Well, I did call this The Useless Ambition for a reason.

So, well, here we are then It's been a while. As you might guess, I pretty much failed the challenge real hard. BUT. New Year's and all that, it's a time of change, and naturally I've vowed to start writing more, again, so I've decided to give this blog thing another go.

I'm in the process of inventing a rough kind of schedule that will mean an update of some kind every weekday. It's probably not going to be 200 words a day, and it's likely not to be adhering to the original rules of the challenge, but I figure anything that provides some sort of structure will be good.

Plans include amusing drunken stories (of which I have a few), stuff I find online that's hilarious/informative/awesome, and of course, boring drivel about the life of me.

At some point there will be a tedious and long winded post about why I stopped doing the updates, which I invite all to ignore when it comes up.

So, let's get this old girl started up again.

Day Seventy Six: BLEH MUST POST NOW

So I've been dicking around with all the import notes settings on Facebook, and I think the entire thing is just completely borked. There's no real way for me to import blog entries as notes without it cutting off at some arbitrary point, unless I feel like doing it manually each time I update. And man, that is another level of just sheer, I cannot be arsed to do that.

Also, it would detract from my much valued "playing Left 4 Dead" time. Because holy shit I cannot get enough of this game. Steam has this funky little ranking system where it adds up all the games and the time you spend playing them, and then gives you a rating from 1-10 depending on how many hours you've spent in-game.

Now normally, my rating would hover around a 1 or 2 ('El Terrible' and 'Nearly Lifeless' respectively), and then maybe jump up to about a 4 ('Master of Nothing') whenever a new episode of Half Life came out or while I was playing Portal nonstop for that magical month when it was first released.

Left 4 Dead has elevated my to the high echelons of 7 ('Wax on, Wax off'). This is a bit rediculpus now. It's my third year at uni, I should really be doing reading, or writing coursework, or something. Not killing zombies.

Although, hey, looking at the rest of the ratings, it looks like Valve are continuing the Karate Kid theme. The next level is 'COBRA KAI!' I think I might have to earn that just on principle. Back to the grind I guess.

Also, I cannot get this tune out of my head so I will have to listen to it on an infinite loop until my brain explodes. Thank you and goodnight.

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Now playing: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour / Around The Bend

Day Seventy: So here's a story

OKAY FOR SOME REASON FACEBOOK IS GAY AND CAN'T DO ENTIRE NOTES IN IT'S SYNCING SERVICE. SO CLICK VIEW ORIGINAL POST IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ON MY DRUNKEN RAMBLINGS.

ALSO I DON'T KNOW WHY I STARTED TYPING THIS IN CAPITALS AND NOW I CAN'T SEEM TO STOP.

Anyway.

While I was back home and without internet, I'd be checking all my favourite blogs and sites, and I'd keep seeing people updating with "Yeah, I'm playing too much Left 4 Dead right now, but I'll be back soon" and I'd think that those dudes were total losers. I mean, how good can one game be? I've played addicting games before, and I still managed to keep the blog going. Jesus, these people are just really lazy.

So, obviously, that's what I've been doing for the last couple of days. It helped that James' birthday managed to land right on the Thursday evening, which wiped me out both for that evening and also the following morning, due to a nine am start doing TV sitcom, which incidentally promises to be even wankier than animation. I even used the term "post-modern" in the first seminar. It doesn't bode well for anyone who wants to watch telly with me ever again.

So, Friday night, and I figured I'd do a double update to compensate for the missed one. Until I remembered I had another party to go to. It was just over the road. And also I'd apparently and very drunkenly promised Chris that "Oh yeah mate I'll definitely be there mate no worries mate I'll see you there dude."

So, house party (with awesome bottle opening hat) and another lazy morning later, I decided to do my double update on Saturday and make many many amusing jokes about the whole situation.

Then I ran into both James coming round and getting drunk with me while we played left 4 dead before leaving with the rest of my house for the LCR which was pretty brutal.

So I've made it to sunday, and I'm kind of just lying in bed after eating far too much bacon, as expertly prepared by both Kate and myself, and I decide to give Left 4 Dead a quick blastthrough.

And that takes us through to now, where I've actually had it turned off for more that an hour, but it is still five in the fucking morning. Honestly, the problems I've got are far too much for just one post, so I'm just going to say sorry for the lapse in updates dudes, but they will resume in the regular fashion this monday. Which is technically today but I'm going to go ahead and work a little blogger magic to pretend that that never happened...

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Now playing: Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack - Season 3/ All Along The Watchtower (From 'Crossroads, Part 2')

Schedule for the next couple of days.

So, I'm coming back up to uni this Saturday. I won't be restarting updates then, as I'll probably be busy with the minutiae of unpacking, then getting drunk and explaining in slurred phrases that I deeply love everyone at uni, before falling over in the bathroom and passing into blissful unconciousness.

