johncox88's blog

A Little Update

Jul 03

JohnE/N View Comments

So, I uh, already wrote this once. I was testing out the Poster app for my phone but it went tits up and my post has disappeared into the ether.

Since my last entry I have:

• Turned 22
• Passed my exams
• Bought a suit
• Been to a wedding
• Finished my degree with a 2:1
• Not found a job

On the whole, June was a pretty good month apart from not having all that much money to spend BUT I have a job interview at Cineworld on Monday so fingers crossed that goes well. I’m still sending out CV’s to places, just in case.

Also this week… I graduate.
Although, I don’t feel like there’s much of a sense of occasion about it. It might be because I’ll be at Uni for another year doing my Masters or because most of my friends have another year or more left of Uni. Perhaps when we’re all finished Uni and lamenting our imminent joblessness I’ll get that “end of an era” feeling. That said, I didn’t have that feeling at the end of school so who knows.

Two opportunities to suit up this week so that’s always good, I will no doubt post some graduation photos next week.

Have a good weekend, all 3 of you that will read this

Video Game T-Shirts

May 26

JohnGames gaming, left 4 dead, merchandise, nintendo, shirts, t-shirts, tees, tshirts, vice city, videogame View Comments

A recent post on the PC Gamer site about game related t-shirts inspired me to do my own list. So here it goes…

Gaming tshirts are a bit of a problem for me, I like to wear them for sentimental reasons, or to show off my affinity for games but a lot of them are pretty hideous or just plain boring and tend to be the really baggy type of t-shirt that just make me look like the raging geek that I am.

BUT, some are pretty nice, and these are the ones I will tell you about. I’ll start off with some that I actually own. Both of these are from 80stees.com, the Tanuki Mario one gets quite a lot of admiration from other people but the design on the Zelda one is a bit more abstract so it’s always nice when someone recognises what’s on it. I prefer the Zelda one since it’s a bit more fitted.

This one from threadless is pretty nice, classic red and yellow soviet propaganda design made from control pad images. I may be tempted to buy this if it weren’t for my aversion to threadless’ seeming “Hey everyone look at my tshirt aren’t i so cool and unique?!” philosophy. Again, another design that isn’t blatantly geeky is this Vice City themed one from Rockstar. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, down a mine, on the moon, you’ll have seen numerous annoyingly unoriginal people declaring that they “heart” various 2 letter acronyms; Now you can too!

But obviously sometimes you just want to go all out and declare your undying love for all things videogame. And short of marrying your playstation or painting your pet hedgehog blue, these t-shirts from redbubble.com are probably your best bet.

So you’re a videogame geek and you want a t-shirt, why not combine your love of games with your love of zombies; because everyone loves those undead brain-eaters! Valve, as with everything they do, sell some excellent merchandise from their online store. The first t-shirt below feature the left 4 Dead 2 survivors silhouetted against a nice sunset and the second is towards the more repulsive end of the t-shirt spectrum, showcasing a Spitter doing what spitters do best. I like the fluorescent spitter goo though.

This one isn’t a t-shirt but it’s still clothes and it’s really nice. Show any potential co-survivors that you’ve got their back with this zip-through hoody emblazoned with the Left 4 Dead healthpack on the back.

Other noteworthy items are these belt-buckles that are pretty cool as well as being shiny and have the added bonus of avoiding getting caught with you pants down.

This one is in no way clothes-related but I love Left 4 Dead and Valve and they have a range of limited edition special infected plushies that have been designed by the man that did the Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 greetings cards. This friendly Boomer stands at 13” tall and has a bingo-wing span also of 13”. AND IT MAKES NOISES! Yes, he can belch, gurgle and vomit at your whim. This is just the first of a range of 6 plushies that will be terrorising your other soft furnishings in the near future.

BOOM.

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly

May 10

JohnE/N View Comments

Dissertation was handed in last Thursday. A DAY EARLY. A completely unheard-of concept in this day and age but I didn’t want to be fannying about to get everything printed off and bound on the Friday because everyone else would have been doing the same.

Next up is the poster presentation which is worth about 10% of the marks so that could mean the difference between a 2:1 and a first so I’m actually going to prepare for it/rehearse it. That’s on the 28th, then on the 29th it’s the Cox and Ginge Birthday Binge 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had the first barbecue of the summer on Saturday, it was tasty stuff and nobody got food poisoning which is always a bonus.

I’ll get back to the point now, Uni is just about over; I should only have to go in twice until September (unless I have to crack the whip on references for my Masters application) so this hopefully means I’ll be blogging more regularly again. Of course, this will probably not be the case as I won’t be doing anything worth blogging about so none of this really matters and you just wasted your time reading it. Gutted.

Misc. Updates

Apr 21

JohnE/N View Comments

Hello whoever still reads my blog,

In my attempt at finding a job, I have started volunteering at an Oxfam shop for some experience and for something to do. My first shift was today and it went fairly well. Didn’t overcharge anyone or kill any grannies so that was good.

With any luck I’ll find a part time job soon, once my Honours projects and other courseworks are out the way in about 2 weeks, so maybe that prediction is a tad optimistic. But I deffo need one for over the summer or I’ll have to live off scraps foraged from the back of DiMaggios.

The Honours project is going fairly well, and by fairly well I mean I haven’t done all that much. I’m doing my experiments over the next 2 days so hopefully I have enough data to make a start on analysing the results over the weekend. I’m fairly confident I’ll get it all done. Hopefully I can get the same level of quality that my interim report was and at least get a high 2:1.

Oh well, it’s summer soon regardless of what happens and it’s the binge on the day of my Honours project poster presentation so I can go straight from that to the pub.

Don’t have many plans for summer holidays other than make monies, doss about the parks and beer gardens Glagow has to offer and maybe get a musical collaboration with Ginger Chris on the go. Oh, and Summer In The City, too.

byee

x

P.S. new DLC for Left4Dead2 tomorrow so I might do a little review of that, then on May 7th (the day my report is due) Red Dead Redemption comes out so I’ll be playing a crapload of that in the subsequent weeks.

I Hate Stew

Mar 31

JohnWords And Such hate View Comments

Hatred, and lies

for those that we despise

so we rant and we wait

until they boil, dissolve, fade

but wait

they don’t

they simmer

and stew

until the hatred is renewed

so we simmer and stew

and we rant and we wait.