i am sparticus: Words
and the winner is...
Mr. Lardpony has won the grand iamsparticus give away. Gaining himself a phone, when I persuade my parents to track down my old sim card (don't worry I know where it is exactly, I think).
In other exciting news, I fixed BOTH the problems that where annoying seb (thank you, thank you very much).
So with that out of the way I can retire to bed, safe in the knowledge that tomorrow is another day.
(oh and monday is pixxe's birthday, so don't lets forget eh?)
I love my phobile moan (© steph 2002)
In the words of that old dude from Futurama (don't axe it fools) Good News Everyone!
Today the proud people at iamsparticus.co.uk can offer you TWO exclusive deals. Firstly as much promised lately, we've finally sorted out that web -> phone thing thats been so talked about. Yes now you really really can send me text messages, although try to keep it under 120 characters because the javascript limiter function isn't working yet.
Anyway, here's the lovely form
The Second brilliant and amazing news is that iamsparticus.co.uk is giving away 1 free phone! that's right! if anyone wants a seimens c35i with an O2 pay as you go sim card (if I can find the spare unused sim card and if O2 will still let it be used) all they have to do is comment or text or msn me. If you've got a phone don't expect to get it, as two phones is greedy, and if you tell me why exactly you want it then your case may be strengthed somewhat.
Exciting annoucements over.
Homestarrunner
I did have something of great and wonderful relevance to say tonight, but I forgot it....
I finally got my new phone working, so if you haven't got a text from me e-mail me asking me for it.
However I suppose I could waste this vaulable space saying how great home star runner is. Especailly the Strongbad e-mail bit. It's very flash and very funny. bwahahaha
postal mayhem
Today was one of the most satisfying days ever.
Apart from getting up early, and forgetting my bible when I went to this deep theological training thingy (called cornhill for some reaon).
I manged to get my train on time, get a copy of NME, get a bus, not fall asleep all day, find out the sandwich shop was selling super cheap sandwiches, got a bus and a train home in no time, managed to get a lift from the train station to home, to find a copy of the new {tctc} single AND my wonderful tiny minature camera. It's great! I'll take lots of photos tomorrow but for now all you need to know is that it's half the size of a credit card and about 1.5 cm thick. It really is that small, and takes ACE photos! AND looks dead funky! AND it came with free sweets. Everyone go to Firebox.com and give them love.
Oh and 02 sent me an e-mail telling me that they would have my phone fixed by monday at the latest, and they where taking a tenner of my bill for this month. Huzzah. Still a bunch of fools though
Update
Oh and I found out that the NME awards tour is coming to sheffield on a night I can go AND it's the polyphonic spree :) the datsuns :) and the thrills :) and interpol :|
Great bands, shame that a) none of them are british, and b) they all start with the (apart from interpol who I think are not that great really so they don't count)
I Haven't Got a Mobile Phone
Hey everyone! today I got something Great! yes I finally got my brand new phone! hooray! it's very lovely and has lots of nice polyphonic ringness and stuff.
I was going to send everyone a lovely text message to say how great it is, but of course, 02 being the dumbest phone company alive, have messed up the phone numbers of not just my phone, but about 1,000 other phones.
Apparently they've assigned them all the wrong numbers so when the SIM card tries to register they try to log on to Virgin mobile (or some other mobile operator) and fail miserably. So I've got to call them up to get it changed and activated, unfortunately I can't call them up to get it activated because everyone else is doing the same thing, and the number I have to ring is permanently engaged (and in a wonderful tactic to further appease it's already irate clients 02 wants us to to ring up a premium rate 50 pence a minute number). So I had to call up the customer helpline to get any sense, whereupon some lovely person (who sounded like she hadn't had any sleep for the last week) said she pass on my number to these other people who'd ring me. However due to the incredible amount of people ringing in, it may take a few days for them to call me.
So if I'm lucky my phone will be activiated by next month, oh and they're probably going to bill me for november as well.
Hooray for phones
oh and I can't stay online for long because they could ring at any time.
