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John Coxon

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Wedding Bells [Jul. 14th, 2009|11:27 pm]
[Tags|, , , , ]
[I'm in |Werrington, Peterborough]
[I'm feeling | sleepy]

So this weekend saw the first of the two weddings of 2009, as my friends Pete (or, as we call him, Gramps) and Christine tied the knot in front of close friends and family. It was an ace weekend, and I had a great time... I may have ended up ever so slightly completely wankered, but that's really understandable, and I don't think I massively offended too many people with my drunken state.

The day afterwards I eventually got up and showered before having breakfast/lunch at Burger King with the friends who'd been at the reception. At around noon, I bade them farewell and headed over to Bicester to spend some quality time with [info]simbagirl. Unfortunately, we didn't find her a graduation outfit, but we did spend time walking in a wood, so I reckon it balances out, really. It was a good day, and awesome to spend time catching up properly!

In news unrelated to weddings, I bought The Conduit for the Wii on Friday, and although the wedding got in the way of excessive play, I have been playing it and I can cautiously report that it's rather good. I have found a couple of parts really very very hard (and personally I think all guns should have bullets and am therefore not so fond of the alien weaponry available) but I've managed to get past every challenge with sufficient effort and the plot is unravelling nicely, so all's well. I'd be interested to see what online play is like – [info]snowking, are you planning to get a copy? Anyone else I know going to be playing?

I went round to visit [info]hawkida the other night, and spent three or four hours catching up with her, which was awesome for all the right reasons, and came away with five sacks of stuff to donate to charity in addition to fifteen or sixteen cans of pre-drinks for the aforementioned wedding. She mentioned that I suck at updating my LJ, hence this roundup of events.

The last really major thing is that I went to see the Eagles again on Wednesday night in Birmingham, and they blew my mind. I was really glad they played Witchy Woman from their first album, since I'd not heard that live yet, but I'm a bit gutted stuff like Peaceful Easy Feeling made it in when tracks like Tequila Sunrise or Busy Being Fabulous didn't, but all in all I thought the setlist was really good and strong. Another couple of surprise inclusions were Dirty Laundry and Funk #49 – both on the Farewell I tour and neither of them Eagles tracks, I was kind of expecting the evening to spend less time on the band's solo careers than their last set, but both of them kicked ass so I'm not complaining at all!

Other than that, not a lot has happened. I've been spending time happily getting reacquainted with all the schoolfriends I never seem to get in touch with during termtime, and generally whiling away my days. Work is boring but the evenings haven't been yet, and the first four weeks of being home have been really rather quick. It'll be September in no time, which is good - I kind of miss my physics...

I have nothing at all interesting planned for a couple of weeks now, so don't expect much updating until I go to see the Banksy exhibition in Bristol in a fortnight's time. Until then, ciao!
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2009 Books: #19 and #20 [Jul. 14th, 2009|11:17 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Werrington, Peterborough]
[I'm feeling | sleepy]

#19 Neal Asher, Gridlinked, 2001

Not sure what I expected from this but I was pleasantly surprised. The whole thing felt slightly singularity-y and zips along at a fair old pace, amply aided by a special agent with kickass weapons, and in that sense it vaguely reminds me of Singularity Sky/Iron Sunrise, but I think that it has more of an emphasis on action adventure and less of an emphasis on the science fiction part of things. The SF was there, though – some of the excerpts from the equivalents of the Encyclopaedia Britannica were particularly good in that regard – and I'd recommend reading it to anyone who hasn't read any of Asher's stuff. Not groundbreaking stuff but definitely worth having a go, I would say.

#20 Charlie Higson, The Enemy, 2009

I don't know whether this has actually been published yet, the copy I read was a proof copy, but it's a book written for the same sort of audience as the Artemis Fowel/Alex Rider novels. It's also got zombies in it. I wouldn't say it's a must-read, but I definitely enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to anyone who's got kids in secondary school since they'll probably get a kick out of it as well.
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snicker [Jul. 14th, 2009|11:15 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Werrington, Peterborough]
[I'm feeling | tired]

Poll #1429893 poll wars!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Polls that breed more polls that talk about the first polls are:

View Answers

GOOD
7 (41.2%)

BAD
10 (58.8%)

Kinda awesome!
8 (47.1%)

Polly.
7 (41.2%)

