When someone first brought this to my attention, I thought it was a joke. It’s not.

Avril Lavigne (Queen of the posers) has covered a song by System Of A Down (Kings of modern metal). Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

I don’t want to scare people but here is the link Avril Lavigne – Chop Suey (Cover). I don’t know how long that link will stay up, so don’t hassle me if it stops working. Please exercise caution before listening – it will hurt.

I haven’t been updating as much this week as I should be or have wanted to. It’s hard to discuss, comment or otherwise mention anything worthwhile when you’ve been having a pretty heavy week in the brain department.

First, the past week has been exam week at university. 3 maths exams, mostly difficult, at least partially my own fault. On the plus side, the three subjects I was sitting (Linear Algebra, Linear Modelling, and Graphs And Networks) are now over with. On the downside, I have another 3 courses starting on Monday – and that’s just maths.

Another major factor in the lack of updates is my CMS. I’ve been messing around – offline – with the way it stores and retrieves files. It’s got a few minor problems just now, but should be worked out soon (hopefully tonight). This might sound like a minor thing, but if I get it working the way I want it too it’ll fix the only major problem (scalability), allow posts to be found in different ways (by date, month, year among others) and generally just give me a few more toys to play with.

On a side note, I’m curious: what do people really want to see in a CMS? I’ve developed this one almost entirely for myself, but what little features or major functions would you like to see? Send feedback to my email address.

The other thing that has been eating away at my time is Takeshi’s Castle. Currently, it is showing on Challenge TV in the UK. Mad japanese people throw themselves through round after round of sheer torture. Highly amusing, for those who like to see people inflict pain on themselves via stupidity. The only question is: will anyone ever win? If so, what will they get?

Jackie Chan has always been a favourite actor martial artist film-star. He moves with speed, skill and grace. Watching him use his comic fighting style is always a pleasure; watching him act is not.

So his English isn’t great, but that’s not the real problem. The worst thing about his films are the stories. No attempt to make a coherent or interesting plot is ever made. Everything is about getting Chan into ridiculous situations so he can fight people with ropes, plates and any other piece of scenery that he can carry at the time. That is a problem.

So, in the vain of Four Word Film Review: Hire a real writer.

If you’ve been here before (for any of the sites 2-3 week existence), you’ll have noticed a bit of a change. To be honest it was necessary. The last design took all of 2 hours to mark-up and design; hence it looked a bit shit.

This time I’ve spent a bit more time coming up with a design (probably about an hour – no major mark-up changes to bog me down) and had an idea of what I wanted the site to look like.

The idea was to go for a very minimalist look: clean solid blocks of colour, made slightly uneven by various techniques. Only 1 main colour was used, on top of the black and white (with a few other colours used in minor places), to really pull the visual design together.

Now, those of you using standards compliant browsers will see a little bit more than those using non-standards compliant browsers. It’s nothing essential (that would be bad for accessibility) but it does enhance the site. For an example, mouse-over the page heading “Solitude”. There are a few other minor touches like that scattered around – and more will be added when they enhance the site. Oh wait, you can’t see anything unusual? Get a better browser.

While I was at it, I thought I’d make my site Bobby 508 and AAA accessible, which nicely compliments the existing XHTML, CSS and RSS compliance. Showing off ends here.

I was sitting, blankly enough. No ideas and little real understanding of the subject matter. I could see what to do on a very superficial level, but lacked the language to consolidate it into something usable; something more workable.

The thing is I had left it a little late. I only really began working on it the day before, and even then it was a very vague look to try and get the outline into my head; to start thinking about thinking about it.

A day later, I’m sat working on it. The clock eats away at the deadline, and fear is all around. Not just from me. The others are rushing around: either refusing to accept that failure is inevitable or calmy banging their heads off the nearest wall.

Except for that one guy. You know the one: he started weeks ago. He was done days before anyone else bothered to look at what was required. He’s only there to look down his nose at everyone else, interspersed with small bouts of “This is so easy”. He’s not impressing anyone though.

And then BAM! It takes a few seconds for it to hit in all it’s glory, but you start working without really knowing why, what or how you’re doing it. Everything glues together for just a few minutes, creative dams in your mind burst and flow into the work. THIS WILL WORK!.

As you finish, you kick out of your Zen-like focus and worry. Will it work? Of course. Nothing is quite like the feeling of being “in the zone”, as some put it.

Yes, it works. And yes, it is accepted. And yes, you get the credit you deserve. But no, the smart-arse who started first doesn’t combust spontaneously.

You’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. While it was actually a program I had to write that I was talking about, that does not matter. A moment of pure focus and creativity is all it takes to go from a blank slate to a finished and polished fully-working creation.

So remember the next time you’re on a tight deadline: clear your mind and just work. You’ll thank me for it.