Monthly Archive for May, 2006

Paintballing Pains!

Published
by
Adam
on May 19, 2006
in Life, Local, Ramblings and School
. 4 Comments

It was an early start for me this morning as I rushed to make sure that I was going to be on time because, finally, the day of our school tour had arrived! We were going paintballing at DeltaForce in Enniscourthy, just outside Wexford. Having left the school at about 9:30, we arrived there at about 11 where we were given our combat gear and a quick rundown of the rules. We were split into two teams of 23 people each and then set off to the first combat zone. Capture the flag.

I was on the red team and for the first round we had the advantage of the cover of upright pallets and makeshift sheds being closer to us than it was to the other team. The whistle blew and we all ran straight to cover. For about 30 seconds we picked off the opposing team who had no choice but to advance using a thin tree line as cover. Once we had picked off those who were aggressive, we decided to abandon our cover and go for the enemies flag. On the first occassion I popped out though, a stray paintball from across the battlefield came at me and hit me on the arm! Thankfully it didn’t break though and I was okay to play on. I ended up capturing the flag and after a quick break in the safe zone, we were redeployed, where this time the roles were to be reversed.

I knew that we were going to have a hard time because we really were far away from cover. There were three routes that we could take. We could go left by jumping across the stream and negotiating our way through the bog to their base, go through the middle a long the path (which would have been suicidal) or climb the hill to our right and advance from there. I decided against going right because it was covered in thin trees which would provide very little cover while hindering any fast movements to the other side. The left side would have allowed me to peg it to the other side in relative ease as I could use the shed in the distance to hide me from the view of the other team until that is they reached the shed of course. That was the plan anyway.

The moment the whistle blew, I ran through the stream and towards the far lefthand side. Suddenly I felt my left foot sink! It was a sinking feeling (no pun intended), realising that I had run straight into a bog! My right foot was still free but while trying to dodge a barrage of paintballs, I lost my balance and my right foot plunged into the bog! I was well and truly stuck! I called my friend over to help me, but on his way over he was shot a few times in the stomach. Sorry Jackman! Eventually I was pulled free by a marshal but by this time the other team had made it to the sheds which suddenly made any advance up the left hand side incredibly risky! I kept low, but obviously not low enough as I was shot twice in the chest as I strayed towards the middle in a futile attempt to escape the attention of those who were manning the sheds. We ended up losing that round but we were one point ahead because the other team had ventured up to the out-of-bounds roadside during the previous round.

The third game on this battlefield was a variation of Capture the flag where both teams flags were in the middle of the battlefield and it was each teams goal to pick up their flag and bring it to the their enemies base. We started, as we had in the first round, with the advantage of the sheds as cover. Most of the other team went up the hill on the far side and were trying to shoot down into the shed. They were lying down which made it very difficult to see them through a fogged up visor. The only way to get a clear shot at them, I decided, was to try advance up the right side so I could get into a position where the bushes were no longer obscuring them from my sight.

There were already a few of my team trying to advance a long the side so I decided to join them. Just as we were making progress though, we were given the fright of our life as Gavin jumped out from behind a tree and eliminated one of us from point blank range. We were fast to react though and swiftly returned the favour! It was here that I was given a lifeline! I was crouched behind a tree trunk when suddenly a paintball hit me in the face with such ferocious force that it knocked me back into the mud! Once I regained my bearings though, I realised that I was in a perfect position to pick off people who were hiding behind the bushes on up the slope on the opposite side.

I spotted someone (who I later found out was Aaron) trying to descend the slope. I took aim and hit him once or twice on his gun, which counts as a kill! Then I spotted a group of 3 people behind the bushes. I took aim and carefully placed my shots in the their direction. I could see that I hit one of them in the face (which unfortunately doesn’t count as a kill). Then I hit him again. And again! At this stage he could see nothing, so he went to wipe his visor. It was then that I hit him again, but this time on his exposed fingers that were wiping his helmet! Ouch! The light bushes weren’t very effective in stopping the paintballs, which can travel at up to 100mph, from subsequently hitting his comrades who were hiding in similar positions. After about 4 minutes, there was very little enemy resistance so we were able to get the flag and bring it to the other teams base with relative ease.

On our way over to the next combat zone, I found myself accidently talking to Danny on numerous occassions. He must have been in heaven though, because the visor not only concealed and hid his ginger hair, but also his ginger teeth! This seemed to have been a regular occurance though and afterwards many people were complaining of that same thing and in retrospect maybe it would have been a good idea to have forced him to wear a cow bell!

