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Jun

Under the Influence

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List, Site and Writing

Some people say I haven’t been doing anything, I say my work is everywhere.*

Since I started this website in November two things have surprised me about blogging. First, how many people read my posts. In my head scribbleboy.co.uk is a dust covered tome tucked away in some corner of the internet bookcase read by half a dozen close friends. In reality hundreds of people paw over these pages in a forlorn search for Megan Fox’s breasts. I don’t have them. Nor do I have Alesha Dixon’s legs or Abbey Clancy’s ass. I am not some kind of pervert butcher. Those who aren’t on a quest to discover the choicest celebrity cuts, or at least pause in their search, seem to enjoy what I write. Sometimes they even leave comments.

The second thing that surprises me is that people don’t just read my words but are influenced and inspired by them. Maybe Gingell said it best when she said;

Scribs was the first (and only) person I knew to maintain a blog about nothing…which went some way in to convincing me I could start this one.

Yesterday marked her 50th post on Running from Zombies, congratulations.

Another blog that I helped out with, and maybe in some ways helped to inspire, is Sound Guy Guy. It’s been a while since Guy updated properly but it sounds like his computer is now fixed, so if you’ve finally caught up with his travel diary, too bad. If however, you’ve been suffering from a dearth of Megan Fox based content, rejoice (wasn’t July’s GQ enough for you?)

Frosty, who documented our adventures through Asia last year, is back in the blogging game with Work Hard Play Hard, a blog that takes a few pointers (and plugins) from this very site. Unlike last year’s thoroughly comprehensive travel blog this one will be a selection of edited highlights and will continue to document the adventures of Frosty long after he has returned to the UK.

Here’s an awesome time-lapse video of a Malaysian sunset that Frosty filmed. There’s plenty more footage, photos and observations like this on his blog.

A blog where my touch is at its most obvious is TWKM. It’s a blog about a guy trying to improve his life by completing challenges suggested by readers, or as Stanford puts it;

It’s a blatant rip off of scribbleboy, but I don’t care because it’s a good one.

Have a read of Stanford’s challenges here and suggest one of your own. He’s already suggested one for me to complete;

I challenge you to regularly answer an ad on gumtree, craiglist or similar websites, be it serious (which can lead to expanding your skills, social circle, or jobs) or funny (asking to swap a hexopus (an octopus with six legs) for a wii remote for instance).

Post results (with anonymity kept) for all to see.

Restriction is that it shouldn’t be rude or destructive to the ad poster.

I’ll be trying to do this weekly myself, depending on how realistic it is.

I will get onto this challenge (challenge 21) soon and blog my results.

To give you a little bit of context, Stanford is one of Antonio’s friend whom I met at Annabel and John’s New Year’s Eve party (I make the briefest of references to the party here). It was one of the most civilised parties I’ve been to in a long time with dips, fireworks and champagne at midnight. An indication of how classy it was is that Stanford’s pictures are in black and white. To gain a greater understanding of who Stanford is and the mind behind TWKM I recommend reading his about page. I also recommend reading the nine blog posts he’s made in just over a week. I don’t recommend comparing his output with mine, that will just make me look bad.

The penultimate blog I’m going to take a look at is FeatherQuest. This site is written and maintained by Holly, who you might remember made me eat apples all through April. Holly’s blog is about… well, I’ll let her say it;

This blog is based on the idea that I need to shape my life a little better. I need more control other than just random drifting and I had an idea that maybe my friends could set me challenges. Things I could do to improve my life or become a better person. I also aim to do reviews and general stuff to further my writing.

I have challenged her to get some of her written work published and to share the stages of her creative process with readers. This ties in nicely with the freelancing challenge I have set myself (challenge 1e).

