Editing The Sun

Unidentified Lying Objects

Families last night claimed a dozen glowing orange objects buzzed over Basingstoke. In the latest U.F.O riddle to grip Britain, witnesses say the ‘alien’ fleet hovered above the Hampshire town for half an hour.

Amateur astronomer David Osborne, camera-man of the unearthly phenomenon, said yesterday: “my adrenaline was pumping and I was trembling all over. I’ve never see anything like it…it was amazing”.

David yelled to his two daughters to grab his camera after he phoned nearby R.A.F Odiham officials, who could not comment ‘for security reasons’. 

The family had just settled down to watch alien invasion movie Independence Day when the objects were spotted at 10:40pm on Saturday. The ‘crafts’ drifted across the sky, switching between varied formation before eventually disappearing.

By 11 o’clock, the skies were clear once more.

This second sighting comes 2 months after a similar story appeared in the Basingstoke Evening News on 16^th November 2010. Sightings of U.F.Os were reported by several households in the High Street. Mrs Jones, seventy-six, claims to have been abducted. Strangely on that occasion, another alien movie was showing on television: Invaders from Mars. Are these incidents connected? Do these families owe an acknowledgement to Hollywood?

Do you want to live on this planet anymore?

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See the original article here.

Halls of Resident Survival Guide

So, you've chosen to study at Bath Spa University. But before you delve in to 3 years of work and occasional partying [or vice versa], there's one element you're likely going to have to come to terms with very quickly.

Halls of Residence.

Being taken from your own home and thrown into a new building with up to nine other strangers. Sounds like a hostage situation, but if you play right and live well, your first year will just shoot by. You may even miss Halls when it comes to years 2 and 3.
First thing to remember: You're all in the same boat. Everyone, or at least almost everyone, around you is going to be away from home, living with people they don't know. It's a new and scary situation for everyone. Which actually comes in handy, because it means you all have at least one thing in common.

Some may relish in their new freedom, playing loud music, drinking lots of alcohol, going out all the time and so on. Others may find being away from home too much, and turn to things like Skype and may even go home every few weekends. In either case, you're likely to fall into either two categories, and from there, find friends. People of a quieter nature tend to stick together, and party-people often like to party with the same people. Embrace your freedom and discover what you want!

Some people's music sucks. This isn't a fact, but it's an opinion you're bound to say/hear multiple times in Halls. You have 8+ teenagers, all of which will like music = fact. They will all like different music = Fact. You will like everything they like = Highly unlikely. Even students studying music won't admit to liking everything, so why would a history student or a English student?
Like so many other things, sadly, you'll just have to put up with it. If someone is blasting out Ed Sheeran and all you want to listen to is Gorillaz, then put in headphones and carry on with things.
You could even declare music war - two stereos, battling out to break the silence anyway they can.
Not recommended.
Because before you consider beginning a deafening one-on-one Beats Battle, think of other people. Granted, their peace is being disturbed by the first loud one. But the last thing they want is another disturbance thrown in.
Just politely ask for them to turn it down (if they can hear you) and get on with things. If they don't listen, try engaging them in conversation. They might turn off their beloved tunes to chat.

With noise hopefully under control, then comes the matter of 'sharing'. Now, this can be a tough subject. The time may come when you learn that someone else used your ketchup/milk/butter whatever else. So you may decide to label your food. You won't look cool, but there's a chance you'll save a little money on replacing food you didn't eat. If it turns out someone has taken your food, there's a preliminary do and don't.
DO mention it to them, but not in an accusing way. Just a polite "please be more careful" kind of thing for the first offence. Any times after that, the accusations can come become stronger.
DON'T get revenge. Drinking someone's milk because they drank yours won't necessarily help matters. If anything, it'll probably escalate things.


Plan your showers. Quite an odd piece of advice now, but it may save you time and stress. If you and another housemate have a 9am start and you both want a shower, two options:
1. Wake up earlier so you have time - HAH! Like that will happen. 
2. Have a shower the night before.
Rather more likely. It'll save you a mad rush in the morning, as well as a lot of huffing and tapping your foot outside the shower-room door.

