TomRed’s blog & stuff

School’s out. Yep, for five weeks or so (less than half of last year’s summer) I am out of that institution that blocks my site every now and then because it prioritises blocking out swear words (does the title count?) over allowing teachers to capitalise on my A-level stuff section (which has actually happened once or twice). Sports week was not something I despised but the fact that it was the reason why my school was among the few to keep us in this late angers me, especially when I made up about a thirtieth of the sixth form (or all of the sixth form in the first ten minutes from when I arrived).

Apart from complaining about the mildly flawed leaving system, this post has some sort of purpose, as I have not made a record of targets for this summer. This summer is somewhat important – it bridges the two years of A-level, it is needed for me to decide on what to do at uni (besides heavily subsidise the alcohol industry), I want to learn how to drive (except not GTA style), and I want to do other productive things, like stuff from my 100 things list. To formalise this, I’ve put a list so I will know what to do and will lash myself if I fail to achieve it. You can stick around for the below if you’re a stalker, knock your brains out:
1. Decide on a course for university (at least get somewhere, please).
2. Have an idea of where to study.
3. Have a few driving lessons.
4. Either start learning an instrument or at least progress on the piano/keyboard.
5. Substantially increase my iTunes library.
6. Learn how to cook something other than toast.
7. Learn C++ (programming).
8. Learn some Japanese or give up any English-Japanese bilingual dreams.
9. Make comics to prepare for September (then realise that they’re terrible and burn them).
10. Complete at least three things off the 100 things list.
11. Read some books.
12. Read some revision guides (i.e. get ahead).
13. Draw more.
14. Become more knowledgeable in general.

That’s all from my head, if I think of more I’ll add them. I’ll also make ’em bold if I complete them. I believe I made some sort of list like this last year, hah, like I did a single thing.

This seems fitting. If you think outside the box, I’m going somewhere with this.

You wouldn’t have had to be following this blog for that long to know who Walter Breuning is, and if you don’t by now, get off my property. Walter Breuning is the world’s oldest man. Why do I care? Well, four reasons:
1. For the 110th time, I’m weirdly interested in longevity.
2. He’s the world’s oldest man.
3. He was born in the nineteenth century, and not dead.
4. He’s healthy, physically and mentally.

 I bring you here today to introduce a fifth reason. One year ago today I made my 100th post, and that post lamented the death of former title holder Henry Allingham. This means, Breuning’s had the title for a whole year. Think about it, a year as the world’s oldest man, outliving everyone above you and many below you, and continued to not die for a year.

And about him? He’s American, even though that would usually bring someone’s status down, I admire him. He never had children (so no likely great-great-great-granddescendants in his lifetime) and his wife died in 1957, when he was like 60. He never remarried, being sceptical of the merits of second marriages (this sad set of circumstances reminds me of the guy in The Green Mile who lived for a really long age to have everyone he loved die before him – except possibly the mouse). He can sort of walk, have memories from when he was like 3, and is on no prescribed medication. These qualities expand on point 4., as there is justification for him living for another year (alas, supercentenarians tend to randomly die).

I can understand you not appreciate the significance of this state of affairs as I do, but that’s because everyone has different opinions and yours are wrong.

I had one lesson today, of which seven people turned up for. In post-exam sixth form that is actually pretty good. I barely remember any chemistry lessons, I was either a quarter of the physics pupils or half the physics teachers, and maths and economics were slightly more disciplined. I was unmotivated to work, and suspiciously didn’t turn up some of the time (I got a letter and a fancy pen rewarding me for 100% attendance today, as ironically I wasn’t in on the day they announced it).

Next week is Sports Week, my first in two years. I don’t like it as (contrary to my attendance record) I am terribly unhealthy, and in monopolising last place I’m thankful that there’s not really natural selection in modern humans. The good thing is that the days are shorter and there’s little thinking involved. On Friday I am free as a bird, having about half the summer holidays I did last year, but hopefully they will be twice as fulfilled.

By the way, I’ve finally started further maths, but additionally and self-taught. Place your bets, I reckon I’ll last a week.

