#236 a norwich blog

High

Last night I managed to move one step closer to my goal of becoming 60 second time attack mode LuminesLive! world champion. My new high score is 114, and I am now 64th in the world instead of 65th. Not much, but it is progress! I must point out this is the result of throwing blocks down (in the spirit of throwdown), not any gay techniques like smart.

The dip between high and low seemed to appear around the time I commuted to work this morning. The culprit that brought me to work is currently at large - the police have released an artistic impression of the suspect and his vehicle.

Low

My coffee at The Whiffler (a Wetherspoon pub) was lukewarm today, as were both Duncan’s and Matt’s coffees. The consensus was that we had been served espressos in full sized mugs topped up with not hot water. At least there were no drawing pins this time.

I drank the coffee anyway, my expectations of Wetherspoon based on years of experience are fairly low. It’s cheap and generally passable, which is more than can be said for the moribund Little Chef.

I wrote to them about the drawing pins in my coffee, received a lovely apologetic reply with some complimentary vouchers which they had forgotten to put in, and then proceeded to lose the letter.

According to Google webmaster tools, unfunked.org was last crawled on December 25th 2006. As well as this, unfunked.org appears to have no backlinks. Both these things suggest that this blog shouldn’t be indexed, yet individual blog posts are making the listings.

It’s all very mysterious, like the girl that Peter Andre warbled about.

Today’s glorious purchase, from Main Source.

Appalling photograph courtesy of my Nokia 6230i. Megapixels mean nothing when they’re all noise. Photoshop went some way to patching up the wounded image.

This brings me up to a lucky seven pairs of sneakers (not trainers, nobody cool on the internet calls them trainers), which is nothing next to the collections on Sneaker Freaker. Some of the custom pairs are excellent, I especially like these (wouldn’t wear the second pair but it’s a great job).

Based on the demo from Xbox Live, everything you need to know about Def Jam Icon; great presentation, petrol station explodes (possibly something to do with invisible turntables), but fighting feels sluggish.

By the same team as the excellent Fight Night Round 3 so it’s not time to write it off just yet.

This weekend saw a car trip into unknown territory. To aid my quest I took loan of a Sat Nav, the first time I had tried such a device. Apparently it consults wizards in space for directions, very clever indeed. The lying harpy kept trying to send me off into fields or take wrong turnings to gravel pits, but the righteous on-screen arrow kept my flight true.

Technology was exciting again, at least for a day. Look, a picture taken of my sisters cat “Mathilda”, taken using boring cameraphone technology:

What did I listen to on the Journey? Imogen Heap, Thom Yorke, Amon Tobin and PWEI. Just wanted to add some links, added value is what we do at #236.

My current favourite website, a collection of manifestos for change. The focus seems to be tech / media / marketing but a lot of them apply outside of that. Personal favourite, How to be Creative.

Enjoy, maybe as much as I enjoyed all 107 calories of this:

That’s right, having pumped hours and hours of time into Lumines Live! on the Xbox360 I have finally realised my ambition of becoming one of the ‘top 100′ 60 second time attack mode players in the world. I rank at 65th. I have been working for this for 3 months plus , and it’s all time well spent. Awesome!

My score? 112.

Next I am going to break into the top 20. Bring it on. If you play and are struggling to increase your 60 second time attack mode score, or crack the Lumines Live! achievements here are my training tips:

1. Throw them down!
   Get quick first, then work at being less sloppy.
2. If you think, you’re dead!
   Don’t spend ages turning the block. Look for the opportunity that requires the least amount of turns and don’t pause at the top. Turn the block as you throw it down.
3. Study the masters!
   Watch the top 10 at ‘60 second’ players and study their technique. You can watch their replays in the replay theatre which is in the options menu.
4. Finger speed!
   Limber up, during a session you will find that you put in your best times later on when your fingers do the work without your brain.