Because, no matter what, you will have to live with these people for another year [or 48 weeks at least]. As long as it doesn't break all of your moral values, you're going to want to keep the peace. Overlook the windows left open or underpants left on the sofa. If all goes against you, chances are you'll have a lockable bedroom where you can just have some 'you time'.
When it comes down to it, though, you're going to have to learn to adapt to other people; even if it's difficult. Every single one of you will have different attitudes and methods towards things like cleanliness, tidiness, peacefulness and so on. In the beginning, it all seems to have come from Chaos itself. But eventually, eventually, your routines will become almost second-nature and all of you will flow, relatively smoothly, around each other.
It'll just take a while to reach that idyllic moment.

But stick at it. You may not like Halls, but you'll probably miss them. There's nothing like being able to roll out of bed and basically walk up the road to your lessons. Second year off-campus housing takes that liberty right away from you.
Plus, you may pay the rent, but bills and internet are all taken care of for you. You even get your own cleaners twice a week. And as much as you'd love to imagine so, that sort of thing will not happen in second year.

And the final piece of advice: anything can happen. Sometimes you'll find a housemate's mattress outside and their bed frame wedged in the bathroom. In this, or any similar case, just follow basic protocol:
It's Someone Else's Problem.
[Voice of experience]

What to do if trapped in a Horror Film

So, the unthinkable happens. Like some bizarre homage to The Hunger Games, someone manages to trap you within a horror film.
Here are a few tips that, won't necessarily help you survive, but will certainly allow you to blend in and happily settle in to your new role in "Disgusting Chainsaw-Wielding Bleeding Demons from Hell 4".

1. Don't mince words. If you are trying to avoid a "7 foot, blood stained, red-eyed, spike covered, meat hook-wielding, perverted maniac", then for heaven's sake say so. 'The monster' or 'what-the-hell-is-that-thing' won't have quite the same effect.
2. Always state the obvious. "It's too dangerous", "I'm scared", "Don't go, I love you" - things like these which can turn the simplest of viewer's brain to sponge cake are perfect.
3. Decide you're better off alone. Sure, a group can provide more targets, protection or maybe just a decent conversation [but don't get your hopes up] By all means, if walking off by yourself equipped with nothing but a baseball bat -which is sure to stop blood-thirsty ghosts - is what seems right to you, do it.
4. Darkness is your friend. It has to be, other horror-movie-attendees seem to believe so. In darkness you won't see the thing trying to kill you, which by far will make your experience a lot less terrifying. Apparently.
5. And finally, when the time comes that the huge slime-monster from some haunted lagoon is sprinting at you with the clear intention to murder, then make absolutely sure that you stand completely still, screaming your head off, until the monster finally reaches you and actually takes your head off.

Also for your consideration:
- If you are a male, your chances will go one of two ways. You will die gruesomely, or you'll be that one person in about 6 who actually survives the horrors. And go on towards therapy, presumably.
- If you are female, your chances will too go on of two ways. You will die gruesomely. Or you will be raped. And then die gruesomely. Depending on the age rating of the film, of course.

We hope that this information will help you, should you somehow get downloaded into a horror movie of some kind.
And remember the number one piece of advice. Rather opposing the number one piece of advice of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But this isn't science fiction. This is a world where haunting horrors from hell are trying to destroy you. So remember advice piece 1:
PANIC.

When Crazy Words Lead to Marriages

There are two important and popular facts that make this story gain more sense.
1. A few/many/however-many years ago, a young, creative idiot created a word; a word that never really entered everyday consciousness, yet meant a lot to its creator. This word was "insaniac" - (n) word blend of 'insane' and 'maniac'.
2. The same creative idiot and his equally creative friend once planned to run around a busy shopping centre, hidden in large cardboard boxes. For fun, probably.

Anyway.