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Location Meme [Jul. 3rd, 2009|07:46 am]
[Tags|]
[I'm feeling | giggly]
[I'm hearing |My Life Would Suck Without You in My Place - Kelly Clarkson vs. Coldplay]

These are the places I've lived:

Peterborough
Leicester

LOOK I'M VERY YOUNG ALRIGHT
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TV [Jun. 24th, 2009|10:09 pm]
[Tags|]
[I'm in |Werrington, Peterborough]
[I'm feeling | sad]

If you can watch Famous, Rich and Homeless without getting sad at the end you aren't human...
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Stuff & Things! [Jun. 18th, 2009|01:19 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | happy]

It has been pointed out to me that I am teh suck when it comes to updating this thing, or at least, I don't use it as often as I used to. This is entirely true, and I apologise sincerely to everyone!

First things first, then: I am the proud owner of one (1) passed second year, at a level that allows me to continue on the MPhys course I am currently doing (that's above 55% or a 2:1, depending on who you believe). This makes me happy, and makes the night out I had last night feel so much sweeter.

Secondly, I got elected as president of the Gamesoc recently. The previous president steps down at the Geek Ball, which was on Saturday and awesome, so I am now officially Mr President. It's an ongoing joke that everyone who's ever been president is still the president, and so the number of presidents in my D&D group now outnumbers the number of ordinary members!

I think that's all for now... Oh, except that I'm going to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen tonight, tomorrow is Alton Towers (woo!) and Saturday is my mate's stag do (we're going...go-karting. Apparently his brother is vetoing strippers. Something is Very Wrong with this). And then home on Sunday for Father's Day.

Ciao!
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Nintendo Wii: A Viable Choice [May. 31st, 2009|05:13 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | excited]

I got my Nintendo Wii the month after it came out, whilst I should have been revising for my first round of A2-level exams, and whilst I must confess I enjoyed Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, I found the experience was slightly lacking. I gave up playing LoZ:TP after about thirty-five hours of gameplay (I intend to come back to it and complete it this summer, it's a pride thing), and although Mario Kart Wii is fun in short bursts, I'm the first to confess it probably hasn't justified the money I paid for it yet. The other game I got back then was Red Steel, which was, although a fairly competent FPS, by no means great (or indeed all that interesting a plot). The graphics were poor, even for a Wii game, and the swordfighting was really not a good showcase of the Wiimote's potential.

The reason I mention Red Steel last is because I bought a copy of Nintendo Official Magazine today, and it has a feature in it on the sequel. As some of you will know, there's a peripheral coming for the Wii this summer called the MotionPlus, which adds functionality to the Wiimote - essentially, the console now knows exactly where your hand is and how you're moving it, meaning that much finer controls are available. Red Steel 2 uses this functionality to finally deliver the epic swordfighting that people have been waiting to see on the Wii since its conception.

To cap that off, the developers have opted for a cel-shaded, almost Japanese arthouse style of graphics. Graphics are not the Wii's strong suit, it's nowhere near as powerful as the PS3 or the Xbox 360, and that is blatantly obvious in some games, so the solution is to opt for stylistic graphics that make a game unique, rather than the überrealistic graphics found in the Xbox 360's and PS3's games at the moment. This is pleasing, I must confess, and I really think it works well in other games of the same type (XIII and Viewtiful Joe are both cel-shaded GameCube games and neither looks like it's an old game today, so why not harness that for the Wii?).

This is encouraging enough for my underused Wii as it is, but that's not the only thing currently getting me all excited about my little white box. Sega have been beavering away on some games for the Wii this year, and they released House of the Dead: Overkill and Mad World pretty much at the same time. I purchased HOTD:Overkill recently and I was amazed at how good it is. It's a prequel to the other HOTD games, and it's in the same arcade style - the Wiimote shoots mutants, you put the Wiimote in the Wii Zapper or lightgun accessory of your choice and you're away! It's amazing to play, really, really good fun and I'm currently working my way through the director's cut (it's haaaard).

On the subject of Sega, Mad World also looks like good fun (I got it today, not played it yet) and they're releasing a game soon called The Conduit, an FPS designed specifically to be played on the Wii, which looks awesome. Another game I'm currently getting excited about is Need for Speed: Nitro, which is another game specifically designed for play on the Wii, and will be a different experience from the upcoming game Shift for the Xbox 360 and PS3. I think that's good - you're far more likely to do well from a game designed for the console you play it on, than a game designed for a different console, and intelligent use of the Wii's controls is usually far better than a port from one of the Wii's big brothers.

