Worm's World

So, we're however many hours in, (it's 9:10am and we started at 5pm yesterday) - I've grabbed some sleep, drank some coffee and now I'm just waiting for people to wake up, drift in. It's all quite chilled and quiet - which is odd since it's a much larger Jam then last years. We've got 70 students, in 10 teams making games. Last year we only had 40. I'm sure the pace will pick up as caffeine kicks in - until then Check out the Staffs Games Academy Blog <- all the links, photos and things are up there. We also have a spotify playlist which is open for you to add things too.

Gosh these are pretty...

One of my students linked me to a machinima video for Katy Perry's California Grrls, made in Sims 3 It would appear I turn up 38 secs in. I've played around with the screen cap in picknic, I may yet photoshop it to just say Nia... In other news, survived Week 1 of term, went out for a lovely curry at Karma II last night with Pete and I promise to be productive today and now just play Tropico, like I did yesterday... Update..

(because it's easier to blog then to do) My Beast of a PC a) still needs a better name and b) won't fit under my old £9 computer desk thingy . So we're going to turn what is currently my study / 2nd spare room into just my study - for awesome phd work and game playing. I had a look at lovely vintage desks today, but none of them fit the bill - so we're off to Ikea tomorrow to buy this (I know it isn't cool or sexy, but it's functional, cheap, and everything will fit - although I'm torn between it in white or black ). Before then I have a bunch of stuff I need to do - In a specific order I think: Move my Wonder Woman print Empty the smaller of the bookshelfs onto the bed Unplug the PC and move it out of the way Clear the Computer Table, move it out of the way Put book shelf #1 where the computer table was - and put the books back on it. Put the computer table (hence fourth as know as bookshelf #2) where comics and shiz in boxes will live Clear the bed - an

I think this is the only cookbook I've seen that needs a parental advisory sticker. He also talks about himself in the 3rd person, changes everything to include the words 'bro' or 'pimp' and keeps his herbs and spices in dime bags like they're drugs. I'm not making this up - it's a bit disappointing the recipes are so ordinary. It turns out there's a whole set of cookery shows to go with this...

Some times having a gazillions cookbooks at my disposal isn't good enough, so I hit our lovely local library for inspiration. I have my heart set on a sunny foreign holiday this year, some where Arabian (whatever that means) - hopefully this might inspire me. I think it's on my wish list too.

(you will note neither of these are ticked off - it's been one of those days)

It's been so long since I actually sat down and played a lot of games in a short space of time, I'd almost forgotten that computer games are the reason I've got anything resembling a career at all. So, since I've plunged headlong into reintroducing myself to gaming, and PC games specifically I though I'd write about some of the things I've been playing over Christmas and impression I've got before I get stuck somewhere in Arkham Asylum*. Gaming equipment I should round up, there's 5 things I play games on these day: My New Pc - Umm, fast... My Netbook - Dell Mini 10 I think My Phone - Samsung Galaxy S on the Android platform My Nintendo Wii My Nintendo DS (Although I haven't exactly been playing much on this since I lent it to one of my FYP students) My New Years Resolution to get better at playing with PC games coincided nicely with the Steam Sale, which was already full of shiny things to play. I also made a decision to stop playing Facebook Gam

Right, it's been tinsy little bit of a whirlwind since Christmas so here's a few highlights: New PC Hoorah - I have a new PC, a big, shiny beast of a thing. Which means I can put my steam library to good use (and have been). If you want to add me on Steam please do. Exciting Tickets Some of our Christmas money went towards buying tickets for Nerd-fest 2011 - The Uncaged Monkey 's tour. It will mark the the 2nd time I've seen Ben Goldacre (Jess and I snagged tickets to his talk at Aston Uni) and Prof Brian Cox (D:Ream supported East 17 at the CIA in Cardiff- that was probably the first ever gig I went to) on stage. New Blog: Vanity Project ahoy: http://nombooks.blogspot.com/ <- Decided to find a way to catalogue my cookbooks, I've also got a New Years resolution to cook out of all of them, well any of the ones I haven't already cooked out of . New Term Yeah to be back in work - I like work, it makes me happy - and most of my marking is done now, but it

Now available .44 pistol's debut album 'served raw' (I was trying to get Pete to sign his copy but he wasn't playing!!) It's a proper CD and everything - I'm very proud... a bargain at £10!!

Some rather dubiously related Marvel Superhero recipes, genreally some pretty dubious recipes

The idea behind this is as a new couple in the 60's you would learn to cook simple meals that you could easily double up when entertaining. Used as the basis for our Life on Mars finale evening

Author: Arabella Boxer Date: 1975 Immortalised in this episode of Giles & Sue live the Good Life: A Good Christmas - It also probably the most frighting cookbook cover I've ever seen...

This is so very well used in our house, there's a recipe for devil's sauce over grilled fish that's amazing. This is also a treasure trove of recipes for squirrel.

Author: Gill Partington Date: 2007 Published: SAQI  Amazon Link:  The Axis of Evil Cookbook How does one pass up the opportunity to buy this, for 99p from Oxfam?

This blog ties in with one of my new year’s resolutions - To cook something from each and everyone one of my cookbooks by the end of the year. What hasn’t helped is I keep buying new cookbooks - and the more I build up this blog, the cookbooks I want to buy… I've tagged every book I haven't yet cooked from here

Date: 2004 Published: Marks and Spencer / Exclusive Editions A gift from my best friend who was amused by the name. We make the mini Silton & walnut tarts every time we host a party

Author: Sarah Brown Date: 1986 Published:  Dorling Kindersley My Husband is a Veggie, so we always keep an eye out for good veggie cookbooks, mainly they hail from the 80’s, and the high point of wholefood cookery, and perms. Cheese & Lentil Loaf (our go to lentil loaf recipe)

Author: Delia Smith Date: 1982 (Original 1978) Published: Book Club Associates Houses should come with a copy of this, not the silly ‘classic’ one, this one, with a wonderful recipe for pizza that uses a 9inch cake tin and pretty much everything has wholemeal flour

Author: Vicky Smallwood Date: 2002 Published:  D & S Books The irony is, we don’t own a bread machine any more…

And so it begins, earlier in the year we converted the shelves in the pantry to hold our growing collection of cookbooks. it’s the first time we’d moved them since we moved into our House 3 years agio. Now they were easier to get at, I suddenly started using them more, and this led to some frustrating hunting for specific recipes - and a general feeling I wasn’t 100% sure what we had covered, and if there were any gaps in the collection. So, toying around with ways to use Tumblr, I thought using it as a database - tagging the books and making it easy to search. I've since moved this to Blogger for quicker integration with my Android phone. I’m not going to post up recipes, but it should be enough to jog my memory on what’s in each one, and maybe it will be interesting for the world - I doubt it, but you never know.