Being Awesome; Part 2

So after one week of a continued commitment to awesomeness I'm certain you are desperate to hear how it's going. Well fuck you I'm going to tell you anyway. First of it's half past two on Saturday night and I'm drinking a massive mug of tea while watching a documentary on the history of science broadcasting on the BBC. So, mission fucking accomplished I think. I've also spent my day overdosing on Sherlock Holmes, two films and two episodes. Now that may not be everyone's particular brand of caffeinated beverage but it's so far up my street as to be knocking at my fucking door. That's the end result of this week but what's the build up been?

Well here is the overall state of play. First up I've not had a single lug of nicotine all week and it's been absolutely fine, seriously it's fine... STOP FUCKING HASTLING ME ABOUT IT I'M FINE! The no alcohol thing has had a slight fuck up... I watched The Room, a movie that requires at least a few glasses of wine, but it was enjoyed in good company so I'm calling it a wash, I did manage a trip to the pub for a friend's, well I say friend he's a tory, birthday drinks and didn't feel an overwhelming urge to plough through Jagerbombs like I'd caught a penis-exploding disease and it was the only cure. I'm also drug free which has brought with it an immense feeling of clarity and is probably the reason that I've already written all of next weeks blogs.

Writing has been a key part of this week with me emptying the contents of my word-jug into the pint glass of my netbook. I've been cracking on with some work on a novel I've had swirling around my in my thought juice for a while, a combination of New Orleans voodoo and noir detective drama. In addition to that I've also fully planned out a book for the under tens that aims to explain the difficult subject of depression, a thorny subject I know but it's a fucking disease and disease doesn't give two fucks about how old you are and if you remember being a kid then you'll know that not having stuff explained to you sucked balls. I'll be getting more into this once I've had a chance to have a proper chat with the person I want to provide the artwork.

In other news I've signed up for my next blood-donation and have a pack sitting upstairs to register myself as a bone marrow donor, what point is there in improving yourself if you have no intention of using that awesomeness you have developed, for with great awesomeness comes great responsibility. Along those lines I've got two other projects I'm going to be setting up over the next few months. One is the 'Sunday Best' project, the aim of this will be to try and organise atheists to volunteer for various causes on Sundays. Why Sundays? Because I want to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that spending a portion of your week on your knees telling a bully how great he is in the hope that it'll put you in his good books is not a good use of your time. Again this'll require some assistance to get off the ground, anyone who reads this and knows enough about web-design to help me build a website to get this organised... it's in the very early, only exists as a vague idea in my head, stage at the present but if it seems like something like the kind of thing that you may be interested in helping out with, please make yourself known in the comments section and we'll see if we can get the ball rolling on this bad boy. The second thing I've been thinking upon is a charity event I'm thinking of organising, basically a computer games themed club-night to raise money for the Child's Play charity that I mentioned a few posts ago. Again if you want to offer your services for this please let me know in the comments.

Oh... I also baked some bread, I really need a bread tin though as I have I keep making very flat and misshapen loaves. Oh and I made this...

Sorry about the 9gag.com watermark but I uploaded it and don't have the original on this laptop.

So yeah, pretty awesome as weeks go. Hopefully I'll have more to report on a number of fronts next week.

eddie <I'm to lazy, to be this busy>

Child's Play

Now I know that I have a very limited readership, I'm guessing most of you either know me directly or are here by mistake (on an unrelated note all off you who keep telling me how much you like this blog... tell other people instead). So it would be a bit weird for me to give over a big old chunk of my time to talk about the activities of a much more successful website. So without further ado I intend to devote today's blog to some of the goings on and happenings over at PennyArcade.

Their logo alone is better than anything I have ever created

I'm well aware that whilst being smaller my readership here is also fairly diverse so if you don't know Penny Arcade, the brainchild of Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, is a web-comic specialising in gaming and dick related humour. That doesn't seem like much until you realise it has been running for thirteen odd years and is a completely functioning business. They've released games, have their own online TV show, been put on that Time magazine list of the worlds most influential people (not the shitty online one where people get to vote, but the real one made by journalists) and run not one but two massive gaming conventions. The best way to explain the influence these guys have to an outsider is simple, the have a policy of not linking to other sites because the massive increase in traffic has been known to completely fuck up other people's servers.

Not my foolish beliefs but those of TIME FUCKIN' MAGAZINE

However I don't want to talk about any of that I want to talk about something that these guys started back in 2003 a little thing called Child's Play. Child's Play started out as a really simple idea, Mike and Jerry, tired of the vast amount of negative publicity that gaming and gamers got in the media, if you are unaware of this may I compliment you on the quality of the rock you live under, decided to do something good. The idea was simple to get their readers to send some of there used games and consoles in and then give them to a local hospital for the children's ward.

Pictured: Something really fucking good.

To call the first drive more successful than anticipated would be something of an understatement. Child's Play is now a full fledged charity. In 2011 they raised $3,512,3345 for 80 hospitals worldwide. Some of you reading this will be thinking that this money might be better spent on helping with medical treatment and the like, but other charities have that covered. Trying to make a child's regular trips to the hospital for chemotherapy less dreadful is one of the most noble things that exists. Anyone who games can tell you how absorbing and engrossing a past-time it can be, and when a child is sick that's exactly what they need. I'm not going to lie to you here letting a kid play Mario at the hospital isn't going to magically make there cancer go away but it let's them be a kid rather than a patient.

The key thing to note in this image is the smile

What prompted me to write this blog today was that during my thrice weekly visit to Penny Arcade I saw a post about that impressive figure I mentioned above. It included this line...

“There was also a short coda about how we're ever going to top that number, which is a fear I understand completely”

... They just raised over three million dollars to improve the lives of sick children and the only thing they focus on is the mountain they have to climb to beat that figure. I'd also like to point out that the man who wrote that line also once wrote this line.

“Every night we are raped to sleep by the dick-wolves.”

Before you ask, No, I will not give you anything even approaching context about that. The point I'm making here is that there are some very good people in the world and they are working exceptionally hard to try and do something good. I implore you to join them in doing this. It's not hard click a link make a donation, £10, £5, £1. Giving to any charity gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside but this one also gives you the most masterful bitch-slap against anyone who bad-mouths gamers, the internet and people who laugh at rape related humour. Seriously just click on the link and have a look and if not then fuck off and don't darken my corner of the internet again.

http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

eddie <go on do something good for once in your worthless life>