At the end of November, I hit upon the idea of watching horror films with a festive theme in the run up to Christmas – a way to make the horror of Christmas much more bearable! I decided I’d watch twenty four films, to match the number of doors on an Advent Calendar, and produced a list of the ones I’d found initially.
Read MoreA tale of three walks
For some time now my Christmas tradition is to avoid it as much as possible – and one aspect of that is to head off somewhere for a walk on December 25th. This benefits me because obviously it’s a good walk, but it also gets me away from, well, everything. As someone with a dislike for Christmas, the constant onslaught of it – TV, radio, online, everywhere – drives me nuts.
Read MoreAn opportunistic shot of Jupiter
A couple of weeks ago, I’d gone to bed fairly late and – either because I was feeling very tired, or because I was being lazy (or perhaps both) – I didn’t bother closing my bedroom curtains. In the very early hours I drifted out of the dreamworld, and noticed a very bright point of light in the sky.
Read More‘Tis the season to watch horror
Tra-lala-lala… lala-la-la If you know me well, you’ll know I don’t ‘do’ Christmas – and you’ll know why. If you don’t, it’s because Christmas is a religious festival and I’m not just a non-believer, I also have a very strong dislike of religion in general, with a particular distaste for Christianity and its variations – the very religion that Christmas is a key part of. As such, for me Christmas is a period where the society in which I live becomes very annoying, and I like to switch off from…
Read MoreUpdating Drop Rock part 3 – a long overdue catch up
Having commented back in December 2022 that I was about to start updating one of my old games, Drop Rock, and a few days later about the first changes I made as part of that process… I have completely failed to write further on the topic, even though more changes have been made.
Read MorePutting on the old walking boots again
Or, in fact, forgetting to put them on. Something I used to do on a semi-regular basis was to wander off for a short hike – usually somewhere within a reasonably easy drive of home, such as the Brecon Beacons or down towards Wiltshire. If I was heading off for the weekend, I’d go somewhere further such as Dartmoor, and if I was off for a little longer I’d likely head towards the Cornish coast or to the Lake District.
Read MoreThe Eurovision 2024 tweets – raw and not annotated
It was Eurovision 2024 yesterday, and as has now become something of a tradition for me, I watched it with Twitter open and a ready supply of cider – thus becoming increasingly under the influence of cider as the evening rolled on and commenting on Twitter.
Read MoreThings that get thumped in the night
Well, almost, anyway. I’ve previously mentioned that I’m a keen reader and watcher of science fiction and horror. The horror box in particular can cover a wide range of subject matter, and encompasses good old supernatural shenanigans. And this post is about just that – the supernatural.
Read MoreKitchen sink chaos
I had a few things I needed to get done this weekend, and one thing (or a set of things, time permitting) I particularly wanted to do. That was to export the new draft graphics for Drop Rock as bitmaps, and convert them to RISC OS sprites. That in turn would have allowed me to update the game code in order to try it out with the new (larger) tiles, take some screen grabs and post an update about that.
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