When we reached the next area, we were greeted to a sea of barrels and pallets. In the middle there was a hut, which was surrounded by barrels and somewhere near this there was a flag. It was one teams objective to get this flag and bring it to the capture area while the other team was to start in the hut and prevent the other team from getting this flag. The only catch was that they couldn’t move outside the rough ring of barrels surrounding the hut! They also couldn’t move back into the hut! We were to defend first and to add insult to injury, we were told that the other team had infinite lives and only had to run back to the start point whenever they were shot. We, unfortunately, were subject to the one shot, one kill rule!

Once the whistle blew, we emerged from the shed to see what looked like a platoon of enemies running towards us, guns blazing! I instintively dived for cover as paintballs zoomed by overhead. I threw myself behind a barrel and was pinned down. The sound of the paintballs exploding against the barrel in front of me was almost deafening! I spotted a few people trying to flank us and opened fire. I didn’t have much space to work with to aim as I risked showing a bit of my body to which the savages on the other side of the barrel would have no problem shooting at. Once the people who went for the flank came into view, I knew that my time had come. I was just a sitting duck and eventually a paintball splattered against my chest!

I raised my arm and started walking towards the safe zone. Suddenly, a few metre’s away from it, *spludge!*. I had been shot by a “wayward” paintball and straight into my right nut at that! I immediately hit the ground, convinced that it had just been cleanly removed from my anatomy! I threw away my helmet, which was probably a bad idea because people were still firing around me! Immediately a marshal scrambled to block my head with his hands and told me off. I had to sit out for the next round, where the roles were reversed, during which I just spent the time checking that my nut was still intact! We ended up completing it in 2mins 50secs, which was 5 seconds longer than they spent doing it. On the sideline, if felt like nothing but out on the field it feels like it’s a lot, lot longer. You’ve gotta love those adrenaline rushes!

I was allowed back in for the next game which saw us being handed out baloons which we attached to our ammunition belts. The object of the game was to burst your opponents baloon. The team with the most baloons remaining after 5 minutes was to be declared the winner. I was a bit cautious when it came to me protecting the baloon but right at the end I spotted someone near the safe zone with their baloon inflated and they were still shooting. I fired about 7 bullets into their ass before finally hitting and bursting their baloon. The game ended a few seconds after that when it was observed that there was no one from the blue team remaining!

We thought it was all over, but there was to be a last man standing round where there were no teams, just players with guns and a pain barrier. I bought an extra 2 tubes of paintballs for this, bringing my total amount of paintballs used up to 900. I tried to be sneaky and jump into the middle of a stack of overturned tyres but decided against it because they aren’t the easiest things to get out of in a hurry! When the whistle blew, it was on! There were people everywhere and bullets were coming at me from all angles. It was merciless close quarters combat and people were being absolutely destroyed! At one point I found myself in between two people resulting in me taking a lot of hits to my arms, legs and one to the back of my neck which I imagine would have hurt more, if it wasn’t for the already excruciating pain I was experiencing in my right nut! At the end of it all, my visor was covered in orange paint which I couldn’t remove although I’d like to think that I got everyone else better than they got me!

Once we had made our way back to the base camp we were served a burger, a sausage and about 24 baked beans! When we had finished that and settled our accounts for paintballs that we had bought out on the field, we walked to our bus which was to draw a close to our day of drama. Or so we thought.

At the top of the road there was a corner that was about 180 degrees that even a nimble car would have trouble cornering, yet our bus (a bus full of 46 people) decided to step up to the challenge instead of just going straight on and turning at the end of the road! The result was a bus that was hillariously stuck in a ditch for about 20 minutes before a farmer came to the rescue with his tractor and demanded €20 in return for the favour! The bus drivers non-sensical behaviour was the talk of the bus on the way back and when we finally got back to Waterford, the first thing I did when I got home was check and make sure that I still had 2 pieces of Veg to supplment my big slab of meat! One things for sure though, it’s a battle scar that I won’t be showing everyone!

Ditch bus

Monopoly - My Latest Obsession

Published
by
Adam
on May 18, 2006
in Adam Investigates, Geekiness, Life and Thinking
. 7 Comments

If you know me well, then you’ll probably know that I go through sporadic phases where I’ll be absolutely obsessed with something before eventually growing tired of it and seek something new to try out. Recently, my latest obsession has been that famous board game “Monopoly” which, until 2 weeks a go, was something I rarely played! But then Laura reintroduced me to the game which now threatens to be the subject of all my attention for the coming weeks!

