Bethesda Headphones Sweepstakes

Bethesda are hosting a sweepstake giveaway for some Astro A40 headphones with customised sides. They look rather cool in case anyone is interested. The competition ends on the 20th December 2011.
You can get to the sweepstake here.

Good luck y'all.

Does Berocca Really Work?

I was watching TV today and saw that Berocca advert, you know the one with the two lumberjacks dancing on a log? Cool dance but it got me thinking - does Berocca actually work?

I'm not an expert in supplements or vitamins or anything like that. I'm as ignorant as most people are so I did a Google search on what other people thought and found. Personally I find Berocca to have no effect on me unless it's in the late evening; I do find myself a bit more awake but then again it could just be a placebo effect. Someone I know finds no change either and he's a good 20 years older than me so, at least for us two it's not an age difference thing.

On Wikipedia, it apparently won the Boots Vitamin Award for 2004 to 2009 but it could be Wikipedia fibbing or people voting for Berocca because it's the easiest one to think of (availability heuristic anyone?). You can see it here if you want.

Wired have an interesting article on what each ingredient does here and seems to conclude that actually Berocca does nothing for you unless your body cannot make its own supply of Vitamin B12 or Biotin etc.

Someone else asked this question on Yahoo Answers (a questionable source of information, I know but have a look) and the highest voted answer was completely against Berocca and its supplier, Bayer. It did seem to spend a bit of time ranting about the company rather than the actual product though.

So in conclusion ... I have no conclusion. People seem to think that what Berocca claims to give is actually not required but you could say the placebo effect is worth it. If you want to spend an average of £5 on a tube of the stuff for a placebo effect, that is.

Remember, I have no knowledge of Berocca at all and the information I found is merely from different sources from a quick search on Google. Do take this with a pinch of salt and look into it more yourself if you really want to know what it does and if you should take it.

The Sims 3 Pets is on its way.

Hello, I know it's been a while since I've blogged last hasn't it?

Well The Sims 3 Pets is coming our way (at least, to us in the UK) at last and I thought I had better put out there Crinrict's great blog post about preparing for Pets and what to do before installing it. Pets is going to change how the game works so a lot of mods and such probably most likely will not work any more, especially scripting and core mods like Awesome mod and Twallan's mods.

You can get to Crinrict's blog post here.

Ciao

Dang!

Just a rant, but why won't my meshing work? ¬_¬
Meshing for The Sims 3 is hard, t'is all I can say.

Satellite

Did you know that the International Space Station (ISS) only arches over the UK's end of Europe once every 50 years?
Me and my parents found out that the ISS was in fact going over France tonight, which meant we could see it. So we went outside and wow! was it bright.
Apparently it's going over again on the 22nd of April directly overhead and will be twice as bright. So take a look ;-)

To the rescue!

My family and I were minding our own business this afternoon pottering in the garden, and what happens? Luna, our resident ninja cat decided to take a swipe at a baby Robin and rendered stranded away from its parents.
So now we've got a baby Robin in an old washed up ice cream tub surrounded by leaves and twigs. Now what?
Apparently, Robins don't like bird seed or crushed mosquitos (which Dad quickly supplied) but do eat cat food. Ok ...
Anyone have any ideas?

Shops

Why do some shops have their air conditioning set to 'As hot or as close to the sun's heat as possible'? We can hardly buy anything if we've melted into a puddle.

April

I love April - it's the one month when I can sing Little April Shower from Bambi. Let the rain commence.

Things I've Learnt

These are the things I've learnt from my wonderful, interesting mother:

1. Never marry a man who thinks he can do DIY - marry a man who can pay for someone else to do the DIY.
2. The saying 'chilly bits' ('nuff said)
3. The song 'Close the Door they're coming from the window'
4. That no matter what you do your younger sister will always be untidy
5. The hot chocolate at our nearest station is really nice
6. If someone ever asks me what's for dinner, I should say: '***t with sugar on'
7. Never, and I mean never hang nice clothes in your wardrobe using wire hangers. Never!

And so many more ...

This is dedicated to you mother dearest <3

My Train Journey

So, it's Monday. Back off to university then for another week of learning and all that.
Mum drove me to the station, she had shopping to do anyway and this way we could say goodbye just before I leave. I readied for tears, just in case.
Everything was going fine, the train arrived and Mum said 'Here's your train' (remember that bit) and I got on and waved goodbye. Off I go.
Hang on, how come the train is going to the right? And isn't it a different type of train than I usually get at this time? Oh, a phone call from Mum.

Me: Hello?
Mum: You're on the wrong train.

So I thank you Mum for saying 'Here's your train' and making me nearly end up in Luton rather than Horsham. Although that was a nice hot chocolate.
Not only that, but about half an hour from my university, what happens - the train is put to a standstill for half an hour in the middle of nowhere because somewhere ahead a car had crashed into a bridge, making it potentially unstable.

So this post is dedicated to my Mum, who made it all happen and Jess, who turns out was on the same train (in carriage 1 whilst I was in 3) and went through it all too.

At least Mum was laughing too much to cry, in the end.

Spring

First snowdrops, then crocuses, daffodils, cherry blossom trees (or Sakura trees for those in the know), daisies, tulips and now blue bells.
I love spring!

New Feature in The Sims 3 Forums?