So many or however-many years later - AKA quite recently - in a simple yet paradigmatic mad facebook conversation, the same box-suggesting friend happened to use the 'word' insaniac.
Suddenly, the word's creator went mad! His word had been used by another!
So, trying to hold his excitement, the young word-creating hero promised ALL of his love to the word-using heroine/princess [depending on how politically-correct you want this fairytale. Some women are cut out to be heroines, some just like being princesses willing to be loved and/or saved from a fire-breathing dragon. Hell, I'm not the damn head of the PC federation. Let's get back to this damned story!]
The young princess/heroine/well-developed-young-woman-who-has-full-potential-to-be-JUST-as-successful-as-a-man then tried to remember where she had heard the word. She seemed almost scared - the demand from the word-smith seemed rather too much. For a split second, she feared almost death itself.

Yet then she revealed that she HAD heard the word from the actual creator.
And thus earned ALL the love from the word-smith.
She admitted to feeling like she had been proposed to, from the insaniac world.
So the male word-smith actually proposed a wedding - with a box theme.

[-For those who have stuck around until this point and aren't still stuck in my PC rant, you'll be happy to learn that you are (hopefully) clever enough to realise that by now, BOTH of the preliminary points have now been addressed-]
MOVING ON!

The wedding plans between the two, now bonded together stronger than ever before, began from there. On the day of Box Matrimony, there they would be. She, with a furniture box styled dress and microwave-meal-sleeve veil. He in a modestly selected cereal-box tuxedo.
And they would love each other forever.
They would see boxing matches. They would fly box-kites. They would play Boxhead.
Not because the author ran out of box puns and typed in 'box' into Google, no, that would be outrageous. It would be due to the fact that they liked to...kills zombies online. Apparently.

An insaniac life for an 'insaniac' creator and insaniac 'user'.
And boxes.
Don't forget the boxes.

Be a book, you'll last longer

One of those random things you notice without properly thinking.

Of all the industries out there in the global media: film, magazines, video games, music, books, newspapers, television - the only consistent industry of all these is the books industry.
Think about it.

Films, overtime, become forgotten and cheaper. Each one created will be in a "For Only £5" box in a matter of years, completely forgotten by all the other films that keep coming out.
The same story can be said for video games, CDs, television shows - all these industries keep creating more and more new texts, letting each old ones become cheaper and forgotten.
Video games are notorious for this. Each new console defeats the ones before it. Each new game, sequel or not, defeat the ones before it. And the circle of life continues.

But books avoid this. No matter when the book was written, even from some long-lost century when cows were a delicacy, the story will still sell for at least £7.99. Sometimes more than that - an entire Shakespeare collection, so many pages long, can sell for over thirty pounds.
Compare that to something else.
Alfred Hitchcock created 'The Birds' so many years ago, and has been dead so many years. His film can be purchased for under five pounds.
Mark Twain - also dead - most of his works can be bought for ten pounds. And this has been the case for several years now.

Books prices stay consistent. So, if you want your published works to remain at a fair price for many years to come, stick to being an author.
Because, and trust me on this, you can create the best video game of 2012. But in 2016, maybe less than that, your creation will sell for under a tenner in a second hand shop
And it will hurt.

Sorry about that.
Just another thing to blame on contemporary media industries.

A New Life

University gets in your head.
It can easily become your favouriote place on Earth, and your favourite time of life.
This is certianly the case with me.

Unsure about others, but what I enjoy the most is the freedom and independance.
If you want to go to bed at 3am, that's fine. If you don't want to go to bed at all, that's also fine. And has been done.
If you want to take a mug of coffee and breakfast to class, that's fine.
Want to do laundry whilst in your dressing gown. Also fine.

It's just fun. That's what Uni is - fun.
Going out most nights, getting drunk, meeting new people and coming home to collapse in a little piece of what you can call home.

That's how Uni got in my head. It became home.
Last weekend, when I went back to Andover, it was going to see family.
When I came back to Bath Spa, that was when I was truly come home.
It's easy to see why anyway. Bath is beautiful, exciting, massive and has a brilliant selction of shops and nightlife.
And cows on campus.
Andover is nowhere nearly as good as all that. It's easy to see why I've fallen in love with Bath really.

On top of all that, my Creative Writing course is incredible.
Homework is easy and invigorating - "Write a satire", "write a short story" etc. If you turn up, get Writer's Block and can't write anything, they don't mind. It's a course with my name on it.
Plus, most classes you just have to roll out of bed and head on over. Living on campus is brilliant.
Then, my timetable lets me have Mondays and Fridays off. Score!

