Nombre Sept

Behold, my disciples, I have returned, and I bring with me curiously long tidings from that strange and foreign land that some call My Friend's House, and also from the deepest and most foul pits of School, for I saw reason to visit there in that I had nothing else to do at the time. First, that gathering of humans which did occur on the 26th. I arrived at the location of said gathering, but was surprised and deeply offended that there were few, if any, large explosions taking place. When I enquired about the explosions, or lack thereof, I was advised to, and I quote, "peel off your face and feast on the goo inside" by the host, whom I promptly stabbed on the perfectly reasonable assumption that he was an evil robotic ninja. Fortunately, he was able to take my little slip of judgement with good humour, and we resumed our conversation about drunken clowns.

When we arrived at (or rather, gradually drifted towards) the shed/Place of Many Deaths, I beheld a most majestic and heart-warming sight. 'Twas an ancient and blood-stained air-hockey table, the kind that places less emphasis on that highly overrated "air" and more on the "hockey" part. I took my place at one end of it, ensuring my participation in the next game by welding the paddle to the raw flesh of my hand. It's painful, but it works!

I fought viciously, and yet badly. At one point I was reduced to simply strangling my sisterly opponent until the paddle fell from her cold, lifeless hands. Having beaten all comers through the use of this hithero undiscovered "strategy", I retired undefeated after seven hundred games.

After all the guests were lying dead around me, I relaxed in the host's high-backed, leather computer chair and played a couple of games of Quake. Strangely, I also won all those games as well, though that could be attributed to the fact that my opponents were tied to their keyboards with their own intestines.

Secondly, the news from school. There exists in that place a certain person, who is widely considered to be foul knave of ill reputation. That he saw fit to create his own blog in no way redeems him, but rather exacerbates his "knave-ness". This ill-advised course of action would not have been particularly significant, had he not BLATANTLY COPIED OFF THE DESIGN AND CONTENT OF THIS BLOG! My righteous anger knew no bounds when I was advised of this! Fortunately, the blog in question was deleted with a minimal of coercion, in that a simple blow to the face was all it took to knock him backwards into the large, prominent, red "DELETE" button on his keyboard.

Until next time, I take my leave.

Nombre Six

Cursed duress! At the behest of my teacher I must analyze a topic posted in the Snitz Forums, and so in one last gesture of petty defiance I state that I am doing this against my will!

The topic that I have been so unfairly compelled to write about is, at my choice, the one of Males or Females, a remarkably sexist one and one that I would have enjoyed picking to pieces with my Sword of Moderating had it not been so all-encompassingly vast, incorporating no less than ten pages of ignorance. As such, I found it unworthy of my time to trawl through so many pages of bad netiquette and general carelessness to delete individual posts.

Note: Now that I read through it in the interests of research, I find that I have been perhaps too harsh in my judgement of the posts, as there seem to be many people on the forums that are of the opinion that both sexes are equally able and important. Forgive me. Or not, either way is cool with me.

Though I am usually loth to personally victimise those who start and support such topics, by the terms laid upon me by the great Whiteboard of Schoolwork, I must state that the starter of said topic was one "tjone110". Another of those cursed terms requires me to give information about "interesting" posts, and I can indulge in some seldom-seen brevity if I simply say that all the "interesting" posts were the sexist ones.

Continuing my disturbing trend towards "blog-shortness", I agreed with the pro-equality posts and disagreed with the sexist ones. The issues that arose were mostly derivatives of the core issue, and the one that started the thread, the "male vs female" issue, though there were some personal attacks as well. The thread kept more or less on track, forasmuch as they were still arguing about the same thing at both the start and the finish of the topic...

Use of netiquette was at the level I have come to expect from a student-run forum, that is, nil.

In conclusion, though I was surprised at the maturity most students showed with regards to such a sensitive topic, the topic was, overall, still worthy of deletion.

I now announce, with much regret, that this will be my last official blog post, though I may continue over the holidays. *sobs brokenly*

Until never, I take my leave.

Nombre Cinq

To combat the flood of bad spelling and grammar that had inundated the forums, my teacher chose diverse trustworthy students from within the class, and these she did bless with the powers and title of Moderator. And these Moderators went among the posts of the forums, and they aided the design of the teachers by removing the posts that were offensive or inappropriate, and so were they the undertakers, perhaps, of those forums they were chosen to Moderate.

