Matt’s Journal

[Guest Blog] Why Do I Blog?

Posted by Matt under General

Staring a new series of guest posts on Matt’s Journal, let me introduce Sam Clarke.

Sam is the creator/owner/editor/lover of the entertaining blog WhatDoIKnow, a journal full of thoughts, opinions and general happenings, a worthy addition to your RSS feeds if you are one of the techies among us.

I’ve been blogging now on various platforms for almost two years, weather it be on a daily basis, or a part of a self-test I experimented with, to see if I could blog once an hour (waking hours) for an entire week. Now, of course there are all varieties of blogs around the net, from work blogs, to journals, right through to technical blogs… But upto until recently I had forgotten exactly the reasons why I had started…

This morning I was asking myself why I have such little creativity, my mind is like a well organized filing cabinet and I tend to not bother trying to draw or be artistic, just because I’ve always found it hard… I’ve always stuck to subjects with more reason to them, Maths and Computing for example.. But whilst trying to discover the reason(s) behind my lack of creativity, I stumbled upon an article.

Another way to encourage and increase creativity, is to write your ideas down. Keep an “idea journal.” If you do this regularly, you’ll notice that you often start having more ideas the moment you start to write. A so-so idea may normally be forgotten, but by writing it down, you may remember it, your subconscious works on it, and it can transform into something very creative.

This article suddenly got me thinking, perhaps the reason I had originally started blogging, was to give myself a space (a notepad if you like) where I could store my ideas, store my thoughts and troubles, then reflect back on them… Subconsciously, I had been training my brain to be more creative, so I put it to the test. The last time I drew a picture was back in school for a Graphic Design project, and the only reason I passed that course is because I already knew what my plan was, I knew what I wanted my final project to do, to look like, and I even knew how I was going to draw it out… This afternoon I started drawing, I didn’t really have any idea what, or why, but I knew I wanted to see if my creative blogging had worked.

I was extremely pleased with the end result…I won’t go uploading the picture, because frankly the image is irrelevant…It’s the fact I had (without being aware) managed to retrain my brain into a form of creative thinking.

Perhaps blogging, writing and general jotting are things we should all do? Did you know only 5% of people aged 18 and upwards, are classed as having creative minds? And 95% of children aged 5-7 fall into the same category… Maybe we should all spend a moment to write down those ideas we get from time to time, or maybe we should all write a blog?

Guest Blogging

Posted by Matt under General

This blog has started to get a little bit more traffic and response lately, my hits are topping 2,000 a day and I have in and around 30 Feedburner RSS subscribers.

With this in mind, I would like to take the opportunity to ask if someone who reads this blog would like to write a guest post. I can be on any topic, attack, defend or just highlight your own blog. You don’t need to be a regular here and similarly you don’t have to think just because you are a regular here, you can’t take part.

If you would like to write a guest post, please send your answers to me on a stamped address envelope leave a comment and put your name forward!

The Law of the Playground

Posted by Matt under General

On Channel 4, every Friday night at about half past ten, there is a really humourous programme called “The Law of the Playground”. It racks up a good number of Z-List celebrities and then let them recall their days as a schoolkid. Topics range from Erections to Snogging, right on to Nicknames and Bad Teachers.

It took it’s inspiration from a site with the same name: http://www.playgroundlaw.com/

School was a good time for me, I was thinking of some things below:

• In Science, our class was the top set and we had a teacher who would range from being as nice as pie to a homicidal maniac within the blink of an eye. One day, we had been using lenses for an optics experiment and after packing them up we were three lenses short of what Mr Davies had expected. Annoyed and very angry, he made the whole class stay late after class, thirty minutes into our lunchtime trying to find these rogue three lenses. After nothing appeared he let us go, but with a sharp talking to.

  Next week we arrived to the class to find a very sullen-faced Mr Davies apologising profusely because he had broken three lenses with his previous class and completely forgotten about it. We didn’t do much that lesson.