However, the plan is, when I get up on Sunday, after clearing the beer bottles from my desk, and removing I'll piece together something about Christmas (Yay, I got some shoes) New Years (Let's see how many people I can send a text with "more like new years GAY" in) and everything in between (Man, Fallout 3 will actually make me fail this year. Shitballs.)

Then, updates will restart on Monday, as I continue the vaugely aimless and boring ramblings every single weekday, tirelessly broadcasting my thoughts into the void, endlessly spinning out the tiring dullery of an average student in packaged boredom. Forever.

See you Sunday!

Day Sixty Six: Site news, and what the hell happened to last weekend. I mean seriously what the fuck.

So, damn. That was a good couple of days.

I was still awake Thursday morning, having spent the preceding 24 hours solidly writing up two essays for politics and animation. Finally met up with James on campus at around twelve, and spent about an hour getting them both printed off and handed in. I also laughed at Karine and Scott, who had also both been up all night, but in the library. Scott was particularly amusing as his essay was about half the length of everyone else's, and Karine as she'd been in the same damn spot of the library for about three days in a row, or something completely fucking retarded like that.

A smart, rational person would have then left campus, filled with joy in his heart, and gone back to bed. My friends, you know me. I am not that guy. I went to the bar with James, and we drank beers. Several beers. I had Matt, who I believe talked to you Thursday, arriving, so I made him come to the bar, and have a beer. Then, bidding farewell to Nicki, Damien and Callum, who had arrived at the bar at some point, I went back with Matt. And there we continued drinking even more. Two crates of Budweiser gone before we left the house again. I was taking Matt to the Christmas LCR.

I think Kate, James, Emily and Camden were with me here as well. It's a bit blurry. I remember arriving at the LCR, and having to exchange tickets for a wristband which was our magic pass to everything that was there, the bumper cars, the spinning whirligig thing, and the LCR, which featured the magic of the one and only Vengaboys. Truly an exceptional evening. I drank an awful lot of Vodka Red Bull, I was rude to an exceptional number of people, I co-ordinated attacks against people on the bumper cars and I rode the whirligig thing so much that I nearly threw up. Somehow, me and Matt were able to walk home to sleep for a couple of hours.

Friday was my birthday, and I had Mike coming up. Or down rather, from his Uni and then catching a lift with us home. So, we head to the greasy spoon, get baconed up, and then wander to town to meet Nicki Callum and Damien for beer & burger at Spoons. It was magnificent, but it hurt. So much meat. Post-crippling burger, we grabbed Mike from the station, then went to Sainsburys to buy a shitload of beer. And some fake red bull. And vodka.

So, house party time, and Me, Matt and Mike have cleared off a case of beer before anyone else has arrived. At some point we played N64. My memory isn't entirely clear, but I'm pretty sure I kicked everyone's asses. later on, we were playing King's cup, and while I don't remember playing a whole much, I do remember being forced to down a dirty pint that was half filled with Thom's mulled wine. After that it all gets really fuzzy. I remember kicking a cat at some point. It was probably being a cunt. I'm pretty sure at some point I jumped up and down on Matt's car, because he won't stop reminding me about that. Then, towards the end, Callum, Mike and Matt came back with my birthday gifts, which consisted of a cone, a massive roadsign, and an advertisement for double glazing or some shit on a massive wooden stake. This was totally fucking awesome. As that evening wore down, I think I passed out, because I don't remember going to sleep watching Wayne's World, although I am assured that we did.

Saturday morning was not good. We woke up early, again. And we ate a shitload of bacon, again. It took me far too long to get packed up, and I'm sure I've forgotten several important things as well. When we finally set off we stopped by the co-op to get juice, and Mike found a half-drunk mug of Jack Daniels and coke in the glove box. I have no words to describe this.

We finally made it home after a deeply painful journey. I had considered updating my blog that evening, but I was so unspeakable tired that I ended up going to bed ludicrously early. Then, on Sunday, my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandparents all came round and were stubbornly nice to me, no matter how much I insisted that I was still the same horrible person. Then, to close out the evening, I got drunk with my cousins, my sister, and Mike, who had come round for reasons that I cannot recall at this time.

So, it's Monday evening, and I should be getting right back into my normal schedule of blogging every day, right? Well, no actually. See, I'm taking a break for the holidays. It's for a number of reasons, involving my home's shitty internet access and the fact that I need to use the family computer to type online, but the main point is that I don't want to be one of those guys who are blogging about their families and whatnot. I've been that guy. He's even less fun than the one I am at the moment. So, from now, consider The Useless Ambition on hiatus. I think over 1000 words should be enough to tide you over for a bit. I may post sporadically over the holiday season, but updates will officially resume when I return to university in early January, and I have actual things to talk about. Until then, good people, it's been real. A special shout-out to all those people who I saw over the last weekend period, including all Thursday and Friday, and everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Facebook. You are all especially lovely. I'll see you in the new year, when The Useless Ambition will be back, with even more daily aimless rambling and drunken chats about TV and movies. I'll talk to you all soon.