I’m going to wrap this up with the most literal example of me inspiring a blog post;

This is a portrait of me by Antonio of hellocatfood.com that I’ve been meaning to post for a long time. You could read his blog but I wouldn’t recommend doing it too quickly because he updates even less regularly than I do. Before I sign off a few quick shout outs to blogs that are not tainted by me but are still worth reading;

Life Through God’s Sunglasses – My former housemate Baines’ site. What with her leaving and Gingell going out so much I have been forced to strike up conversations with inanimate objects. Will be worth keeping an eye on this page for updates of Baines’ adventures in Nepal.

Wheels on Fire – Ally keeps a record of how he is ritually humiliated and beaten by his girlfriend his training, sometimes this involves Gingell. I know I plugged it before but it’s come a long way since then and you can get a better idea of his weekly routine, plus it now has pictures.

Night,

Scribs

*If I was God this is the kind of thing I would say.

Jun

Yet More Icons

By Scribbleboy 3 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List and Site

Today the sun shone and I was offered a job, for a time it almost felt like I wasn’t in Stoke. In the email that offers me the job, just after the date, it says “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL”. I’m not quite sure why they’re shouting but it’s probably because they know that one of my favourite hobbies is running my mouth. All I’ll say is that I’m going to get paid for some of my words sometime soon. In the meantime I have been given a very promising job tip which I will be following up tomorrow.

In other news, I’m still broke but didn’t get round to fully documenting it on Finance Friday. Expect a Finance Tuesday, Finance Wednesday or Finance Whenever I Feel Like It sometime this week.

Also today was the first of June which means I probably should have done deskscape, maybe later in the week. There is little to report; my desk is looking rather tidy, in a moment of boredom I arranged my loose change around my drink coaster, tennis player Ana Ivanovic takes on the mantle of Miss June in the FHM calendar.

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If I have learnt one thing from this calendar it is that women can either dress themselves competently or be successful, but unfortunately not both. Ana fixes the viewer with a steely gaze, apparently oblivious to the fact that her black halter neck top is far too low cut and exposes her bright white bra to the world. She’s going to be so embarrassed when she finds out.

Another thing I’m slipping behind with is the set of icons I’m designing to represent all the challenges on this blog. Before I unveil the new batch let’s deal with some of the gripes from last time.

Challenge number three was to give blood. The first blood drop I drew was too tall, the second too tubby and the third one (unless you say otherwise) is just right. The blood people sent me a letter the other day. It says that I pump O-, a blood group that is shared by only 7% of the population but can be pumped into anyone (apparently “It’s often the only safe option when a patient’s blood group is unknown in an emergency, or in some specialised procedures for unborn babies.”)

Hopefully this will put a stop to the persistent rumours that if you cut me I bleed black unsweetened tea.

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My fourth challenge is to get up at a reasonable time each morning. To make it more obvious I turned what was originally just a clock face into an alarm clock, by adding breasts. This was a mistake. I tried reshaping the breasts, I tried making them look like scary robot breasts and finally settled on making the breasts flatter, the nipples less erect and strapping them together. These are not breasts and anyone who says otherwise is a pervert.

blog_icons_temp_drive 6. Learn to Drive

This looks like a steering wheel to me, what does it look like to you? Feel free to answer honestly, this is just a set of icons and definitely not some kind of psychometric assessment. If I had any money at the moment I’d be spending it on rent and council tax (because those are my two favourite things) and not driving lessons, so not much progress is being made on this front.

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7. Complete my Degree

The closest I ever got to explaining my degree situation properly was probably in this post; I have one third of a degree in Creative Writing and Journalism plus a handful of additional credits. The only journalism degree worth finishing would be one that is accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), the only benefit of this being that you pick up the NCTJ certificates as you go. However, as 60% of people who enter journalism don’t have a degree in it you have the opportunity to pick up all the necessary NCTJ certificates in the first six months of the job. This makes me think the degree is pointless and maybe I should go for something more generalised such as English Literature (maybe through Open University) just to show a willingness to learn.