Anyway, I look forward going home; to my family, a comfortable bed, good internet and my PS3.
But I still look forward to returning to University, even more.
This is where I belong now. My new home; my new life.

Maybe 3 isn't the magic number?

In yet another one of those "stupidly-random-self-realisation" moments (I get these far too often), I happened to notice that, on average, by the third film, everything in the storyline has gone to shit.
Ever noticed that? Here's some examples:

• Lord of the Rings 3 - Everybody goes to war
• Resident Evil 3 - Full blown global apocalypse
• Star Wars 3 - Nearly all good guys killed
• Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - The government owns the seas, everybody's against one another
• Spiderman 3 - 2 enemies at once/everyone hates Spiderman. Again -_-
• The Dark Knight Rises - Not out yet, but the trailer depicts a Gotham falling apart. Again -_-
• Transformers 3 - Full on, blown out global Robot Wars!
• SAW 3 - Yes, I know everything's morbid anyway. But 3 is a lot more gorier than 1 and 2, and then the gore levels just kept rising
• Jaws 3 - Is shit. The 3D attempts are hilariously appalling
• Austin Powers 3 - Recycled jokes, flat storyline and a pathetic twist. Or is that just all of them?
• Ice Age 3 - Apparently 'Ice-World' lives above a hidden dinosaur community
• Toy Story 3 - All favourite characters thrown out of home and locked in a day care centre. Yeah, not the worst one so far, but hey!
• Shrek the Third - Is shit. End of.

There are probably others; I could go on all night. And would, if it weren't for a fear of boring you.
And before anyone points out the obvious, yes I do know that some film series don't follow this rule, like Harry Potter 3 for an example. Although after 2 and a bit hours of Daniel Radcliffe's wooden acting, it may as well follow this procedure.
And then of course, there are films that are shit by the second one - Night at the Museum, George of the Jungle, the new Alice in Wonderland.....They're either crap, or within them, everything's gone to crap. Oh the joys of the film world!

Anyway, just another random chapter in the book of my life. I think one day I'll write the blurb for that book. It'll be something simple like: "Good luck".
Right. Peace out! =]

Why I'm Happy

I think over the years, I've easily achieved the reputation for being a happy, cheerful kinda guy. And people do often ask me why I don't get as depressed or angry or stressed as everyone else.
For a while, I've struggled with a proper answer. But, in one of those random time-to-yourself-and-all-you-do-is-think moments, I think I came up with an answer.

And the answer is I just. Don't. Care.
Now, on the surface, I know that makes me seem unfeeling and selfish, but I don't mean it in that way. Obviously, I care for my friends and family and wish them all the best lives and what have you.
But I don't care about popular fads. I don't care about modern music, latest fashion, trends, beliefs, and whatever else people are messing around with these days. I like what I like, I enjoy what I want to enjoy, and I don't care if it's considered 'uncool', 'unpopular' or 'weird'.
My next point is that because I don't care about this stuff, it makes me happy. I don't get stressed trying to find out whats cool all the time. I don't run out of money buying the latest 'cool' shoes. I don't suddenly jump up and start planning up-coming events which people seem to get so over-excited about. I just continue on, leisurely at my own pace, experiencing and liking things by myself. It's a much more happy, peaceful and contented lifestyle.

Another thing is that it makes life more fun. If you don't care if people might think your acting "strangely"; if you don't care that people are giving you odd looks; if you don't care that people might think you immature for having a sonic screwdriver [yuh-huh] - then you can just have a laugh and enjoy yourself. I mean yeah, I don't obviously do things that are outside of the law, but I do still do things which people label as 'uncool' behaviour, but, what does it matter?
It's fun, it's a laugh, it's a good life.

