Jonny Nexus

Jonny’s blog – life, writing, rants

On The Difference Between Conjuring And Lying

On Wednesday evening Derren Brown did a show where he apparently predicted the results of the national lottery. Yesterday evening, he promised to reveal how he did it. Now it was always going to be a trick, and those people who are apparently now upset that it wasn’t done by some kind of mystical means…

Sep 12, 2009
Last Night’s Gaming Session

We’d parked ourselves in an extremely expensive, albeit dubious, club, and had dinner. Post-dinner, talk had moved onto the bill. General Tangent (GM): The waiter tells you that the bill is three pounds. [A discussion ensues about the size of the bill. It is eventually, and reluctantly, accepted.] General Tangent (GM): [To TAFKAC] Okay, make…

Sep 9, 2009
Beating the Truth Out Of Users

In my time as a programmer, I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the phone talking to users who are attempting to report some kind of problem. It can sometimes be very frustrating. People say that programmers can be poor communicators, and that is often true; but the same accusation can equally be made…

Sep 9, 2009
A Vet’s Guide To Treating Dinosaurs

A friend of mine, Andrew Knight, is a vet with a sideline in writing, and a few days ago he sent me a link to one of his latest articles, written after a visit to the Natural History Museum had started him thinking about the injuries dinosaurs could suffer and how one might treat them.…

Sep 7, 2009
WordPress iPhone App Is Illiterate

Bugger. Have realised that the WordPress iPhone app strips apostephes out of entered text, even when you go back and re-edit the post to put them back in. Insane. And annoying. I apologise for the illiteracy of the previous post.

Sep 6, 2009
Friends Reunited

Friends Reunited grows ever more desperate in its recent activity mails. First it told me that people Id known at school had updated their profiles. Then it started telling me about people whod gone to my school, but who Id never known because they were several years older or younger than me. Now its informing…

Sep 6, 2009
My God! It’s Full of Cakes!

Last weekend my other half and I took the dog for a long walk down the sea front to Hove Actually (old joke: Brightonians refer to Hove as “Hove Actually” because if an inhabitant of Hove is asked if they come from Brighton, they invariably reply, “Hove, actually”) and ended up having breakfast at Heather…

Sep 4, 2009
Brighton’s New Games Shop Arrives

A little while ago, I wrote of my discovery that a new games shop, Wargames Heaven, was opening in Brighton. Well it ending up opening last Saturday. I got there fairly late on, and managed to have a bit of a chat with Guy, the owner of the shop. I also got to take a…

Sep 2, 2009
On Reviews…

One of the things I find most interesting about reading reviews of stuff I’ve written (I originally wrote that as “reviews of my works” but realised I was pushing the bullshit needle right into the red zone marked “deeply pretentious”) is the degree to which the score, assuming there is one, can often seem to…

Sep 2, 2009
Conversations With The Dog

From time to time, and especially when she’s just woken up, 4Paws seems to find herself in a biting/gnawing sort of mood. Her mouth opens wide, she emits a strange high-pitched yawn/whine/cry utterly unlike any other sound she ever makes, and then quickly starts gnawing away on whatever object might be within reaching distance: her…

Aug 18, 2009