The Chainbreaker

I'm about to do a bad thing: I've been nominated for an award (namely the Versatile Blogger Award), and part of the rules stipulate that I should nominate another 15 bloggers.  Well, I'm not nominating anybody, because I know a lot less that 15 other bloggers, and the ones I know, I know are already nominated.

My nomination comes via Sam, so I shall start by saying: Thank you, Sam, and recommending that the rest of you go and have a read of http://numb3r5s.wordpress.com.

In the process of listing his nominations, Sam has not only handed me this thing, but also single-handedly rendered me unable to fulfil the rules, as the other people I'd have nominated myself - most notably Tim (http://opencgda.blogspot.co.uk) and Hannah (http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com) - are already on Sam's list.  Does failure to pass on new nominations equal declining your own award?  I'm not sure.  But either way, I'm afraid I've got to break the chain.  Sorry about that!


- The Colclough


Edit, several hours later

I knew I was forgetting something: I was supposed to mention seven facts about myself.  So, um... seven things that I haven't already told y'all...

...uh...

...*scratches head*...

...here goes:

1. I usually shave on about a six-day cycle.  Basically, I have a clean shave, and then don't get round to picking the gadget up again until my face starts itching, which tends to take six days or thereabouts.  I picked this as a fact to mention because I was in the middle of my nearly-weekly shave when I suddenly remembered I'd forgotten a chunk out of this post.
2. I've collected several dozen special-issue 50p, £1 and £2 coins.  I don't know exactly how much the collection is worth, either in terms of its face value or what another collector might pay for it, but I don't really care, as the whole point in collecting them is that they're my collection, and not for sale.
3. It's not that I don't like limes, but they don't seem to like me - at least not if I eat much of it in one go.
4. I've never owned a car.  Since I started learning to drive, my parents have had four different Fords (a 1996 Galaxy, a 2009 Mondeo, and two different Fiestas), of which I have driven all except the Galaxy.  I'm in no hurry to break the family Ford-driving habit.
5. I think all of the odd-numbered Star Trek feature films (including the 2009 one) and most if not all of the even-numbered Windows releases (including 98, Vista a.k.a. NT6.0, and 8) are rubbish.  You probably don't want to get me started on all the reasons why.
6. My drawing career has embraced all sorts of different types of paper, starting with ordinary copier paper, side-stepping to take in that weird stuff with the tear-off strips up the side with all the holes in, which you don't really see much any more, then getting ambitious with enormous bits of wallpaper backing sheet, taking to a cartridge pad with great enthusiasm, and most recently dabbling with watercolour 'paper', which is actually more like a type of cardboard.
7. My taste in computer games is rather specific: the vast majority of the games I've enjoyed are puzzle-solving ones, and many of them involve screwing around with physics (e.g. Antichamber, Portal 1 & 2, Quantum Conundrum and arguably QUBE).  The other thing that appeals to me most in games is humour (e.g. DLC Quest, and Portal again).  My most recent acquisition is The Bridge.

Landmarks, Challenges and Ze Future

Okay, I missed it.

As in, I wrote my 150th post on this blog, back on Tuesday, and didn't even realise I was doing it.  In my webcomic Cylinder and Miserable it's a long-standing joke that the characters stop to comment on the passage of strip numbers every 50th episode, or more recently they make a point of complaining about the long-standing joke, or just make a point of refusing to comment altogether.  But over here on A White Horizon, I didn't even know I was doing #150 until after I'd hit the 'publish' button.

Still, you could argue that 150 is only a half-landmark, and the next 'proper' one is #200 (which I'll try and make a point of doing something special for, although I'd probably be hard-pushed to do anything as impressive as Sam's 200th post back in June), so I'm not too upset about my failure to spot it.

That, and Tim said he nearly died laughing at what turned out to be my 150th, and I guess a blog post that almost kills your best friend is fairly momentous, even if not quite in the right way, so you could say the landmark didn't quite go unmarked after all...


That was the Landmarks bit.  Now for a comment on Challenges.

As you may have noticed, my first blog post of 2011 was my first of 11 submissions in the "First 11 for '11" challenge against Hannah, and my first blog post of 2012 was my announcement of the free-for-all "First 12 for '12" challenge, which I ended up losing pretty badly to Hannah, Sam and Tim.

As you may also have noticed, this is my third post of 2013, Sam and Tim have also been blogging since the Auld Lang Syne was sung, and none of us have mentioned any "First 13 for '13".  Which is because it isn't happening.  I'd forgotten about the whole thing, Sam had opined that a speed-based challenge probably isn't the best approach (and I've been thinking he's right), and Tim said he's too busy to take part in any blog challenges this winter.  So all things considered, we decided not to bother.

It's also worth noting that Hannah hasn't blogged once since the 24th of last February (almost 11 months ago, do the math), and sad as it may be, it rather seems that the world's greatest sheep-obsessive blog is dead.  Particularly poignant and stuff for me, as hannahlikessheepbaa was really the blog which inspired this one in the first place.  It's largely her fault I blog, and largely my fault Tim blogs, so A White Horizon and OpenCGDA have lost their spiritual parent and spiritual grandparent respectively.


And that leads me on to the last of my three points: Ze Future, or Ze Lack of Future, for a certain other blog.

In light of the impact made by hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com, I think it would be fitting for the blog's surviving friends and relations to give it a dignified send-off, and to that purpose I intend to arrange a virtual funeral.  I was thinking that everyone who has appreciated Hannah's blog over the years could join together on the anniversary of its last known sign of life (i.e. on the 24th of this February) to pay their respects by writing about the general significance of Hannah's blog to them and about which of her posts they liked best and why.  I thought we could also propose a selection of music which would embody the memory of the departed and express our feelings at their departure, and round the whole thing off with a virtual post-funeral lunch comprising food items chosen for their relevance to Hannah's blog.  I'm nominating This Is Gallifrey and fish-custard in the latter two categories...

I seem to remember discussing the funeral idea with somebody already, but I can't remember who it was.  Anybody who has any fondness for Hannah's blog will of course be welcome to attend / participate.

Obviously, if the corpse suddenly comes back to life then that would radically change the funeral plans (maybe rework them as a resurrection party?), but until that happens, I'm planning to proceed on the assumption that the funeral is a thing.


- The Colclough