cakeodoom

Half-Life 2: Episode Two has an achievement that involves taking the Garden Gnome from the radio shack at the start of the game and putting it in the rocket at the end. This is the story of that Gnome. Took me about 5 and a half hours, but totally worth it.

This is a selection of the best photos, for the full set of every screenshot I took, check out my Flickr album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22882110@N03/sets/72157603734971101/

Good to know I'll always have an Official Record of that epic quest. Good times.

( To the shuttle! )

So there you have it, it wasn't just as difficult as some people would have you believe, but the chopper-chase sequence is pretty horrendous. There's a few pictures in the Flickr pages showing the best way to store him. Learn from these and thrive - good luck doing it yourself!

I think I'm starting to get better at this drawing lark, which makes me happy.

I Drew Me A Kobold

Merry Decemberween and Happy Arbitrary Calender do-over to all.

So I'm still alive, whodathunkit?

I am posting today to make an apology to the world at large. Today there was a 'Philosophy Garden Party' (Read: Me, Duncan, Christina and Vivienne chatting with Harry in the Knox Shaw room because it was raining outside). I went for the food. And the free champagne.

So anyway, there we were, working our way through sandwiches and drinks when Dr. Potter (a Logician) turns up to join us. The subject of exams vs. coursework (and thus Vivas) comes up when Doctor P happens to mention that Cambridge University did, in fact, invent the written examination.

Yes, we invented written exams.

I mean sure the alternative is writing extended pieces of work and then actually being interviewed on them, but still. That sucks. We apparently did it due to increasing numbers of students making it too time consuming to interview everybody individually on their work.

I, personally, had nothing to do with it. It was about 400 years ago.

So yeah, sorry about that. Now, back to snake people...

I'm so lax. But yeah, for the benefit of Mandy and Jenny, here are some pics of the awesomeness that is my Cobra Lily.

I trimmed off a lot of the dead pitchers and since doing that, it's looking really healthy. Loads of new heads have grown up and there's still more shoots ready to grow into little baby Cobras ^_^.

( Behold! )

It caught a rather large blue bottle fly today, which buzzed inside for quite a while, making a rather disturbing noise whilst I was trying to read, but I was still rather pleased with it - doing very well for itself!

Pretty proud of how I've nurtured it so far. Since pruning the dead pitchers, it's gone into a frenzy of growth and looks really healthy, which is great. Going to re-pot him soon so he can reach his full potential as a big, bad fly eater.

My Cobra Lily caught a bee today. My dad was watching it when the bee tried to enter one of the medium-size pitchers and he shooed it away, 'cause he likes bees, but then it went back and tried the big pitcher, so he figured it was dumb enough to get munched. Only problem was that it was a pretty big bee and the plant isn't *that* large, so it was kind of a stalemate. The bee was trapped and trying to get out the false exits and the plant's hair system wasn't strong enough to force the bee into the pitcher proper. Plus I'm not sure the actual tube was big enough to get the bee far enough down anyway. Peered at it for a while and watched the bee wandering around inside and getting quite pissed off, wondering if it was possible to free it, but figured it wasn't possible without decapitating that particular cobra, so decided against it.
Was quite fascinating to watch plant vs. bee in action - was the first time I'd actually seen it capture something. After about ten minutes, though, the bee finally managed to get out the way it came and climb back down the forked tongue. It seemed quite tired and kind of slumped between two pitchers. I flicked it away with a key and the stupid creature started buzzing around the plant *again*. That nectar must smell really good to insects. Shooed bee to a safe distance and watched plant a bit more in the hopes a wasp might come along. Mum is quite excited about the prospect of it eating those.

Decided to name him Quine, as it's an American species of plant and the only American philosopher I've studied in any depth is W. V. Quine and his Two Dogmas of Empiricism.

There's still a lot of dead pitchers festering away, but I'm quite encouraged that after three weeks there's a good number of healthy ones as well as some new shoots coming up. He's drinking rainwater rather than mineral now, which apparently is better for them.

Will get some pictures up soon (I just spelled that 'pitchers' at first - oh dear). Would rather wait until at least some of the dead ones have gone - might trim them off...

Must dash, mates coming round to watch football soon...

Okay, so I think I'm going to stick to this journal mainly from now on, not gonna blab on about every facet of my day-to-day life, but keep it for musings and when I feel like waxing philosophical outside of what's required for my degree. Go me!

I've decided to take up Krystal and Vanessa's Summer Art Challenge 2006! partly so I didn't feel left out and partly 'cause I've been meaning to do something like that for ages, so now is my chance! Awesome.

Maybe more when I've shifted this mountain of work (hah, revision, not a chance of that going down until June, heyhum).

Peace 'n' Cheese.