Sunday, November 06, 2005

Warehouse Stationary

This post was originally posted at http://markkb.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!52714B684A8E80DD!109.entry.


Today I went up to Warehouse Stationary (For any who have no idea what that is, it's a warehouse... with... stationary in it...) to get me some acrylic paint for school (something I've been neglecting to do for... *counts on fingers* one... two... fifty-nine... carry the four... three weeks...).
Anyway, I had barely gotten five meters past the bus stop (our house is behind this bus stop...) when I saw my little bro, Andrew, tagging along behind. Apparently, he wanted to go just for the sake of it. Yay.
So, we rounded the corner of Larnoch, went along Rathgar, crossed the road at the wrong side of Pomaria. (I really hate myself sometimes...) We walked at a rather slow pace down 'Maria (forgetting to cross at the zebra crossing in the middle... ho-hum) with me chatting to Andrew about random stuff.
Nearing the lights, around the bus stop, Andrew found a bunch of old fireworks, and started wacking the pavement with them, causing this powdery-orange stuff to come out. (Being the responcible sibling, I picked them up and put them in the bin... man, I hate being the responcible one...)
So we crossed Lincoln at teh lights, and Andrew asked for some BK. (I told him distincly "no".)
Andrew started talking about needing acrylics for an "art attack" monster thingy ('Art Attack', Disney Channel), and I reluctantly agreed to get him some too. (He has to pay me back every cent... MUHAHA!)
Having gotten our paints, our brushes and nearly run over, we headed off home, when I remembered that I needed to get a few CD-Rs (long...-ger story), and so went into Noel Leemings, paid the guy (and amazingly Andrew didn't notice the XBOX section) and we dodged some more cars on our way to the Lincoln Center lights.
So having crossed Fairdene (which was another way we could have gotten home faster... my brain's having an off day...), walked the long stretch of Lincoln, crossing Pomaria (even though I had, again, no need too... guess it's out of habit...), and walking 2.9524cm, I realised that my bank card was not in the WS bag. Since Andrew had already pressed the button (he seems to have an obssesion woth pressing traffic light buttons), all we had to do was wait... until about five minutes later when I found it in meh pocket.
For the rest of the way down Pomaria, Andrew pretended he was deaf (at least, I think he was), even though he could somehow hear me commenting on the fact that he has no brains. (There's even a little sign in his right ear saying "Space for rent".)
Re-crossing Pomaria at the other end, we came across the remaints of a Keep Left sign and it's melted plastic pole. I picked up a tiny piece of pole for further investigation. I would have taken the sign, but I think the council may need it, and frankly, it's a little too big to fit in my pocket.
Rest of the way home, we did a few of the things we usually do - talk, chat, run around, swing fake plastic swords around (read: he was the one doing the swinging, and I was doing the running).
All in all, an uneventful day.

Cya,
MarkKB

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Introductions...

This post was originally posted at http://markkb.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!52714B684A8E80DD!107.entry.

'Ello! I'm Mark Kéy-Balchin (pronounced BELL-chin, NOT, as some people seem to think, BELCH-ing...), but ye all can call me MarkKB. Or, better yet, simply Mark.
Who am I? Simply put, I'm a geek. An average, ordinary, everyday geek. *pause* Yeah, right, like a geek will ever be ordinary!
What do I like? 1) Computers. 2) Computers. 3) Computers. 4) Programming computers. 5)Playing games... on meh computer. As you can see, I'm a major computer geekarado. I use Visual Basic and Visual C# regularily. (If you don't know what those are, then you're better off not knowing, least you slip into the dark, slimy depths of geekdom.) I also play Age of Empires, and would play AOEIII Trial regularily if it were not for the fact that it doesn't run on teh main computer (stupid graphics card...)
Did I tell you I have a website? No? Well, mosey on down to http://markk-b.tripod.com/! I'm preparing gor a major update, so be sure to check in every month or so...
My second equal interests are as follows: Music, Art, Prose. (You thought I was gonna say science , physics and astronomy, didn't ya, didn't ya! Come on, admit it!) I love singing, though public opinion about aforementioned singing is split: Some think I should go on NZ Idol, and assuming I did, that I would win, and some think that it's some type of crazy new punishment the Board of Ed. thought up.
Art... I prefer CGI (no fumes to inhale) to acrylics. I use a variety of programs to achieve what I want, ranging from Microsoft Paint to Jasc... I mean, Corel Paint Shop Pro, through Macromedia... er, Adobe Flash MX, to Paint.Net and Inkscape. Don't make any sense to you? Oh well...
Prose! (In case yeah don't know, 'prose' is a fancy word meaning 'non-poetry'.) I mainly write fanfiction, and of cause, you can read them at my page on FanFiction.Net.
Third equal is science and geography. I used to be an astronomy nut, but then, one night, when the moon was full, I was bored, and there was nothing else to read, and so I picked up Windows 95 for Dummies... and the rest is history. I'm still greatly interested in astronomy (anyone who tries to tell me that the moon does not rotate had better watch it!), and every now and then I peek in the Cassini/Huygens website (space probe to Saturn).
Geography really is hand in hand with art, and alot of my classmates (that is, the two or three that peak over my shoulder whenever I'm at work on a piece) have remarked on meh maps' similarity with the base map. (This is without tracing, too!)
There is a whole lotta other stuff I like, but right now I'm kinda tired and thus shall now retire to bed. Night, y'all!
--MarkKB