100 is creeping in, I might actually put effort into that one for a change. Anyway, John was a complex character, and humour wasn’t malnourished in his complexity.

The World Cup has finally come to a close. I didn’t watch the final, my philosophy is that it doesn’t matter apart from the final score at the end (that’s also my approach to exams). I went on to some Asian news site for a change and had to bow my head to the DPRK, smashing Holland by 8 – 0, whitewashing them and humiliating them eight goals their senior.

What made them so good? How did they easily brush their way to earning the cup, leaving behind defeated angry Germans and South American superstars? I didn’t think for myself, so I continued reading.

It turned out that the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, “gave inspiration to the team and trained them to his own level of physical fitness”. Kim also “demanded they have a specific diet, one that gave them endurance and focused their minds”. Kim “taught them the value of teamwork and it’s incomparable advantage in terms of acquiring victory”.

There were video clips sandwiched by the article, in watching them I realised that Kim’s well thought technique was clearly effective, and I’ll be surprised if another team could even tie with them in 2014. I read on, “finally, the Dear Leader, promised that if the team were not to win every match, the team would be executed and the final score forged and sold to the Korean people as the truth.”

I both enjoyed and hated this World Cup. I hope you did, too.

There’s nothing to be ronery about, Kim. Your officials told me you’re gonna smash the final on Sunday.

Let me first pleasantly inform you that my tantrum concerning visitors (or lack thereof) has come to an end, surprisingly and slightly ironically after finding out my three week >100 streak has come to an end:

Second of all, I’ve recategorised a few things. ‘Philosophy’ has died as it had a token post, while ‘school stuff’ and ‘graphs’ is living its first hour in the world (with ‘graphs’ being bottle-fed this post). At some indeterminate point in the future, I intend to have a good look and fix mistakes I’ve made and put everything in a suitable category, although four weeks into the summer (where I’m in a boredom coma) is a while away…

Last but not least, I’ve finally put an about section, here. I’ve put a self-description to cater to the needs of the stalkers, who should be rewarded for fuelling my urge for traffic in the first place.

George Carlin was a legend. I hate environmentalists.

Well, I’ve sold out. I look at my convenient view graph and as today looks bleak in terms of keeping my views above 100 visitors a day, I think it’s time to make a much needed post and spam anyone who has a computer.

For those of you who don’t know, my music taste is unusual for a person of my age. In other words, it’s actually good (the subjectivity alarm has been pressed). It’s predominantly 1960s and decreases in the neighbouring decades. It’s not to be rebellious (or to be rebellious by not being rebellious like every other teenager, that probably doesn’t make sense) as I genuinely like (most) of my songs, mainly because a certain radio station played many of the hits in my youth. The Beatles is obviously a liked band of mine, my favourite even. As you may have guessed, my favourite song is a Beatle song. Now, what might this be? Ringo, drum roll please…

Real Love, that’s the one. As you may have noticed, it was featured in a weekly video in the form of a fake live concert, here. It’s an excellent song by an excellent band, but it might not have made the cut without the background to the song.

It’s a mid ’90s song, which is around thirty years ahead of The Beatles’ writing period. John was shot and killed back in 1980, leaving Paul, Ringo, and George several years before he got cancer. Yoko Ono gave them a couple of John’s old demos that were not released, being Free as a Bird and Real Love, clearly the latter I prefer. Both were evidently put into hits by the remaining three. A shit load of editing for the many takes of Real Love and Real Life were combined to produce a good quality version of the song, and the others put in their vocal and instrumental contributions.

Watching the mock concert, it felt like I was on one of the drugs they took in the later part of their band career, like there was a unity even though John was dead, and it was due to the song itself. Finally, there is a connection to my Get a life… post (you don’t need to read that shit), as the song was the end of the line of Beatles songs and was in my lifeline.

Oh, by the way, this song was not played by BBC Radio 1 as they did not think it was a modern song despite being a new release. Although I can see their point, it was a futile defence as the average buyer of the song was a teenager and the average age of a Radio 1 listener is 33 (when they aim for viewers to be much younger). Consequently, when I come into power, Radio 1 will be replaced by Party propaganda.