I am doing rather badly at uni. I have been a lazy bum for a while but am now working more seriously.

Therefore, I am probably not submitting any games in the very near future.

I just want people to know that.

Public apologies to Danny.
Sorry to Skears fans.

I know I've been saying for years that it'll come out today/yesterday (thursday) but... it's not gonna happen.

I'm aiming for Friday.

Also, it's not going to be the portal-rocking #1 challenger I may have suggested it will be.

At this point, I'm just trying to get it to be something I'd personally feel worthy of playing for some time.

To do: delete some levels
: delete some of the scoring info that's actually redundant
: make scoring bit prettier
: make sure the difficulty-adjustment works.

Lots and lots to do.

The way I've set it up, the levels can be 'tagged' and when a 'course' is selected, the levels 'tagged' with that label are played.

Originally, i was gonna have a large number of course, as well as the option to play a single level. now, I'm thinking that just 3 courses is best for simplicity - one short and simple, one medium and hard, one including every level.

Or maybe I should just make it 2 courses: one short/simple, one longer/more complex?

The difficulty is selected seperately and since there's (in theory) hundreds of different difficulty settings, I hope folk have fun playing through the same course repeatedly and tweaking the difficulty to get the highest multiplier they can whilst still getting the various bonuses.

Having fewer 'courses' will probably help the game establish itself better as a high-score-type-game. If there are too many options, then folk may get confused - scores are only interesting when you've got a comparison. With fewer modes, th...

I think I need to sleep.

Got back home today and thought I'd jot down some memories.

This is just the way I remember stuff. A great time, but distilling anything improperly is almost like diluting it - we can lose some of the potency along with the faff we get rid of if we're not careful. My point: I'm never gonna do this meet justice.

Random awards.
- Man of the moment: Luis. Thanks for organising this shit and making it all happen.
- best jean pockets: Cally (girls' jeans are always prettier. :-/)
- Being suprisingly younger than I thought possible for a lad of such skills: Tommy LM.
- Best Goggles: Wonchop. Next year I want to see some competition.
- Most able to be a stunt double: Dry Ice. Of Evil Dog.
- Most able to make me smile and feel amazing by virtue of smiling so much whilst singing karaoke: BBM
No-one else wins an award. Congratulations, you fall into the same category as Tom Fulp and many other respectable ladies and gentlemen.

Top X memorable moments:
- Sqeezy rapping freestyle to a backing of Daft Punk.
- Mogly starts to sing about sucking six. The regulars look on aghast.
- Singing Renegades of Funk, the mic is passes to Tom Fulp. Again, dicks are mentioned.
- those who actually bared their arse
- whipping out my thing and sharing it with Tom, Poozy and the Swain.
- Sampling 'skate'
- Crystal Maze is naff. Everyone chuckles.
- LilJim known who I am? How the hell?
- Swain improves my game.
- I fail horribly at singing 'Im Just a Girl'.
- Bob makes a note to try pashwari nan.
- We outnumbered the locals in the bar, 30:5.
- Playing Ping - a card game that JPI told us about.
- dancing to outrageous karaoke. Gay man starts fondling my hand. Pull away.

Top X disappointments
- No dancing-night.
- No giant game of knockout poker

Top X Lessons:
- going to the Sports Bar and dancing together is fun. We should definitely go dancing on future meets.
- I am not just a girl. I am, in fact, a man. A hairy man.
- Taking mugshots of everyone actually gets in the way of Bumper cars and bowling. And can make photography feel less fun when there's nigh on 50 folk.
- Skate is tasty.
- If people don't feel comfortable doing something, get Tom Fulp to do it first. That makes it harder for folk to refuse.
- Burst balloons make for an interesting instrument.

See you all next year! Or sooner!

Unofficial meetup in Pivo pivo, near central Station, Glasgow, 23rd February. I'll be there hosting an open mic night and you can come over and make literally any type of noise you want.

I will look through my photos and put the better ones online late this weekend. (Sunday/Mon). How many should I upload?

I'd like to give you all this gift.

I recommend either completing the maze with a brightly coloured brush in some digital program or printing out the 300dpi version and filling it in with a thick, coloured pen, crayon, brush or pencil. Something that shows up.

I won't bother repeating what it says. ;-)

Mazes can be fun. But when you finish, it can seem... like a non-accomplishment. Anyone can complete a maze by 'following the walls' and after I finish one, I don't feel specially satisfied.

