»Glossary
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | I've always enjoyed Arnie films. At some point I decided it would be a good idea to try and get every one of his films on DVD. I still haven't watched Twins. There is an unfinished guide to his films. |
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| Blog | Despite the fact I dislike the 'word' blog, I decided it would be a good idea to start one on here in a cynical attempt to increase visitors to the website (I was under the impression it mattered how many people read this crap.) Prior to that, the only updates on this site were my awful attempts at music; my childish artwork; and the occasional flash. Gradually the Blog became better formatted and (I like to pretend anyway) better written. It doesn't hurt your eyes to look at it for as long any more. |
| ███████ ████ ███████ | A shit school in Bradford where I was sent to do my first placement. I was 'fired' after teaching three lessons. After teaching one more I was fired again. |
| Bradford | An awful dump. Avoid. |
| Cawley Lane JI&N School | I volunteered and later worked there as a teaching assistant for the best part of a year. Went there to junior school as well. |
| Civil Defence | The subject of my masters dissertation, specifically 'Civil Defence in Britain 1945-1962'. Chosen mainly on the basis that Fallout 2 is cool. Also hadn't been written about by anyone else recently. |
| Cumpari Inversion | A bizarre set of recordings produced before I actually had any equipment I could produce proper music on. As an album, it sold 17 copies. |
| Dead Till Dawn | A rubbish band I played about three rehearsals with shortly before joining Sins of the Unforgiven. I was supposedly on bass/vocals. Mostly played perpetually unfinished 'originals'. |
| Deus Ex | One of my favourite games. Has a disappointing sequel. |
| Diablo II | One of my favourite games. The first game is good too. I'm a sucker for satanic shit (see: Slayer). A recurring topic in blog entries. |
| Doom | One of my favourite games. Fifteen years after most people stopped played it, I decided to make my own Doom 2 WAD. Why do all my favourite games start with the letter D? |
| Dungeon Keeper | One of my favourite games. I wrote a mostly finished guide for this. |
| Dwarf Fortress | One of my favourite games. An amazingly deep and complex dungeon management game with a steep learning curve thanks to ASCII graphics and a hotkey-based 'UI'. A rich source of stories for lazy blog entries. Brilliant. |
| Extar's Cube 1 | A shambolic website created on Geocities. I had many short-lived Geocities websites before that. There are still most of the graphics lying around from Cube 1 on my hard-drive. |
| Extar's Cube 2 | The first 'proper' website I made (i.e. that wasn't on Geocities. Do you remember Geocities?) It was uploaded on some free webspace provided by my NTL (later Virgin) broadband. Despite the fact I switched to Sky internet years ago, for some reason, the old website still appears to be there. Most of the content on there is on here and slightly better organised. |
| Flash | Some time in 2003 I had a go at Flash animation, thanks to an old copy of Flash 5 acquired via a pirated software CD. At some point I reached a level of competency where I was able to upload flashes onto Newgrounds without them being blammed. At some point the amount of effort taken to make improvements in flashes outstripped my enthusiasm for making them and I stopped. From the start of Cube 2 there was a Flash page which stored all my collected attempts at animation. The flash page still exists on here, I just stopped linking to it because there hadn't been anything new on there for years and most of it is kind of rubbish. Some people apparently like the flashes though, so they are all still there, if you can be bothered to find them. |
| GO NORTH | A series of flashes I made. Started as a parody of text-based RPGs (which I know next-to-nothing about.) Since I stopped making flashes ages ago and have mostly forgotten how it all works. It's unlikely there'll be another one. |
| Goats | A parody of Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV recorded with JK. Actually turned out some decent music. |
| Gomersal First School | The school I was sent to after ███████ ████ where I completed my first placement. Not shit. |
| Half Life 2 | I played the first one a ridiculous amount at secondary school. I even attempted to make a mod for it. The sequel isn't bad, but it is massively overrated. I wrote a 'review'. |
| Heckmondwike | The town where I live. |
| JK | Founding member of Terminal. The other half of Goats. Sometimes has a website. |
| jwzrants | A cool website which was one of the inspirations for the Blog. |
| Leeds Guide | A magazine in Leeds where I did a two-week placement. Subject of two Blog entries. |
| ██████ ███████ | Another shit school in Bradford where I did some of my final placement. Was glad to be fired after a week of teaching 50% of the timetable. |
| Metallica | One of my favourite bands. I seen them once in Dublin. Bizarrely, I didn't write anything about that. I rip off Metallica a lot in my music, but then again, who doesn't? |
| Mono Devices | An embarassing album I recorded once I had some equipment I could produce proper music with. The last 'album' I bothered to release on CD as no one wanted it. Awful. Avoid. |
| Newgrounds | A stupid website full of fourteen-year-olds (hateful, arogant, dickheads). I used to upload flashes onto there, then I started uploading music instead. Both were met with near-universal hatred. Avoid. |
| Nine Inch Nails | My favourite band. I have a pretty much complete halo collection (no one seems to brag about that anymore) and have seen them a bunch of times. I rip them off a lot in my music. |
| Sheffield | Formerly hell. Now refer to Bradford. |
| Sins of the Unforgiven | A metal band I used to sing and play bass for. Played a lot of Metallica covers. Used to have a website until I took it down. |
| Slayer | One of my favourite bands. I've seen them a bunch of times and rip them off a lot in my music. |
| Stencils | Or alternatively: Fun Inhaling Ketones. Some time on my MA I had a good idea for a stencil. That stencil turned out to be See You Tomorrow. The stencil was received well and I quite liked the idea of making 'legitimate' artwork that isn't completely embarassing. I made a bunch more which you can see on the Visual page. I wrote a guide to making stencils since it's pretty easy to get started and I hadn't seen a similar guide elsewhere. |
| Terminal | A 'band' I played with who mostly played bad NIN covers. Was briefly known as The RDF Project. There are recordings of this lamentable venture. |
| The Telegraph & Argus | A newspaper in Bradford where I did a week-long placement. Subject of several Blog entries. |
| The Two Headed Dogs | A 'side project' band I formed with Martin from Sins of the Unforgiven. Has a website. |
| University of Leeds | I studied a BA in History, an MA in Military History and later a Primary PGCE there. This was much of the inspiration for the early Blog entries. |
| Visitors | Apparently this site has them. I still work under the assumption that I am on a first name basis with my entire audience. |
| Woolies | My first job was at Woolies. A dimly remembered period of suffering documented in long-forgotten recordings that pre-date the Cube. |
Who are you working for? What did you hope to gain? Why do you hate your past, So much you destroy the ones you love?