Oh Brave Captain My Captain
I've just been guestlisted for a brave captain gig at the Sheffield Barfly tonight, a tuesday, which is a day I can usually go. Unfortuantely today I have a meeting. Although I missed the last one because my bed needed putting together and no-one really cared. Thusly I feel I maybe able to miss this one.
Ooh the tension.
However as you probably dont' care about that here's something to amuse you
she really is this stupid
who runs the navy
Wow, in an attempt to properly blog for once, here's some relevant topical thought, with lots of links and opinions. Wooh
Anyway, Dean from Heal Your Church Website has blogged about this article.
It's really quite interesting, so I'll summarise for all of those not wanting to click between one place and another.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has asked forcibly the US Navy to confiscate one hundred computers with suspicion of illegally downloading mp3's. All the marines involved have faced sanctions. So there we go in the face of being called up to go fight in a war, the industry bods come out and back them completely and publicly.
Hooray for america
Oh and one of westlife (shane possibly) just said that it was a key moment in a bands career when they released their first best of. Anyone remember when bands only realised one best of?
Spartans Rock
Sandi Shanklin alerted me to the fact that a documentry on the Spartans was on tv. We did quite well and kicked a lot of butt it seems, but then surrendered. Stupid us.
However the highlight of this show was the woman going "a third of the Greeks in Athens died in the seige due to starvation and disease, the Spartans had decimated their enemy" LEARN WHAT WORDS MEAN WOMAN!!
I'll still tune in next week to see us beat off the greeks (finally) before tasted some of our "own bitter medicine". Oh-er
Hamster #2, plugicide
Hamster #1, tablecide
Abrahahahahaham
Today I started trying to write an assembly about Abram and trust and ended up with recurring nightmares about the deaths of my hamsters, the setup for a really quite good christmas game for next month (involving over 100 party poppers), and a drawing of what looks like a cross between yoda, a teenage mutant ninja turtle, and a hiker.
Go figure
I'll Be Dead By Sunrise
Today (as mentioned yesterday) I started on my christmas shopping. I found a present for helen, although didn't purchase it, because I have a nagging suspicion that she has it. I then found a present for my brother, but likewise I think he has it already. Hmmph
But on the good side I did go into Jacks Records (like derricks, but fwith helpful. friendly old greyhaired balding people as opposed to scary unhelpful ones) and got a ticket to go see Idlewild! woohoo. Now that's rock and roll. Unfortuantely (and this is unfortunate) I found a cheap Bright Eyes album, and heard how great the malcom middleton album is (live without the hyperlinks, I'm lazy).
Why cannot record shops play these albums to me before my birthday not right after them??
Still if anyone needs ideas to buy me christmas presents then there they are.
Oh and almost forgetting as it's brilliance blows me away I got the new {kinesis} single today, available in all good record stores (go buy it from hmv tomorrow kids!). Those who doubted me when I said "look I know rock stars" can now only doubt the first part of the sentance, for the rock star bit is surely fufilled!
Oh and one b-side is absolutely ace, and the second is quite good, as is the tradition of kinesis b-sides it seems. And "Sk8r Boi" or whatever it's called by avril lavigne (spelling?) is about the Kinesis frontman michael. Apparently
Divine providence
Right so anyway, I've just go Messenger 5.0 working. Woohoo...
It's not actually that greatly wonderful apart from some fancy spinning graphics and some of that slidey shading stuff (garound?) and some nice fancy sounds. Unfortunately sparticus@iamsparticusdelete.co.uk is not working as a sign in addie, which sucks (Dan Shanklin is having the same problem though, I'm not alone).
That and my lovely plugins/hacky thingies (found here don't work with it properly yet.
Ah well it's still fun to have...
Did I mention my youth group got me a cake yesterday?
Here it comes
Yesterday my youth group got me a cake for my birthday, I was so touched, it was beautious
Today I download Messenger 5.0 (it's been leaked, so everyones getting it, which is probably why messenger isn't signing in properly)
Tomorrow I buy Christmas presents
The End
When the revolution comes O2 are the first on the block
So today, I tried to no avail to re-order my shiny new mobile phone. I figured, I've done most of my planning for tonight, I'm not going to get a chance later, I'll do it now. Seemed simple enough and it was kinda, I managed to get all the way to the end without a single major difficulty, until I tried to actually process my order... Then of course it all failed completely and horribly with computers crashing and dying everywhere. Good old O2 though where kind enough to provide an 0800 number to call in case of this eventuality which you can ring (free phone as all 0800 numbers are) and talk to them about it and fix it all. HOORAY!