This one is different. Once you finish, you may be pleasantly surprised. Or you would be if I hadn't foreshadowed the 'ending'.

I highly recommend you print it out, then fill it in with either a thick pen or brightly coloured pencil. Or, if you don't have a printer or want to save paper/ink, I suppose you could draw in it on your painting software package of choice.

300dpi printer-ready version here

1 - My name is BEhrooZ Shahriari. I was called 'Bez' in primary school when none of us would have known the Happy Mondays and that soon became how I introduced myself to non-Iranians. When a wee boy called me 'Bezman', I liked the sound of it and so started using it as my name in console games and then online.

2 - I like dancing but don't go clubbing often. When an excellent song comes on at college or at home, I find myself bouncing away to it, even whilst drawing or whatever. Sometimes I'll pause work for a minute or two, dancing rapidly just for a taste of adrenalin. I'm probably addicted to the drug, but seeing as my body supplies it naturally, hopefully it's all good.

3 - My favourite colour is purple. Or at least it was. I used to go to such lengths that Exploding Fungus and Skears (all the versions online anyway...) use no colours other than purple. That red? I 'improved' it by adding a touch of blue. And blue was similarly improved. God forbid something be green. Hopefully it's obvious that I've since started allowing other colours in my work and now I enjoy using the full spectrum. It's there to be enjoyed after all...

4 - I often hide or give up. If something seems like it's not good enough? hide. If I'm not sure if my song is good enough? I don't go to the open-mic night. If I was unsure if my e-mail was good enough? Delete it, write it again, then maybe delete it again and don't send it. I have more unfinished projects on my old hard drive than you'd believe. So many ideas that I never bring to life, just because I'm scared I won't do them justice or others won't appreciate them.

It is a stupid habit and I need to get out of it. If I were to psychoanalyse, I'd say maybe it's an egotistical thing - I wanna fail on my own terms rather than failing at all. Truth is though, when I actually play in the bars, go sketching folk in the street or finish a project, I normally get a good reception. I've got to start accepting the possibility of failure.

5 - I drew a 100-hour comic. After my nemesis took Scott McCloud's 24-hour comic idea to a new level, doing 72 pages in 72 hours, I tried to raise a bit of money for the post-2005 tsunami effort, drawing and painting 100 pages in 100 hours. I recently tried to revisit this challenge, spending 200 hours just drawing 200 pages (and essential stuff like eat/sleep) but it didn't work out, maybe because my head was in an awkward place. I hope to ready myself and do something this summer.

More notable stuff coming after I get front-page posting rights.

March 12th 2009.

March 12th 2009.

I have failed...

- to cycle from Glasgow to London (I got within 20 miles of my goal, when my last tyre burst).

- to finish 'Pico Jr Jr' with all the awesome rhythm-based action, tank-action and animation action originally intended for Pico Day.

- to make a 200-page comic within 200 hours (I gave up after a couple of days, realising I had too much other shit pounding through my mind)

- to find true love

- to finish 'Three Second Thunder'.

- to get my Electric Earth collab off the ground

- to piss my entire name in the snow

- to make games as awesome as the stuff jmtb02 can put on a pedestal.

- to lick my elbow

These are but a few of the things I have failed to do.

One or two may never happen. The others, though, will.

In 1990, Scott McCloud invented the 24-hour comic. The challenge - to conceive and create a 24-page story within 24 consecutive hours. In 2004,Mr. Ladyboy began his 72 hour comic and since then a rivalry has begun. 100! 168! 175! Today, as a matter of honour, I will begin a 200 hour comic.

That's 200 pages to be drawn in 200 consecutive hours. 8 days and 8 hours. I will sleep a bit each night, as well as doing other necessary stuff. But each day, I'll spend AT LEAST 14 SOLID HOURS with a pencil or a brush in my hand, sketching out ideas or putting them to paper.

I'm gonna do the best damn job I can.

As I need to ensure that the comic isn't just an idea I already made up (and also to help stimulate me) please send 4 words to: 200@aciddica.com. I'll try to incorporate these words, maybe using them as a title, maybe using them to spark an element of the story.

Don't worry about what words you send me - whatever you send, it'll help this record-breaking attempt.

P.S. Once it's begun, you'll be able to keep track of the progress on my site. Yep, I'll be using those 10 hours for sleep, toilet-using, eating, a bit of exercise and blogging.

Stay funky - Bez