail ends. What will Alec, Rockster and Tim find in the dark corridors? Hopefully riches beyond their wildest dream. Will Mr. Sneeze and Glady's survive past the first 5 minutes? Porbably not.

Until next time, keep watching the skies!

(Seriously we had a lot of fun and it'd be awsome to carry on.)

To better illistrait a point I illistraited my point litrally and drew a quick map of our current dungeon I think you'd all love to see:


"DM: there is carving on the wall depicting the face of a demon with an open mouth. The inner mouth is a sperical black surface. No light at all seems to emanate from it.

Player: I put my head into the mouth and try to see if is a passage to the other side of the wall....

DM: your headless body falls on the ground...."

Saturday, 22 November 2008

Three little girls from school.

I have found a problem with posting a preview of what will be on my next blog: I feel obligated to write about that and by the time I get round to actually doing it the subject matter might not matter as much anymore. Oh well I just wont be doing that anymore will I?

Ok first subject: England goalkeepers. Why the fuck aren't they good? Is there a problem with the coaching and development of goalkeepers in this countr
y? Or are less and less chids wanting to become goalkeepers and as such there's a country wide shortage of them?

Lets look at the current English goalkeepers in the premier league, starting with the three goalkeepers picked for England duety on Wednesday.

David James - Problems: Inconsistant, dodgy, makes terrible, terrible decisions, aged 38.
Positives: He can pull off some pretty decent saves when he's in the mood.
Verdict: He's definatly the best keeper available at the
moment; has experience and some semblence of skill.

Scott Carson - Problems: Low confidence, bad communication skills, bad decision making, seems to think because he's kneeling down ready to except the ball that the ball will come to him. However as the Croatia and Germany game showed this does not happen. He doesn't seem to be able to react to changes.
Positives: He was once Liverpools 2nd string keeper? Is that something?
Verdict: He's a pretty average keeper with a lot of things t
o work on. The only reason I can see he was apart of the England squad is because he's young ... thats it. He's young. And possibly because Ray Clemence sucks.

Paul Robinson - Problems: Everyone hates him for the Croatia and Germany games, doesn't deal with long shots at all.

Positives: He deals with shots within 8 yards exceptionally well. It seems he put all his experience points in reactions and none in diving.
Verdict: He has good experience and he's getting regular football at Blackburn. He's pretty much in the top 3 English goalkeepers.

Joe Hart - Problems: He closes his eyes when the ball gets too near, not so great in one-on-one situations.
Positives: He's young and already getting regular first team football. He's probably the best prospect for the future goalkeeper spot.

Verdict: Would have played on Wednesday if not for injuring his ankle. Will probably be initiated into the England fold in the coming cames, however I'd put him 4th best English Keeper.

Ross Turnball - Problems: Only started regular football this season. Plays for Middlesborough.
Positives: He has great skill and he's young, properly developed he could really help Englands goalkeeper crisis.

Verdict: Before Wednesday Middlesborough were the highest team in the prmier league with an English keeper. So why the fuck wasn't he picked? Even if they didn't pick him originially why wasn't he picked when Joe Hart was left out? They say that no ones place is safe under Capello, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the goalkeepers. I mean if a keeper who's team is bottom of the league gets in the the team over a keeper doing well you can't really say he was ther eon merit can you?

All the others: Who cares. Their screwed. Their better than Carson but still wont get into the England team.

Overall: Ray Clemence sucks. He was part of the England squad of the 70's that failed to qualify for a single thing. The two tornements they did qualify for in '80 and '82 were also a misery. Thank God he retired after '82 and the legendary Peter Shilton became the regular keeper for England. I say David Seaman should be the new England goalkeeper coach. He doesn't have his mustach anymore though =(.

Can't be assed to write about pedophilia anymore. I think its generally a topic that we could all do with out. Instead I'll just leave you with a picture and words of advice: If your chatting to someone who's underage and they invite you voer for sex. Don't go.


Song fo the week: Tremblebee - Incapable

"I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel!" - Stuart Pearce.

Thursday, 20 November 2008

Incorporal shadows in the dark.

Why am I writing a blog? Well I don't have a cam corder so can't do a vlog. Actually I'm blogging so I can be apart of Cooper's starring on his blog. I'm not sure if this is a solid basis for a blog but what the hell, whats the worse that can happen?

Well I guess I'll start with telling people whats happening in my life at the moment. I clean things, 6 classrooms, a corridor and a stair well to be more specific. Its not exactly exciting nor is it really something I'd like to be doing for more time than is necessary but its easy and I get £300 a month, apparently more this month due to a pay rise, so its not all bad.

Now for all those thinking "Why doesn't Boote just get another job?" might not have tried to get a job in Plymouth ever, but its hard. Plus I don't just want a job in retail and as such my choices are more limited in a sense. What job do I want? Well I would like to have a job as a teaching assistant but the people at Eggbuckland Community College seem to pick their teaching assistants before advertising that they need them so its pretty hard to get the job. Though it would be nice to be told if I have the job or not, I mean its not like I'm not in the exact same building as them every week day.

To be honest I'm not an ambitious person, all I want is a moderatly paid job thats more interesting than sitting/standing at a till scanning things asking "You have a club card?" or "Find everything you were looking for?". A job inwhich gives me £15,025 a year would be nice. A job to pay the bills, the shopping and have enough left over to save and get a luxury now and again. I'm a simple person with simple needs.

Now we've gone through my current job and future job wants, lets do my current passtimes; nothing. Seriously I'm very bored. I would like to be out convorting with any number of peoples who like me enjoy a good froliking now and again. However it has not worked out. So far I have tried a single sport; Ice hockey and it was disappointing. Instead of being tought how to play ice hockey as I was hoping for me and Carl were given skates, sticks, helmets and gloves and told to play. As you can imagine this isn't quite helpful to two people who haven't skated in a long while. It was much like playing football for the first time at 21 after you;ve recently recovered from brittle bone disease in your legs and were thrown into a match straight away. But we soldiered on where I was largely ignored by my "team". Even still I kinda had fun. If I knew how to play this sport I think I could really get on well with it, unfortunetly this wasn't to be. On the plus I was made captain within 5 minutes =D.

With Ice Hockey kinda brushed aside I'd like to play field hockey, but the only thing that comes up in google is marjons and that looks all proffessional and scary. Though they do have 5 teams so I might be able to get into one. I did facebook Holly but either she doesn't check facebook often or thinks me asking this after 3 years of minimal to no contact was a bit of a cheek and as such ignored me. Who knows.

So after all this I'm left in the exact same place as I was before all this started and I'm actually feeling more exhausted
with failing to find a sport to play than I would actually participating in one. I'm sure none of you are thinking "Why not just go football training with Carl?" well I've hinted at this but either he's denser than what I previously thought he was or he's ignoring it purposefully cause he doesn't think I'd be very good at it or I'm not cool enough to hang out with his football friends.

In good news my brithdays soon and I shall be 22. The only problem with this is I don't really know what to recieve for my birthday. My current thought is to get some roller blades due to it will give me something more athletic than walking to do on a saturday but I suppose there might be a better present to recieve so if anyone has any ideas then do give me a message.

Anyway this first post has gone on long enough so I'll end with a preview of the topics that will be covered on the next post: England goal keepers and pedophilia. Will these two be related or will they be two complete different topics discussed on the same post? You'll find out next time!

I used to end these things with a quote so I suppose I'll continue the trend:

“If you have any thoughts or opinions on what you’ve seen in the last ten weeks, do please keep them to yourselves.” - Jeremy Clarkson.