Oh, and then again, there's the GameCube compatibility. I bought Viewtiful Joe, a brilliant game I never owned for the GameCube, recently, and also the bongos you could get are coming in handy for nights playing videogames with my mates.

I have spent the last year being unconvinced by videogames that were either shitty ports for the Wii or videogames that were expensive and would have required a console I was unsure I wanted to buy for me to play them. Suddenly, I've bought an extra three videogames in the space of a month and I'm playing on my Wii every day. I toyed with the idea of selling my Wii so many times last year, and I am so glad I didn't. The humble games console from Nintendo is finally becoming a viable choice for those of us who don't just want to play minigames or keep fit.
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Summer Events [May. 31st, 2009|01:12 pm]
[Tags|]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | cheerful]

If anyone has any summer dates they'd like to let me know about that haven't been put on Facebook, could they please let me know?
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Bait [May. 28th, 2009|09:45 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |University of Leicester, UK]
[I'm feeling | accomplished]

Sometimes, half the battle is not rising to the bait. I realised that today. Just walking away from something, and not lowering yourself to someone's level to argue with them, can really make a day better.
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Dancing [May. 28th, 2009|12:21 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | cheerful]

I have a weakness for this. I'm not talking about the dancing you get in clubs, where people just drunkenly move their hips or their bodies to whichever drum beat is going through the room (although, that is also very good fun, as long as the music's right). I'm talking about street dance groups of the same type as Flawless or Diversity (personally I prefer the latter, because they've got a sense of humour, which you'll see in the video if you click through, but the former are extremely talented!).

I must say that I am guilty of being a bit of an idiot about Britain's Got Talent. Despite having seen some brilliant acts on the American equivalent I still haven't been bothering to watch the British version, and that's evidently a mistake (although to be honest, watching the semi-finals might be the way to go, since I'm not so interested in watching people just be rubbish). Some of the acts in the first semi-final were absolutely brilliant (with the notable exception of Susan Boyle, who is just annoying and rubbish and she got the notes wrong and WHY DOES EVERYONE LIKE HER?!).

I don't think there's much point to this blog entry, just wanted to link people to those videos... I've not been very active on LJ recently partly due to exams but partly because most of the things I want to say fit into 140 characters. Sorry guys!
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Football Snobbery [May. 28th, 2009|12:13 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | cheerful]

I don't particularly follow football, as most of you will be aware. Football, to me, isn't super interesting, it's not something I'd seek out on the television and I'm quite capable of taking or leaving it. What a lot of people don't realise is that I really am on the fence, and if football's on, or if a club I feel some strange affinity for is playing and I remember, I will usually keep an eye on the score or watch the game, purely because it's not, actually, boring. Football is a game, and stuff happens during that game, and sometimes that is fun to watch for the same reason that any other sport is fun to watch - to see which team is more skilled and to see twenty-two talented people do what they're best at. (It's usually even more fun if the two teams are very evenly matched, it becomes a thing of beauty.)

But, as I don't follow it myself, I suppose I'm a good person to talk about what I've been noticing more and more recently - the people who don't follow football, don't find football interesting, and think that being into football is somehow something to sneer at. Newsflash: it isn't. You think that being into SF, or computing, or whatever little niche of geekdom has lead you to LiveJournal means that you're somehow better than someone who's into something that sporty instead? What? Just how arrogant and self-centred are you?

SF geeks have been the butt of jokes in the media for a long time and all we're doing by looking down on the people who are upset about Newcastle being relegated or looking down on those who thought that Barcelona vs Manchester United was a good match is becoming exactly as bad as the people who think we're all pointy-eared freaks who smell bad. Sorry, but I can't be that kind of elitist, and I'm shocked that there are otherwise sane and educated people (that I consider friends or acquaintances) who appear to believe they can look down on a subset of society purely because they happen to like watching football matches.

(Comments locked because I don't want to get into a flame war with exams coming up.)
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Free Comedy! [May. 20th, 2009|11:38 am]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | content]

I've just applied for four tickets to see a 'non-broadcast try-out night' of Laurence & Gus: Hearts and Minds, which was really funny last time it was on Radio 4. It's on June 1st at 7pm at the Drill Hall, and I have some spare tickets - comment if you would like to come along, first come first served.