So I call up the number on my mobile phone to find, it's going to cost me money to call on my mobile phone. Fair enough I mean that's to be expected I suppose. So I disconnect my little pc and this time call with the house phone. Except the number doesn't work with my house phone, it's not recognised. Nor is it recognised with the vicars phone house landline phone. However when I try and ring again on my mobile it works again, (except of course it's charging me). So it seems that the only way to call this freephone number is through a mobile phone, which you have to pay for. Aevil, I want my new phone
Blowing out the candles
Hey everybody, it's a lovely shiny birthday post!
first of all thank you's to everyone!! especially
My mum and dad, grandparents, brother, aunts, uncles, nephews, vicars, wardens, a gorgeous girlfriend, {stoobs}, Ben, Dan and Sandi, Swampy, {conor} and Charli, {lardpony}, {caff}, {kate}, tal, chrissie, bekah, roofus, Elliot, Little London Helen, Craig, Mr. Pizza hut waiter, Mr. Bowling alley, ummm and everyone else I've left out...
Thank you for making it a very special birthday even though I'm away from home.
oh and thank you mr. lucas for making star wars. It's very good. I like the extra stuff, and thank you for writing the line "oh I'm beside myself" it's great (y)
New Websites Destroy The Old
Happy almost birthday me!!
here is a celebration here's my new website to celebrate
*a short while later*
here's an extensive list of things to fix...
the sms page
the guestbook
and things to add
the dreams thingy
the archives
the top secret alternative
I don't even remember my name
Good news! today I've finally changed over my msn address from mark.walley@ntlworld.com (soon to die a painful death due to the obscene amount of spam I get through it) to something far more sinister. Actually I don't think I have a problem with putting it here as sparticus@iamsparticusDELETE.co.uk.
Hooray for speaking to people online
Next Week: Dramatic changes unfold as Sparticus buys a new phone... will he have to change his number or not?
och, wee, aye
Ooh look everybody, I'm back from scotland. Och. Aye. Wee. Or something along those lines sorta thing.
Edinburgh has to be the coolest city around. It's so incredibly gorgeous as a city, it's all fancy buildings and stuff and BIG HUGE CASTLES ON VOLCANIC CRAGS OVERLOOKING THE MINIONS BELOW. It's a really great city, actually the entire journey north was great. Everyone should travel from Durham (boring station but good place to start) to Edinburgh via the railway because you get some absolutely gorgeous scenery and stuff, and the train journey through Newcastle is sooo cool. Woohoo.
But yes Edinburgh was fab, as was my eversogreat girlfriend (Helen, in case you had forgotten). Unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time there, although I did see a lot of random stuff. Perhaps most bizzarely was a "meadow" (little park area really) that was incredibly bumpy, why? because lots of bodies where pushing up the ground. According to the fountain of edinburgh knowledge that is Helen during the black death they buried so many bodies so fast they didn't do it very well. The enterprising scots have since turned it into a sort of golf couse. Good for them.
Anyway that jolly occasion over I went to newcastle, which is such a lovely city, and I saw the angel of the north WHICH IS GREAT!!!
That's it, maybe more ranting about this realllllly cool flight suit later!
Oh except to say I went to Edinburgh and did not see {steph} and then I went to newcastle and didn't see {bee}. For my next trick I'm going to go to Northern Ireland and not see Dan and Sandi.
done on a stick
iamsparticus.co.uk version 9.0 is done and dusted and it's finished! But i'm not putting it up yet because I need to fix two things, (not my fault blame the others) but hooray for that eh?!!
I think it'll be realised in time for my b-day... speaking of which my parents present came today AND I've ordered my present from here and doesn't it look lovely....
looky looky
sweet
Top Five Words
Oh Girl I'm so in love with you
This is a public annoucement on behalf of the good ladiees and gentlemen at iamsparticus.co.uk
it's my birthday this time next week, whereupon I will become the rather old age of 19 (not as old as 20 though oh no)
As a big grown up boy I will thusly only be discussing important social matters. That and writing about all the humongous amounts of cake I'm going to be eating!
schools out for ever
Guess where I am?