Even if you do know me well, you’d be forgiven for wondering what one could possible obsess about with Monopoly, after all, it’s just a basic boardgame where you win by being lucky, right? Well yes, admittedly luck does play a vital role in the outcome of a game, however so does discovering the right property to buy based on probability. In fact, in the past week or so that I have been addicted to the game, I reckon I’ve spent more time theorising and playing out scenerios in my head about which properties one should own. I’ve also been using the internet to discover some exciting House Rules which make Monopoly more exciting to play!

As for the right property to own though, I can safely say that the orange group of properties (Bow Street, Marlbrough St and Vine St) are the most lucrative! I’ve come to this conclusion because the Jail square is the most visited square on the board thanks to the “Go To Jail” square and the Chance and Community Chest cards which send players there. When coming out of jail, a player is more likely to roll 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 than he is to roll a 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 or 12 which means that there is a very high chance that the player will land on an orange property. In other words, you don’t have to rely as much on luck for people to land on them. And land on them they will! Just you watch!

As for other properties to buy, I’d be inclined to buy the reds as they offer a greater return than the oranges at only a marginal increase in price. If someone rolls low when coming out of jail then there’s a high chance of them landing on a red property, although this will require more luck than the orange properties command.

If you want a real safe bet though, you can’t go far wrong with the railway stations. There are 4 stations which means that a player is more likely to land on a station on a round trip than they are to land a single group of properties. If you own all 4, then you will receive £200 everytime someone lands on one. Over time the money you earn from them will far surpass the amount you initially paid for them all and they become a nice and constant supply of cash to feed the development of your properties later on in the game. The green group, with its Go To Jail square just before it, and the blue group, which only have 2 properties, are generally unattractive to form a monopoly over because they are far too expensive! Although by all means buy the property when you land on it, as you could find yourself making a nice tidy profit on them later which can be used to develop your orange and red properties - properties that you know people will land on as opposed to properties you hope people will land on!

I think I’m going to leave my analysis there. If you just remember that then I can guarentee that you will have a better chance of winning than someone who relies on luck. Although sometimes you can be a victim of wicked bad luck such as rolling a double to land on a fully developed Mayfair and then landing on a chance card which asks you to advance to Mayfair. It’s improbable, but can and has happened in the past! Just remember that winning isn’t everything! Wait, it is! Sorry.

Knackers - Deserved of the gas chamber?

Published
by
Adam
on May 11, 2006
in Current Affairs and Local
. 400 Comments
This was initially just a post about an observation I made about an FM104 discussion about knacker fighting around the country but it has since evolved into a discussion, thanks to a high rank in google for the term “knacker”.

Knackers, you either hate them or you despise them and even the term “hate” is one that many would consider to be too generous! Many people see them as being nothing more than ungrateful, tax dodging, nanny bashing, robbing bastards - complete with a smell that’s less pleasant than a month old food bin! In fact, the mere sound of them trying to appeal to the civilized world for equal rights makes us all shudder on the spot! How, they say, can these barbarians even begin to think of being treated equally when they can’t even face up to the responsibilites of your average citizen. Instead they just jump into their caravan at the first sign of trouble - usually trouble that they’ve stirred up in the first place and expect everyone else to pay for the expensive clean-up operation that follows. And here they are, expecting to be treated like one of us, generally law abiding people! The cheek!

Even I think that the gas chamber would be a bit extreme. I mean, with gas prices as they are, it would cost even more money to be rid of them!

Analysis of recent bebo changes.

Published
by
Adam
on May 9, 2006
in Bebo, Geekiness, News and Ramblings
. 3 Comments

Has anyone noticed that Bebo seems to be a bit quiet as of late? With Summer fast approaching, so are the college exams. College students make up, I’m guessing, the majority of the Bebo userbase. In recent weeks I’ve noticed that there aren’t as many messages being forwarded or comments being left on people’s profiles which is no doubt due to the imminent exams, some of which have already started. Once these exams are over, I doubt that Bebo will be able to re-coup the students who used Bebo as a pastime to overcome the boredom of coursework. Neither will they be able to retain those who will be having an active social life throughout the Summer although I reckon some will choose to keep in contact with friends using Bebo. With a massive decrease in the active userbase, it will be interesting to see how Michael Birch and co manage to cope with the inevitable fall in advertising revenue. Maybe some of the 15 staff brought in to moderate pictures and profiles will have to be laid off? Whatever happens, it’s definitely going to be a lot quieter over the next few months.