Above you can see the mortar boarded icon, now with added glasses based on Gingell’s suggestion.

blog_icons_temp_steak

8. Keep Eating Steak and Crumpets

One of the more creative icons but then again one of the more creative challenges. This is how the Yin-Yang would have looked if it had been designed by Doctor Atkins.

Well, that’s only three icons but it seems like enough for tonight. Gingell has gone down with some Stokie strain of the T-virus but if she makes it through the night we’re all going on a house outing to Trentham Gardens to walk barefoot (they have a website, I didn’t make that up).

Have fun, walk barefoot.

Scribs

May

Spending, Sleeping, Writing, Bleeding

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Life List and Site

There’s been two posts about icons recently and if I’m not careful this site may become overrun with them (they breed really quickly). With this in mind I’m going to devote each Monday(ish) to slapping the five most recent designs up on the blog and getting your feedback, then I’m going to add them to the challenges pages, so head over there to see the complete set and suggest new tasks for me to complete.

No it's not pinstriped Kleenex 1. Write More

Out of the four options I posted a few weeks back this was the favourite, unfortunately Gingell thought it looked more like wadded tissue. I have added an obvious corner and, on Antonio’s suggestion, made it lined paper. I think I discussed this challenge in enough detail last time.

Bad black penny that keeps coming back 2. Get out of Debt

This was originally black, to represent credit, but I have toned it down to a charcoal shade (once again based on Antonio’s opinion). I used a pound sign because my silhouette of the Queen was so bad it was probably treasonous. Other possibilities such as crowns and lions didn’t seem to be intrinsically linked to money.

I grow closer to completing this challenge each week and it wasn’t long ago that my bank account was in the black for half a morning (although my overdraft isn’t my only debt). Back in April I said “Over the next few weeks I will update this post as I join more agencies, sign up to new websites, hand out CVs and fill out application forms.” This was a stupid idea that would force my readers to shuffle through the archive on a regular basis to find the most recent news, instead I’m going to write a little update here.

Back in March I applied to write for US-UK Review. I sent them five examples of my writing (the majority culled from this very blog) and waited. US-UK Review had set a deadline for getting in contact with applicants which they then extended by almost a month due the large response. Ten days after their second deadline they called me up. They asked me my age and the dates that I was at uni and then said that my writing looked good and they’d be in touch. I’m still unsure as to whether it was the politest brush off ever or if there might be a job at the end of this. According to the latest news on their website I should know within the next week.

In the mean time I have been applying for local temp work. I have applied to be an administrator in Newcastle-under-Lyme, a secretary in Stoke and last Tuesday I earnt £80 recording the vital stats of Stokie buses (this work was acquired through the university JobShop, so might be worth people signing up). I have filled out an application form to work at Schuh which I will be handing in tomorrow and at the same time dropping CVs into any places with vacancies (I know WHSmiths is hiring at the moment).

I have joined the Birmingham branches of Addeco (recommended) and Blue Arrow (once gave me three days work in a factory processing crab meat) and am on the mailing lists for the Arts Council and the newly launched JobPlot.

The Red Stuff. Are you made of it?

3. Give Blood

This icon speaks for itself and this is one of the few challenges I have completed so far, successfully donating one pint of the red stuff on Friday 27th March. I have also sorted it out so that I now only appear once on their database, hooray for accurate record keeping.

Nope I've got nothing appropriate, move along 4. Wake up at a Reasonable Hour

In the beginning this was a simple clock face with the hands just about to graze half nine. To make it more obvious which challenge it relates to I’ve turned it into an alarm clock. While this challenge is not being accomplished on a daily basis, it’s happening more frequently. This is predominately down to Gingell.

Not to say that Stoke is polluted but this is what our snowflakes look like 5. Quit Swearing for Lent

I decided to use an asterisk to represent swearing because I had so much fun playing about with them in this image. Unfortunately no one seems to link this solitary charcoal-coloured star with swearing, so if you have any ideas please comment.