I'm in school! whoopeee, hooray for primary schools. Although these days all primary schools have hip and cool computer rooms with lots of wires and networking going on. And internet access. Hooray for computers and ICT stuff.
However schools are still woefully lacking in people who know how to teach IT, and more importantly fix the computers when they go wrong.
So guess what I'm doing?
I'm fixing their computers. JOY!
The plus point of this of course is that all the teachers love me, and I can find amusing stuff on walls and blog about it. Like this...
I am going to be a brasmad.
but I am very worrid so miss Jack son is going to give me her worry doll. so I will not worry at all and my drees is lilac..
from *name deleted to protect innocent*"
"I am, Beast as sckiping
from *name deleted*"
"... I have 3 more girlfriends they are *name*, *name* and *name*"
Dead on my head
Raar, I'm back home from my lovely weekend away which was GREAT! I stayed at a big house that looked something like this
The house is the Oakes House, they do lots of outdoorish type activities as well as some random sillyness. It's really quite good. I got to get dressed up in a boiler suit and stuff pillows down it so as to seem really really fat for a big wide game thing (a bunch of really inflated people stole some flapjacks, and hid, everyone had to find us. Like hide and seek really, but a lot lot lot more fun). So that was good, as was the general bonding of various local youth groups. Hooray!
Coming Next Weekend: Sparticus and Helen gets lost in Edinburgh in a daring plan to save the world. Virgin trains permitting
It's just the thought of you...
Today I did lots of exciting things! Most of them not incredibly blog worthy but none the less entertained me. However I do feel it's worth the space for me to say "I bought Maladroit by Weezer and Pablo Honey by Radiohead" now that's some good music buying. I also got some lovely rechargeble batteries and an extension lead, but that's one of the things I wasn't going to blog about.
I'm off to this OAKES thingy over the weekend, it's some sort of out door activity thingy and I'm not really looking forward to it, mainly because I'm shattered already and because it's raining. Plus I've got to pack and I really should shave before I go. Oh deary me.
Updatage on the sms thingy below. 02 is being evil. After temporary stupidity, (it's O2 not 02 if that helps) I got the mail part working, but O2 won't convert them into texts yet, even though it does for Helen and seemingly others too. I've e-mailed them moaning about it all, (politely) so maybe it'll be working soon enough. Oh and thank you Dan and Sandi for the lovely messages. They where most enjoyable. That might make more sense if I told you that I can still read the messages sent just they ain't forwarded to me. silly silly O2.co.uk
text me ladies
I bet every day you wake up, and you think... If only I could text message mr. Sparticus, but I don't know his phone number OR I don't have any credit. Well thanks now to a revolution in website coding YOU CAN!!!
Enter your text (try to keep it under 115 characters, if you don't it MAY not let you post, I'm working on a decent fix for that) and once it's entered then click send. I will be receiving your lovely text henceforth. Hooray for technology
Update
02 is being very very silly right now, and not letting me log into my mail box their, thus I am not getting any texts. I'll speak to my lovely girlfriend about it (I'm abusing her mailbox testing it as well) and get back to you all, hopefully it's just a temporary silly server problem with them. But it will work!!!
Update again
Fairly certain it is 02 as they are refusing to recognise I have a mail box... Will try again later
telemophoney update
HOORAY! my charger arrived today courtesy of my very lovely daddy. Thank you daddy. Thus I now have a working phone, which works and is great and everything.
Because of this greatly special occasion I'll have something extra lovely to post about this evening, when I get home.
My Phone is Phoney
Ohhh guess what I got back today in the post? That's right! MY PHONE!! It's great and amazing and everything. Hooray! Although quite oddly they seem to have just given me a brand new phone as opposed to fixing my old one, making me wonder why I had to wait 14 days to get my phone back.