And now, into uni, to do some condensed matter physics revision and brush up on Fourier series.
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Dreamwidth Invites [May. 18th, 2009|09:38 am]
[Tags|]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | tired]

I have three invite codes for Dreamwidth available to the first people to comment (with the relevant e-mail address) on this entry.

EDIT: All gone!
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Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture [May. 16th, 2009|10:17 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |University of Leicester, UK]
[I'm feeling | curious]
[I'm hearing |The Eurovision Song Contest]

The Eighth Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture is being given by Marcus du Sautoy this year, on the number '42'. Since this is the first one that's sounded even vaguely interesting since I've been old enough to trek into London for the lecture, I was wondering who else on my flist was considering going. Tickets are £15, I believe.
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2009 Books: #16-18 [May. 12th, 2009|04:01 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | accomplished]

#16 Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Effendi, 2002

Another excellent book, the follow-up to Pashazade - I loved the interplay between the male and female main characters, and the plot rattles along excellently. There's an excellent plot twist at the end and some of the writing really, really made me think. Definitely recommended, go buy the omnibus (Arabesk) ASAP!

#17 Jonny Nexus, Game Night, 2007

An excellent book, currently being read by my friend Josh. This novel does not just perfectly describe roleplaying in a fantasy setting, but also does brilliantly poking fun at various things (the digs at the Christian God were something I found particularly funny). I recommend it heartily, it made me laugh on the Tube. It's also the perfect length for the story it tells, and the jumps between the 'real' world and the 'fictional' world are very well done.

#18 Charles Stross, Halting State, 2007

This book is up to Stross' usual excellence as he delivers a powerful vision of the near future, taking you through the experiences of three people intertwined, right up until the end of the events he describes. I believe this is the first book I've read outside of Choose Your Own Adventure novels to be written in the second-person, and I really like the way different parts of what's going on are tackled differently by each of the three people the reader meets along the way. Definitely one for the computer-savvy, however, since it's quite full of jargon and I'd be hesitant to recommend it to someone who wasn't massively into computing...
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D7 [May. 4th, 2009|11:50 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | curious]
[I'm hearing |The Wii's home screen]

I bought a seven-sided die. I have rolled it many times and made a note of which numbers came up. How could I use that data to determine whether the die is fair or not? I have recollections, from my final years at school, of null hypotheses, but I can't remember how they work!

Any statisticians care to help me out?
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Homophobia Yay! [May. 4th, 2009|03:08 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | contemplative]
[I'm hearing |The Village People - YMCA]

Why Dreamwidth may yet prove to be a better solution than LiveJournal
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Dreamwidth [May. 1st, 2009|04:01 am]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | tired]

I have a Dreamwidth account, which I am pleased with. I'm nowhere near to having optimised my account yet, since it's 04:00 and I have to be up in four hours to go to Alton Towers, but I'm just happy that I've got my preferred username and things like that.

If you have a Dreamwidth account, please stop by and add me, it's the same username as LiveJournal.
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Writer's Block: Swine Times [Apr. 30th, 2009|11:47 am]
[Tags|]
[I'm in |Evington, Leicester]
[I'm feeling | peaceful]

Are you worried about catching the swine flu? Do you have a plan for avoiding contagion or dealing with quarantine?


View other answers


Yup – not living in Mexico. Plan.
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How to Get a Cheap Alton Towers Annual Pass [Apr. 23rd, 2009|02:41 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[I'm feeling | full]

An Alton Towers annual pass costs a normal person £75 (which is more than last year, naturally), but it's possible, using a bit of your clever, to get it for £57 instead. It's very easy. You go to the theme park, and you take some two for one vouchers (these usually start coming out free with packets of cereal and whatnot). When you go into the park, you get your mate to give you £18 and thus split the cost of the two tickets between you fairly. When you get the tickets, one will say £36 and one (the 'free' one) will say £0.

When leaving the park, simply take the £36 ticket to the annual pass people at the entrance, and they'll sell you an annual pass for £75 minus the cost of your ticket. Since you only paid £18 for the ticket, but the ticket says you paid £36, you'll receive £18 off the price of the pass. Just make sure your mate doesn't see you do it, or heads could roll!

(I can't believe it's gone up to £75 for a year, though - when I paid last year, it was £66, which worked out at £48.50 using my trick... I'm glad mine continues through to September!)
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