Over forty days and forty nights (and six Sundays that represent mini-Easters) Mr Piggles (aka the swear tin) raised £23 which I used to sponsor Gingell in her bid to raise money for Lupus UK by completing the Asics British 10K London run. The run isn’t until next month, so you’ve still got time to time to show your support. Might also be worth keeping an eye on her blog in an attempt to snag one of the goody bags she’s giving away in the next few weeks.

May

Write More

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Book, Life List, Review, Site and Writing

Last week I started work on a set of icons to represent each of the challenges on this blog. Since you last saw them I’ve taken note of your suggestions, played around with them a little bit more and even drawn some new ones. Over the next few days I’m going to be posting each icon, my reasoning behind its design and a progress report for the challenge.

Turns out I have a lot to say about my first challenge so this one gets a post all to itself.

1. Write More

A simple concept but one that is difficult to represent using an icon. My first thought was to interpret the circle as a full stop but out of context this was meaningless. Then I considered turning it into a single quotation mark but this suggested conversation and would probably have ended up as a poor imitation of the Vodafone logo. I thought of ink blots, the end of a pencil, the ball in a ballpoint pen, weirdly shaped nibs on fountain pens and discounted them all as antiquated or meaningless out of context.

A screwed up piece of paper was the best idea I could come up with and as you can see I played around with a number of variations. I’m not sure any of them work, after staring at them for this long I wonder why I’ve created buckets of oversized popcorn.

The challenge itself, with its various subsections, has become overly complicated too. Let’s recap.

1a. Began as “updating [this shiny new blog] at least once a week”. I was so successful at this that I later wrote “I’m now going to aim to write 500 words a day and blog at least three times a week (one of these will always be on Monday).” This obviously failed and I was later forced to admit that “the standard issue WordPress calendar is beginning to resemble an empty wasteland devoid of posts”. Later still I attempted to resurrect the challenge and that too eventually failed.

let’s just knock this one on the head, I’ll blog as and when I feel like but no less than three times a week, unless life gets in the way, which undoubtedly it will.

1b. Hook the blog up to Facebook. Done.

Depending on my mood I turn this off and on but it does bring a lot of traffic to my site. Illogically, there are certain posts that I’m happy for strangers to read but not comfortable with my friends on Facebook seeing. I guess this is a combination of knowing that people who have taken the effort to read the blog genuinely do care and a realisation that my Facebook friend list is stuffed with people who I’ve forgotten I’ve added and the overly-sensitive.

1c. Install the Visual Bookshelf on Facebook. Done.

The reason behind this was to encourage me to read more and overall I think it’s worked. So far I have read and reviewed Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn by the incomparable Stephenie Meyer.

I also read The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle De Jour and micro-reviewed it here (“made me realise how much is has been watered down for television. If you think you’d enjoy frank, funny and full on sex stories then buy this book, otherwise probably best to give it a miss.”) I also quoted it when writing about jogging.

The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl is another book that I have completed. In fact I read this one first, obviously discounted prices and pictures of a scantily clad Billie Piper in some way inhibit my ability to read the word sequel properly. Like the first time but not as tight is both an accurate micro-review and a rather obvious innuendo.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay is a book with a great sense of style and dark sense of humour. You’ll enjoy it either way but if you’ve watched the tv series it’ll add an extra dimension to the characters you already know and make you realise how faithful they were to the original text on screen.

Back in January I alluded to my reading of The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. You should definitely give this a shot. Ignore that it’s chick-lit, ignore the film (I’m told they’ve changed a lot of things for the big screen) and just read this book, haven’t read something that has made me laugh so much in a long time (watch Rebecca’s letters to her bank manager grow more and more ridiculous as the book progresses).

I am currently reading Beloved by Toni Morrison (yes, still).

Frost/ Nixon, as referenced here, is another book I have yet to finish. Dylan on Dylan, mentioned here, also sits on my pile of books to read.