So today I was going to put up an amazing post about how you can now send me txt from my website by this cunning form thing, where you'd type and click send and I'd get it as sms! hooray! However I didn't take into account O2's lack of intelligence You see whilst they sent me back my phone all nice and new and shiny, they neglected to send me back my charger, making my phone useless. Leaving me now with a very nice new and shiny paperweight.
Great
by kids for kids eat kids
(8)Mr. Noah built an Arky Arky, and God sent a floody floody or something...
Yes so yesterday I had one of the great joys in life that is... Doing an assembly!
Yes that's right I, Mark Sparticus Walley (names have been changed to protect the innocent), stood in front of 150 children, 4 teachers, 2 teaching assistants, 1 non-teaching assistant, 1 vicar and 1 headmaster and made a fool of myself. You see I had to speak on NOAH! and not EXORCISMS. It was actually quite a good laugh, so sit back and imagine that once again you are 8, and sitting on a hard varnished wooden floor with a stupid interlocking pattern...
Mark: "Good morning everyone!" Carries a box over to table at front of stage "I've brought in lots of stuff to show you today, so I wonder what you think is in the box?" Coughs "Oh I'm sorry I've got a really sore throat, just let me go get my drink from over here" goes to get drink and pretends to drink some "Right well anyone got any ideas? well I've actually got lots of books in here!! Look I've got a dictionary..." Rambles on about various books "And lastly I've got my favouritest book ever!! And normally I don't show this book to people coz it's so special, but because I think you're all really cool I'm going to show you my book. Ready?" brings out super special glittery book "wow isn't this great?? it's my favouritest book" rambles about book for a bit "so to keep it safe I'm going to have to put the book back in the box all safe and secure" Coughs "Oh sorry, my throats really bad" takes another drink and holds coffee in hands "yes so that's my favourite book..." Puts coffee down and slips and it goes all over the book!!! "OH NO!!!!!! I've spilt coffee all over my favourite book!!!! NOOO!!! HOW COULD I?!!?!!" pretends to fiddle with book in box "Maybe I can make it better, what happens if I do this? OH NO THAT JUST MADE IT WORSE!!!"
Kids "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHHAAA"
Mark: "Oh deary deary me, look at this" shows book dripping with coffee "Oh no I've ruined my favourite book! what am I going to do??"
Kids "awwwhhhh"
Mark: "it's completely ruined now, oh dear... I'm going to have to throw it away, coz I can't read my book, and if I can't read it then it's useless" slips in secret extra page (actually stoobs letter to me, that happened to be the right size "wait! hang on a second, look at this... a clean page, wow this is really good and nice, I'm going to keep this, but the rest of the horrible book is useless. I'm going to chuck it away." throws book away
"and there is a story like that in the bible, but it's not about pages in a book, but people in the world... you see in the bible it says that God made the world, and made lots of people, but they did all this evil stuff" rambles on about some of the evil stuff they did "So God thought this isn't good, these people are all ruined, I'm going to get rid of them all. But there was one man in the world who did good things and wasn't ruined, and he was called Noah, and he did the right thing even though it meant standing out and being different from the rest"
And that was sort of about it. I can't be bothered to go into much more detail, basically I prayed at the end then all the kids asked me afterwards if it really was my favourite book. It was all very lovely.
Top Five Sounds Ever
- Mojo-jojo
- That noise you get when windows starts up and you've disabled the default windows start up sound
- R2-D2
- An amp when it's on but not plugged in
- Telecasters
Kinesis/Sparta/Hundred Reasons
Right just came back from this Kinesis/Sparta/Hundred Reasons gig, and it was VERY VERY odd. but very good
It all starts with me going off to the station at some ridiculously early time, because I want to get to Sheffield before 5:00 to go talk to some people about train tickets to go see my darling girlfriend and to go to this Careforce area group meet up. I arrive at my station to over hear two people talking about the Hundred Reasons gig, and more specifically about Sparta. They ramble on about them for a bit and then say "Bit of a gay name" "yeah but it could be worse, could be Spartacus". Hahahahaha. I found it very hard not to laugh out loud. Lots. Anyway arrived at Sheffield to find industrial action had taken place so the last train back left in 10 minutes. Lucky I could remember my phone number, so I managed to get a lift home later. I then turned up at the Sheffield Octagon (it's an octagon shaped gig venue. People in Sheffield suck at naming things) to meet some people called Rich and Charli. Not that I planned to meet them. I just happened to. Which was quite odd seeing as Charli was {conor}'s girlfriend and actually looking for me. Anyway it gets odder because Rich had backstage thingies to go meet Sparta, and he took me. Hooray! So I went in and met Sparta who where lovely and very rock and roll. And I have photos to prove it. And badges! Anyway we left the back stage area in time to meet up with Charli again as Conor had just left us to go get ready. Then the streets starting blaring (They play it before ever gig apparently)...
