Googling Fun December 22, 2009
Posted by Sharny in : Blogs,Gaming,Internets,Scraps , add a commentSo while I should be going to bed (and will once I’ve finished this, I promise) I was procrastinating (yeah, procrastinating going to bed, it happens a lot) with Google Webmaster Tools. They’re quite helpful for all things google related and I noticed a few things about my blog’s top search results.
Thanks to my review of EA’s internships I’m actually on the first page of results for educating adventures. I think this is pretty cool, and goes down as the first time my blog might actually be useful to someone. I’ve noticed a few hits from similar google searches, it does appear that there’s very little in terms of actual experiences from people on EA internships out there on the web so my account is a rare thing. It’s nice to think that my post might help someone make a better decision about their future.
On a sillier note, I also come up quite a bit around Toy Commander related stuff which is quite sad in a way. It’s such a good game but so under appreciated. Shame I’m not famous enough to have the impact required to get a sequel, that would be so awesome. 8 player online multiplayer? Hells yeah.
A guy can dream…
Fully Legal and Employed December 19, 2009
Posted by Sharny in : Life,Work , add a commentThis week has been quite the turnaround. I’d hoped for it to be good but you’ve got to be careful with potentially good things, I didn’t want to celebrate too early. So, Sunday we had a gig down at the Grange Hall in the village. It was quite a fun event, free for everyone and included a buffet. Lots of bands from the local area, quite a few of which were good fun to see perform. Our set was pretty short (15mins) which was unfortunate but you have to make the best of these things, it was a good fun evening overall.
Then on Monday I had a job interview at the local Co-op food store. I felt it went well at the time but didn’t want to jump the gun in happiness terms so I just waited to hear back.
On Tuesday was a big day in every persons life, I had my driving test and passed (yep, first time, I think I can be a little smug about that). It was almost a fail for going too slowly (which does make me chuckle somewhat) but almost a fail and flying colours all end up the same in the end. It’s difficult for me to feel too pleased about this as it don’t actually have anything to drive at the moment, nor the money to buy it. However of course I’m happy to have passed, it’s only just starting to sink in really, the idea that I can drive on my own and that I won’t have to do any more reversing around corners.
This was followed up the next day by the news that I had got the job at Co-op. Since I felt it went well it wasn’t exactly a surprise but in the current economic climate I’ve become used to being turned down for stuff. I had my induction yesterday and I start on Sunday, my only point of confusion being that I have yet to get any uniform and don’t really know what the hell is going on overall. I have faith it will work out though, I’m starting before the store opens so there’s plenty of time to get things straight.
I’m really relieved to have this work, it will allow me to have a steady income stream so that I can do my own projects on the side without worrying about having no money. It’s a big weight taken off my shoulders and will have an incredibly positive effect on this year. Unless something weird happens I’ll have a car by the time I go back to Uni so I’ll be able to continue working whilst I study.
It’s quite amazing how a week can turn things around. I should feel much better than I do and that is a little frustrating, I guess it’s because these things are long term and take a while for their positive effects to really show. Still, things are certainly on the up, even if they aren’t quite how I’d cherry pick them to be (when are they ever like that?).
Ain’t life grand? December 14, 2009
Posted by Sharny in : Essay,Life,School,Thoughts,Work , add a commentSo this is the updatery and depressive post that will explain why I’m posting here again and why I have relaunched durka. It’s not exactly going to be much fun but I kinda want to write some things not addressed to myself and explain the sudden reappearence of posting.
As planned, this year I started higher education at Nottingham University on the 21st of September, after moving in the day before. Things didn’t exactly have the easiest start, you hear tales of university being so much better than school before hand and people really finding themself and such. I didn’t get so lucky. All of it was a massive struggle and it was all a very depressing and downtreading time. As a few weeks went by and routine began to set in things did get better, as they surely do.
Then, something rather unexpected happened. Essentially, in the space of a day I realised that Chemistry was not the course for me. It was a real epiphany moment, and not a moment I wanted to have. There were other doubts around it, including ones about whether being at University was even the right thing for me to be doing. Through talking and thinking and thinking and talking some more I got some plan of what to do.
Windows Implosion December 8, 2009
Posted by Sharny in : Internets,Scraps,Technology , add a commentI’ve just about managed to mop my computer up from a nice little bit of random operating system failure. The computer crashes and then windows doesn’t load any further than the loading screen with no real clue as to what went wrong or where. So after a while spent using a Knoppix CD to back up all my documents (my computer has 2 hard drives, makes backing up that bit easier or looking at it alternatively that bit harder as I still felt inclined to do an external back up too) I reinstalled windows.
I was actually able to install without formatting but my files have all become completely inaccessible in windows (but not Knoppix, weirdly). So those backups were worth it. I figure this would be a good time to convert to windows 7, so I grabbed my student edition. Not sure if I wanted 64 or 32 bit version I consulated wikipedia (perhaps not the wisest choice) and found my processor (Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600) was 64 bit only so I got the 64 bit version. Now that I have XP back up and running all the system tests seem to indicate that it’s 32.
So I’m generally quite confused and fear that I may have wasted £40 on a new version that might not work. I have no idea whether I should risk it or not, although I imagine if it isn’t going to work it will tell me before formatting and getting rid of XP (which did take quite a while to set up again). Windows: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Well, actually I would if linux had a perfect equivilant to itunes but I don’t think that’s likely to happen any time soon.
I really do hate being without 5.1 speaker tunage to the max…
So much for rebranding December 2, 2009
Posted by Sharny in : Fun,Gaming,Internets,School,Scraps , add a commentSo after realising that my relaunched durka is practically impossible to actually find due to both it’s rebranding and it being parked on this domain. Also, Godaddy are having a sale on .info and it was hella cheap for me to grab my old domain back. So I did.
Now the un-rebranded durka can be found over at tehdurka.info. This does have the possible bonus of past visitors coming through random searching or something. I can’t imagine anyone will still be hoping that it re-appears and regularly look for it but maybe there’s one guy. And one guy is all it takes! So long as he has friends…