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Now playing: What the fuck, my computer doesn't even have this? Fuck this shit.

Day Forty One: Technical Difficulties

So, you might have noticed that there was no real update yesterday. Or rather, there was, but it was simply titled "Wait" and had a picture of Brad Pitt from Burn After Reading. That is because when I got back to university on Monday, I realised that for some reason, my internet wasn't working.

Shit.

Okay, so I try doing a System Restore. Despite me not having touched the computer over the weekend, something has gone wrong, so I'll take it back to before the weekend to change whatever crazy shit happened to it while it was turned off.

Nothing. And this is after waiting about half an hour for the Restore to take place.

Shitballs.

Alright, let's reinstall some drivers, that is generally a pretty standard fall-back. Only problem is, my CD drive has a habit of being a bastard and not working whenever I need it for something, which is pretty much every day, so I copy the CD onto my portable hard drive via Kate's computer, and do the driver thing.

Still nothing.

Cocking Shitbastardballs.

It's at this stage that I give up, and go out to Carnage, which I'll tell you about later today.

So I wake up, very hungover in the morning, and try plugging the computer directly into the modem, because holy fuck, I need Internets.

I'm currently writing this from the floor of my living room. The entire computer is in here with me, much to the disdain and horror of Emily. But, it's working wirelessly! I have no idea about the technical reasons for this. Maybe my network card was having an existential crisis, wondering if that mythical wireless network it was always connecting to was truly real. Indeed, is this not a beautiful metaphor for each of us, spinning through the void, desperately hoping to connect?

No, it's not. My PC just decided to be a cunt to me. The Bastard.

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Now playing: Nothing. My speakers aren't plugged in.

Day Thirty: Hah, the one month anniversary!

Gosh. This is far further than I expected I'd get. Thirty fucking days, of nonstop churning out retarded crap is all well and good, but when it's me attempting to stick to a regular schedule and I actually achieve this goal, well, I think that allows me a little moment to reflect on just how fucking awesome I am.



FUCK. YES.

All right, admittedly this blog does tend to just be aimless ramblings about me, or about TV with a level of critical analysis that would make my lecturers vomit if they were to read it, and tends towards long, rambling entries about nothing much in particular. However, I'm just happy about the fact that I've managed to keep this up for as long as I have. The point of this blog was never to produce works of soul searing quality; precise and beautiful lines of prose that make the reader humble and weak, inspiring men and awing women.

I mean, it does that already, so that's not really an issue. The point is, that I'm just happy that I was able to stick to a schedule without cheating...for the most part. I've bent the rules on a couple of nights, but I've always had an update, every weekday, for over a month now. And the fact that I was able to stick to that, pointless and stupid though it may be, still makes me very happy.

Also, I still have an essay to do. So, fuck you, I'm going to go write some more of my essay, and then weep uncontrollably because I just. can't. finish. it.

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Now playing: Guster / I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today

Site News

I hope it's understood that the weekend doesn't count as part of the challenge.

Why?

FUCK YOU, that's why.

Day One: The Challenge is laid down.

Hi there.

My name is Andrew Anderson, and I am a Film and English Student at UEA.

I've had a couple of blogs/websites in the past, and while I generally enjoy writing them, I inevitably get bored, forget to update, and the the site slowly, and painfully, dies. So, it is with this in mind that I have decided to try again, but this time, with enforced rules.

1: I will update this blog, at least once a day, for the next year.

2: Each update will have at least 250 words, be legible, sane, and vaguely interesting. Even if I define 'interesting' as 'stuff only I care about or am interested in'

3: Links, either to other sites or youtube or any of that shit are only permitted if I write about them. A link instead of content is not acceptable.

4: Am I up to 250 words yet?

No? Right, okay then. You might ask, imaginary reader, why I am doing this. Well, it's simple. I'd like to be a writer of some kind one day. The only problem is that I'm lazy. Well, not so much lazy as totally unable to commit to some kind of regular schedule. If I get the urge, I can write, and ramble on for quite some time, but its forcing myself to sit in front of the computer and actually do something productive that's the issue. So, I'm setting down this challenge for myself, in the hopes that it will actually get me motivated, more willing to write, and ultimately, actually improve my writing abilities.

So, why is this called 'The Useless Ambition'?

Because I'm pretty sure I'll break down and go insane within the first week of trying to do this.

In that eventuality, I'll film the mental breakdown and put it up instead.