Recently, YouTube launched a slightly revamped site with a few new features here and there. For this who don’t know, YouTube is a digital video repository where users can upload videos and then share them with their friends. For the past few months, a workaround allowed Bebo users to use videos hosted by YouTube as their flashbox. However, with this recent update, they appear to have fixed this workaround which has rendered many of the most popular flashboxes on Bebo obselete! The Flashbox feature has always been a big Bebo attraction so needless to day, the update dealt a big blow to Bebo users, some of whom may find Bebo less exciting without this ability!

Thankfully Bebo have been busy working on ways to make peoples profiles more unique and have struck a goldmine with their user-submitted skins. I don’t use the word goldmine lightly either! By allowing users to submit their own skins they will save money on having to hire graphic designers to develop skins for them as well as ensuring that there will be an almost endless amount of skins for users to choose from in the future. This is one of the many advantages that Bebo has over MySpace in that skins are just a one click job. It looks good and is an excellent idea on behalf of Michael Birch and co.

To summarise, I think that the hype of Bebo is dying down. The next few months will paint a realistic picture of Bebos actual popularity which I predict won’t be as impressive as others many think. They have been making efforts to innovate their site, however, as time goes on they will find it progressively more difficult to innovate for a wider userbase which will result in the decline of Bebo. When will this happen? I can’t say right now, but we need only look at the social networking sites of the past that have declined in recent months due to Bebo for us to come to the conclusion that soon another site will come a long and take the internet by storm!

“It’s Ireland’s Biggest Free Paper!”

Published
by
Adam
on May 4, 2006
in Current Affairs, Rant and Thinking
. 4 Comments

At 16 pages and measuring the same as a normal tabloid I’d hardly call it the biggest free paper. Unless they are talking about circulation which at 332,000 copies per month is actually quite impressive. What newspaper could I possibly be talking about? Well I can tell you that it offers “news, features and comment from a Catholic perspective.” and was formed at the request of Pope John Paul II who wanted “an evangelisation that is new in its fervour, new in its methods and new in its expression”. I am, of course, talking about Alive!

Ever since the beginning of Transition Year, without fail, this newspaper has been handed out to an eager Religion class once a month for us to browse through and read it’s intellectual and thought provoking articles which just happen to be riddled with ridiculous amounts of Catholic propaganda which appears to make no attempt to attract new people to Catholism but rather act as a tool to retain existing followers during these troublesome times!

Last month’s edition contained, among other things, a large article on how we should all boycott the box office hit Brokeback Mountain on account of it promoting homosexuality. Calling for a widespread boycott like this doesn’t really promote independent thinking now does it? In this month’s edition, in the ‘Media Watch’ section of the newspaper, they talk about a headline that appeared in the Sunday Times. In the original article the journalist clearly gave their opinion on it, however, in this article Alive tell us what the journalist actually meant to say and what they actually mean by it. Once again, the Catholic Church are telling us how we should interpret everything. Some may call it guidance, but I’d be inclined to call it dictation. It’s a pity that the devoted followers don’t know the difference between the two.

This month they are also talking about the Da Vinci Code, the New York Time Bestseller by Dan Brown. In their report they claim that Dan Brown is painting an inaccurate picture of what actually happened and in a multiple part feature will tell us how we are to interpret the novel. The keyword there being ‘novel’. I find it slightly entertaining that they even feel the need to tell us what Dan Brown means in what’s only a work of fiction! It’s like saying that in the Nursery Rhyme where Jack and Jill go up to fetch some water, Jack and Jill actually find Jesus on their way up and are eternally happy for ever and ever!

Alive doesn’t make for insightful reading, instead, it relies on the shock-factor much like other brands of smut do, such as the Sun, Star, Mirror and so on. It’s content merely serves the purpose of instilling fear into the minds of it’s readers, who after years and years of having to put up with this drivel, know of nothing else. They have been moulded into the shape of a brain-washed drone who will actually believe what being written in this monstrosity of a newspaper! Those of us whom who are strong enough to not get caught up in their sensation gay-bashing stories can only look on in amazement at how some people can be so desperate to retain followers that they would resort to writing such stories. The same level of astonishment can be directed at those who are desperate enough to read and actually believe what this newspaper says!