{kinesis}
Rocked as per normal. Setlist was, Zyklon B, Conveyor Belt Destruction, And They Obey, Ermm new one called something I forget, another new one but this one called Blood Stained Lips (I think, I've heard it before), Billboard Beauty, then Everything Destroys Itself.
As per usual they where amazingly great, with more space to run around about and be silly. Conor with his amazing whirling guitar. Oh and he still managed to slide in Sweet Child Of Mine to Everything Destroys Itself. Ace. They then left, we stood around for a bit. Charli left to find Conor, and Sparta came on...
Sparta
They where Ace. I mean meeting them was cool and all, (and they have a really nice dressing room) but they where soo good live. I must go out and procure some music of them sometime. Particullarly good was some song which started with him shouting "WAKE UP" which was ACE, oh it's called "Cut Your Ribbon" apparently, it's very good. Go buy it. And the drummer is Lebanese, and the lead singer dude (Jim what a rockstar name) is orginally Welsh, but apparently his ancestors got kicked out of Wales coz they stole sheep. Sounds believable. Anyway they then went off to lots of applause, and then Me and Rich left, saying fairwell to Charli, Conor and Michael and stealing an Idlewild poster of a wall as we went. So we missed Hundred Reasons completely. Evil Trains. Ah well.
Umm that's all from the gig. Oh that and Conor has a very cool hat.
Your Dead In The Water Now
How rubbish is this...
Robinson Is Next Deayton Stand-In
What? Surely Anne Robinson is going to get so mercilessly tormented by the Ian Hislop and Paul Merton that she'll fail miserably. On the other hand seeing Anne Robinson being tormented mercilessly by Ian Hislop and Paul Merton could be amusing.
On a sidenote I do mildly approve of the BBC sacking Angus Deayton, because the BBC is publicly owned and shouldn't really approve the consorting of prostitutes and the what, and I'm sure Mr. Deayton did know that when he went to work for them. He'll still be missed though
update
Just saw the latest episode, and it was great! Paul Merton was hosting it for one night only till Anne Robinson steps in, and it was one of the best episodes for ever. Hopefully Anne Robinson won't match up and Paul Merton can take over permanently. Hooray for the BBC
About, Navigation, And Other Details
This is a website by Mark Walley. If you want to find out more or get in touch, that'd be nice.
Getting around this website can be a tad confusing. If you're looking to explore the better stuff of what I've written then this navigation should help you. If you're after a specific post then searching or looking through the archives chronologically may help.
Things I Found Interesting
- New Free Coldplay Single With extensive rigmarole to actually download what is just a plain mp3 file.
- Want to know what's going to appear in youth work magazine for the next year? In releasing info for advertisers, they've released info for all of us. If you're intrigued by the articles in a Christian youth work magazine that might be good for advertising too, this is a must read.
- Johnny Foreigner are on iTunes AWESOME. Fact.
- I'm on Wikipedia!
- Ipswich Town on the Wikipedia main page for ONE DAY ONLY By proxy.
People I Generally Find Interesting
- Alasdair
- Chris Walley
- David
- Defective Yeti
- Doug
- Hayley Cornwell
- John Gruber
- Mark Meynell
- Matthew
- Paulo
- Phil Brown
- Sarah Wiseman
- Scott
- Team Armstrong
- Technorati Profile
Last Words
This site tries its best to be accessible for everyone. Atom, and RSS feeds are available. All content licensed through a creative commons licence. I may have stolen ideas off you when you weren't looking, but it was almost certainly an accident. As with all claims of originality and ownership Psalm 24 v1 applies.