Since then I’ve also picked up The Vice Photo Book (mentioned here, quoted there). I micro-reviewed it as “Between it’s hardback covers Vice Magazine spend 336 pages documenting the shit-stained, sex-obsessed nature of humanity in all its full-frontal full-colour glory”.

I’m also reading Love All the People by Bill Hicks. Bill and Belle make strange bedfellows in my post about jogging. My penultimate read is Rebel Code by Glyn Moody. Yes, it’s a book about open source software, deal with it.

Finally, I am meant to be reading the Bible. I’ve discussed this before and even contemplated buying a New International Version. This Easter Baines bought me a pocket sized NIV (thank you) so now I have no excuse. I have decided that instead of starting from the beginning (again) I’m going to soldier on from Samuel I and attempt to get an overview of the entire book.

1e. Freelance. Ultimate fail.

I need to do something about this.

1f. NaNoWriMo

I have the official National Novel Writing Month book which means I know how to capitalise NaNoWriMo correctly. It’s now just a case of waiting for November and then attempting to write a 50,000 word novel. Somehow I think I’m setting myself up for failure here.

Summary: This challenge has been half completed. If you have any more writing challenges they’re getting a new number because this is just getting confusing.

May

Then it Got Funky

By Scribbleboy 0 Comments

Categories: Site

Like most supervillians Gingell has a thing for big screens, all the better to see your victims on I guess. When she suggested that centring all my blog content would look better on larger screens it seemed like a good idea. It also turned out to be an idea that was a lot easier to implement than expected. All I had to do was replace half a dozen lines of code in the stylesheet. It’s all explained on the WordPress Forum, here’s the code I used;

body {
background: #111;
color: #444;
font: 62.5% ‘Lucida Grande’, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; /* Resets 1em to 10px */
width:1000px;
margin: auto;
}

And it looked good. It looked good in Google Chrome, it looked good in Mozilla Firefox and it looked good in Internet Explorer until you clicked on an individual post. Then it got funky.

When displaying individual posts IE decides to make a bad job of aligning all the content to the left even though it’s using the same stylesheet it used to correctly display the main page.

According to Google, Internet Explorer has always struggled to understand the concept of margins that are automatically sized depending on your screen dimensions, at least IE8 seems to understand it half the time. I tried a number of suggested fixes and only suceeded in messing the stylesheet up so badly that I had to start again.

Here is a list of problems caused by my meddling, reasons unknown and things I’d just like to change. Your opinions on the blog layout and coding expertise are very much welcome.

Fix code so that the content of individual posts is centralised in Internet Explorer.
Move the header a smidge to the left so that it’s aligned to the rest of the design. Found the bit of code I need to change to make this happen, then I lost it again.
In the sidebar’s about section resize the picture of me riding the special bus so it’s the same size as the orange feed button. Rewrite the about text and put some space between it and the picture.
Figure out why all the recent comments switch to a larger font size when you go from the main page to an individual post (this seems to be a problem across all browsers).
For some reason my text no longer wraps around pictures (a perfect example of this can be seen on the about page) find out what the problem is and resolve it. [How to fix this problem here, sure this came as standard last time I installed this theme.]
Internet Explorer displays an x at the bottom of the page to represent a broken image, seek and destroy.
Remove privacy page from the main menu (it’s linked at the bottom of the page anyway and really it’s not that interesting).
Move all the grey box gubbings (details on the author, comments and categories) from the top of the post to the bottom.
Get the blog to stop underlining picture hyperlinks, it looks lousy.
Resolve the 16 validation errors listed here four validation errors.

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About

Born in Paignton, somewhat educated in Stoke-on-Trent and living in Peterborough. I am a footsoldier in the army of the unemployed and an occasional blogger. I spend my days applying for jobs and watching Glee.

I survive on caffeine, willpower and savings alone. This blog is a record of my successes and failures as I try and complete life-improving challenges suggested to me by readers.