And I think that's why I'm happy. Non-conformist is the word I think. No conforming to popular trends, no conforming to music styles and film preferences. Just do your own thing.
It's a fun life. Trust me on that.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Epilogue

I'm not sure why I created this, but watching the film for the first time in ages just got my creative side working.
Plus I love making epilogues. They're just so randomly fun.
So, here we go:

- Half of the Oopma Loopmas decided to rebel against Charlie's new scheme of running things and left to pursue their dreams of making the world-breaking highest human pyramid. Believably, most efforts have proved futile.
- Augustus Gloop created a new cologne which smelt of chocolate, taking inspiration from his now inescapable odors. Sales plummeted after German children starting eating each other.
-Violet Beauregard was sued for copyright infringements after the creator of the Smurfs and the band behind "I'm Blue da ba dee" ganged up on her. Resultingly, she opened her own gymnastics club to pay the bills. "Fruit Punch" is yet to gain any members...
- Verruca Salt was forever avoided due to her 'Garbage' smell, and after confronting a few squirrels in her local park, a new-found phobia was fully released. She is now resting in children's mental hospital.
- Mike Teevee was shunned by world media by encouraging the 'size zero' debate. So instead he partook in a Hide and Seek championship. All victories so far...
- Willy Wonka, in his later years, became convinced that his Chocolate Room wanted to eat him. Up and Out function was used yet again, and the beloved chocolatier is yet to be found.
- And Charlie? Well he was a ten year old who agreed to live with an old man in his chocolate factory. What do you think happened?

Nope, you're quite wrong. He left to fight in a great war for our freedom.
Bet you thought your answer was really funny.
Jerk.

[Told you it was random. Still, had fun creating all these. Peace out!]

Bio-Shocked

Sometimes in life, something is much better than you thought it would be. SuckerPunch, a new series of Top Gear, or recently for me, Jekyll.
But one thing I have recently discovered and quickly fallen in love with is BioShock. I knew of it, through random trailers and mentions. And after asking my good old gamer friend Dan, who responded positively, I got Bioshocks 1 and 2 for my birthday.

And oh my god. So much more than what I was ready for.
Essentially, the world's best and brightest get swept up by Andrew Ryan, owner of the underwater Utopian city named Rapture. At first, everything goes swimmingly [ho-ho], which new sciences being developed and brand new important discoveries.
But as is expected, in a way that 2K [BioShock creators] portray beautifully, being cut off from true civilisation soon leads to insanity. Small girls are experimented on and turned into drug wielding Little Sisters, protected by massive and terrifying baddies known as Big Daddies.
The drug in question is ADAM. Extracted from dead bodies, Little Sisters harvest it and Big Daddies protect them from Splicers, who want the power of ADAM to give them artificial super powers, like Incinerate - the super-hot flame-creator, Winters Blast - freeze your enemies and shatter, Electro-Bolt - speaks for itself. And to power your ADAM-acquired powers, you use EVE hypos to recharge to keep using these "plasmids".
So that's the background. People want drugs which belong to Little Sisters, but can't get to them because their massive Big Daddies just drill them to bits. [Not a misprint]

So where do we, the audience, come into it?
Our plane crash lands in the Atlantic Ocean, right by the Rapture Access Tower. So with a plane on fire, and nothing better to do, we enter, jump in the transport known as a Bathysphere and proceed on in.

Hell breaks loose. You need weapons and plasmid powers to survive. You need money, you need ADAM, you need EVE, you need to be prepared and, most of all, you need to not be squeamish. My sibling once walked in as I was studying a dead Splicer with scissors embedded in his eyes. My sanity, as a result, has been thrown into question. Again.
But trust me, give it a go. The storyline quickly enfolds you and urges you to keep going. The desire for more ADAM and plasmids keep you fighting those Big Daddies as best you can.
And the want to find out who 'Atlas' really is kept me going as well.

Overall, the animation is perfect, graphic tip-top and the entire time I played it, it didn't freeze or fail to load once. Bearing all in mind, it's no wonder it was voted Game of the Year.

So I recommend and urge you to play this game, and like me, you'll find something that might just be much better than you expected. And small moments in life like that are what we need to keep us going.
Ok, I'm getting philosophical.

On one final note, throughout the game you'll be given the choice to "Harvest" or "Rescue". No matter what you hear and what you may know, Rescue. Always Rescue. In the long run, you'll thank me for it.
Peace out.

(Above is a picture from BioShock that caught my interest pretty damn quickly. How the Big Daddy/Little Sister partnership came to be)