• A girl who was in my class called Hannah was a really good athlete. However, she wasn’t very good with personal hygiene. The girls in the class referred to her as B.O Bob, a name that probably haunts her to this day.
• In Geography, we weren’t allowed to sit next to our friends and were assigned random places to sit when we came into the class. On one occasion, I was put next to the class weirdo, Rob Bronski (not of the Bronski Beat), a boy who was knee height to a grasshopper and with really protuding front teeth.

  Rob always like to show how red he could go when he held his breath. So when the teacher was facing the board or not looking, I would give him the all clear for him to hold his breath and show the class his party trick. Just imagine a goofy, skinny kid with any number of veins popping out of his head, trying to impress the class. I have to say, he did it rather well.

• From Sam at WhatDoIKnow: “We used to have an extremely Scottish Geography teacher with one eye, who wouldn’t take any talking in lessons. He devised a plan similar to that of your teacher, whereby you were assigned a seat each lesson, but the three naughtiest students were to sit at his desk and work infront of the class.

  His catchphrase when a kid was naughty was (and imagine this in a very broad Scottish accent) “Sit down, and get out!” Never really understood that to be honest, but he did say it to me a couple of times, and me being the wiseass used to sit down and shimmy my chair toward the door.”

I don’t want to list too many, just get the ball rolling with funny anecdotes, hopefully some of you lot will share and I will add them to the post in due course!

Yoga

Posted by Matt under Leisure

Yesterday I attended a yoga class. I accompanied Katie to the local fitness centre she is a member of and prepared to do lots of stretching and chanting and letting out farts at inopportune moments (I’ve always been told lots of people do that).

Walking into the room, Katie and I grabbed a yoga mat and found a space in the gym that we could place ourselves. A woman walks up to us and enquires as to whether it was out first time and that if we feel uncomfortable in the poses, we should not attempt to keep trying as to injure ourselves.

Shoes and socks off? Check.

The music is switched-on, it’s your usual serene piano and swooshing sounds. We are told to lay our our backs and breathe deeply, next to sit cross legged, something that doesn’t come easily to me! The rest of the room are sitting in their meditative poses as I struggle to tuck my long legs in under my body.

We stretch and make sure that our breathing matches our moves, breathing in for lifts and then exhaling as we relax from the pose. Problem is, I am relaxed but I am sweating like a paedophile in a nursery (no offence intended folks!). I am struggling to keep balance, touch my toes and look as at ease as the rest of the people in the room, I must have looked like a Giraffe!

Coming to the end, I spoke to the woman who took the class, I enquired as to whether sweating was a bad thing. Yeah, you guessed it, I was doing it all wrong. You are meant to let the breathing help take the strain out of the positions, whereas me hanging onto my feet and hoping I’m doing it right might not have been the object of the exercise.

I enjoyed it immensely, I think I will be accompanying Katie next week!

….and yes, I got ribbed, I was ribbed by Katie’s Dad and various co-workers.

Roll on November!

Posted by Matt under Gaming

/prepares for endless nights of chainsawing and co-op play..

Wet Fingers and Plugs

Posted by Matt under General

Early morning Monday morning, I wake up and look groggily into the mirror. What stares back at me is a near Neanderthal man with sproutly facial hair and a dodgy hairstyle to boot. I fill the sink with hot water and grab a shower, finishing and adding some shaving gel to my face.

I wipe the steam from the mirror, a half decent looking man stares back at me. I go to pull the plug out of the sink and realise there isn’t a cord to pull it out with. For five minutes I try using my vice like grip to pull it out, all I am left with is a sore finger.

Giving up, I use a screwdriver to get it out, looking at my finger, a small blister has formed and it stings a little.

Fast forward 24 hours. My finger now looks like this:

It’s infected probably from when I assembled my TV stand, all I know is that it bloody hurts! Docs appointment tomorrow so I should get some antibiotics to get rid of it all.