Still Scary

Hello!
It's been a while, hasn't it?

So far, university life is pretty clean sailing. I sleep more, I eat less and I don't have to juggle several subjects' homework every night. Easy.
I obviously spoke too soon. A few days ago I had ... an exam (dramatic music).
Ok, it was just a quiz - but it was a surprise one! And it made me realise something very important:

No matter how old you get, exams will always be terrifying.

Yum

Just my pudding :-) yum yum.

I Dunno

Just some jokes, because I couldn't think of a good blog post ...

'A man walks into a bar, ouch.' -Carl
'What do you call a chicken who crosses the road, rolls in the mud and crosses over again? A dirty, double-crossing chicken.' -Dad
'Knock knock,
Who's there?
Boo
Boo who?
No need to cry it's only a joke.' -Me
'What do you call a fish with no eyes? Fsh.' -Catherine
'Two goldfish in a bowl, one says to the other, "how do you drive this thing"?' -Mum

That's it. Anyone got any better ones?

What's with the electricity?

As some of you may know, I had a rant about the plumbing in the building I live in on campus at my Uni. It's all fixed now (at the moment).
But now, nothing less than a power cut happens and makes every socket in the building obsolete. Of course I spent a good hour thinking my computer wasn't working and then sussing out EVERYTHING wasn't working and then just sitting there fuming about the injustice of it all.
So, I went to my seminar and hoped everything would be fine when I finished. Then I started thinking of the things I could do when I got back: play Sims? Ah, no. No power. Make some tea? Nope, no power. Microwave some lunch? No power! I'm lucky it's daylight or I'd have no way to read my book.
What the heck is there to do without electricity these days?
Picture: the front of my computer with its little light, which is ON!
Powerrrr! Hoorah!

What's with the plumbing here?

Seriously, my university is great when it comes to helping out students and stuff but how come it can't look after its buildings properly?
Take, for example the fact that last semester a lot of students on campus were suddenly bereft of hot water (or water at all) for a couple of weeks. And the pipes near my radiator started leaking - great that would be a wet school bag and damp, smelly washing to go with the soaked floor too. Thanks.
And now, being a new semester of course the university should have some more casualties. The pipes in my room started leaking again (luckily I caught it before it had a chance to ruin my new netbook) and scarily Springfield 5 (or was it 6? Whatever) had a proper flood and had to evacuate all of its students into temporary lodging. That's 24 students struggling to move all of their stuff in one visit (they were only allowed to go back once) and then dealing with their studies whilst unpacking.
Ok, they only have to live somewhere else for two weeks, but that's still a bother. Mr. Plumber (who I've become quite good friends with thanks to all the plumbing fiascos) told me today that in Springfield 5 (/6) the roof had actually collapsed with the hot water piping spewing its contents everywhere. Nice.

So all in all:
Plumbing = 1
Chichester = 0

Sims 3 #4

Well the forums are abuzz tonight about a 'leek' found about the newest Sims 3 expansion pack, which might be called 'The Sims 3 Generations'.
The most prominent forum topic is http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/346420.page
But of course, it is all rumour.
One person mentioned how the SimGurus (mods of the forum) must hate all the bickering about these things when SimGuruMeatball then said 'No, quite the opposite. We love seeing how passionate you all are about what we make, it makes all the long hours and hard work worth it. ( Despite all the complaining)' which someone else then remarked 'so are you admitting that these rumors are 'true'? which is a good point.
Soo some people think it's going to be announced tomorrow, and some on Tuesday because there is a gaming conference on that day.
But I really want to know now >.< Gahh!

New legacy :D

I looked at AngelOfAFallen's idea of a 'Differences in the Family Tree' legacy and thought I'd give it a go :D so here I am.
My Sim is Fleur Varina, she's a Green Thumb, Love the Outdoors, a Hopeless Romantic and Easily Impressed aaaand Family-Oriented. Hoorah.
Well the first generation is meant to pretty much be a farmer, so here we go ^-^

Above: Fleur Varina in her new house.

Clash of the Titans

Nothing against Louise Leterrier or any of the writers of Clash of the Titans which came out last year, but against the actual Greek myth of Perseus the movie hardly matches up ... at least according to the Wiki plot.
Still, after watching it for the second time today I still enjoyed it and I did like their take on the CGI used. Hmm.
Another movie that annoys me is Iron Man (and Iron Man 2) as the writers seemed to have just pulled at random parts of the full story of Iron Man and included them in the movie (technically, Stark shouldn't get the funky generator thing in his heart until much later in the whole thing).
And Batman! Ugh! How can Harvey Dent/Two Face die when he's supposed to kill Dick Grayson's (the first Robin) parents and cause Richard to become adopted by Bruce in the first place? I hope that doesn't mean they won't be putting a Robin in to the Batman movies ...

Anywho, rant over.

Unusually Small Doors

Today I worked with Dad and my sister Catherine in Canary Wharf. On the train back Dad handed me his Kindle (which I'm really jealous of, by the way) and showed me an interesting fact.
We've always seen the tiny doors in Petworth on the way to my university, they hardly reach your waist some of them. We always assumed that they're so small simply because, then people were small. Turns out they're so small just because in those days doors were expensive (like windows) and so the smaller they were, the less money it cost to make them.
Sounds far more logical than our short-people theory. After all, stooping is free.