I am one of these Moderators, and it is my duty to moderate the forums of Best Subjects, Discipline and Behaviour, Vandalism, Poverty in Australia, Technology, and Technical Assistance. Of all of these, Best Subjects is the most unruly and wild, but I ventured there all the same. What I found there was very nearly beyond my capacities to delete, even as writing of what I found is very nearly beyond my capacities to chronicle.

Moving down to the bottom of the topics in that most unmoderated of forums, I found a thread so vile and thoughtless that I was rendered dumb while mine superlative brain processed even the title. Though I am loth to reveal the name of said topic, lest it corrupt those who read only my blog and not the forums, I shall, in the interests of scholarly curiousity, state that the topic's name was "NERDS".

Still hoping that I could somehow give the benefit of the doubt to such a topic, and perhaps believe that it was set up so that students of an academic disposition would have somewhere to discuss their interests, I delved into that pit of ignorance. It was very nearly the last thing I did.

Navigating down to the list of posts, I found an anti-intellectual morass of hate and ignorance, and so I drew my mighty Sword of Moderating and advanced on the repulsive thing. It was a hard-won and bitterly-fought battle, and I did not escape unscathed. I lost three eyes and a lung, and I was plagued by vicious nightmares for centuries after.

Some have said that I should have simply locked the topic, and chained it forevermore within the living forums with the arcane binding-runes that are my prerogative, but to do this would have left a cancer within the Intranet itself, and there may yet be Moderators who have been corrupted by the Dark Side of the Snitz, and so would use their malevolent powers to unravel my enchantments.

Until next time, I take my leave.

Nombre Quatre

I must now continue with my chronicle of the events that take place within our INT class, the most notable of which is our foray into forums. Alliteration is sweet.

I was instructed to go to our school's Snitz Forum (Snitz? That's the best kind of forum!), and so I did, by adding "snitz forum" to the end of the address bar. Spaces are generally (read: always) frowned upon among web addresses, so I assumed it was a shortcut of some sort.

Upon my arrival at the forum, I found, not a bustling marketplace of ideas and new concepts, but rather an empty-looking expanse of Nothing. Was this a boring, featureless, heavily filtered and regulated administrative tool that had been thrust upon us, the student body, in one of the lamentable fits of sadism that seems to beset teachers from time to time, or was it rather a clean slate, ready to be moulded and shaped into something wonderous and magical? Fortunately, I found out that it was the latter.

Sitting forlornly at the top of the message board list was the imaginatively-titled "Litter in the School", and I replied with my opinions on the subject. Somehow I had anticipated the misspelt, crude posts of a select few of my fellow students, and I was not disappointed. Despite the forums being part of an assessment task, even the warnings of the teachers had failed to stop the tide of blatant indifference towards the proper use of the English language.

Regardless of this, the forums were still full of ingenuous topics from fellow students, ranging from discussions about teachers that are particularly well-liked by the students to conversations about what is tolerable and intolerable when dealing with water-bombs. Unfortunately we were not allowed to reply to these "upstart" topics, but the forums continued to be a valuable resource to those wanting to hear the opinions of their fellow students.

Until next time, I take my leave.

Nombre Trois

Now, it would seem, it is the time that the true purpose of this blog is realised. It is mostly intended as a chronicle of the events that occur within this INT class, though paranoid ramblings are 'tastic also. It is to this purpose that I must now begin to dedicate these entries, at least in part. I shall never forgo my precious ramblings! Never!

Moving on, then. Perhaps the most notable activity I recently undertook was that of Web Quest. "Aha!", I thought. Maybe I shall be required to go on some sort of quest, possibly involving a web of some description! Or at least get to slaughter some innocents by telling everyone that they're "foul monsters". Everybody hates foul monsters, even cats. Anyway, I soon discovered that Web Quest was more in the way of a shopping spree than an actual quest, but I still enjoyed squandering other people's riches. Who says we weren't supposed to actually buy the items?

And so I fought my way through the dense wilderness of an Excel spreadsheet, typing my adventures on it such as a great explorer might draw a series of cells on a tree, in which to publish his findings on some exotic new amphibious possum. It was hard going, though, as the only species I could find universally throughout the aforementioned Web was the diminutive and common iPodus Nanous. Others spoke of things they called A Dozen Roses, but the quality and brand of that type of flora undoubtedly varied between countries, making a comparison difficult. Indeed, as I set out I had had hopes of seeing a Microsoftius Xboxius, and so I found one, at least in Australia, but as I journeyed to other lands it was not to be seen, although I did observe traces. I was puzzled that these traces should be the only evidence of this usually common and often-sighted species, for it seemed highly irregular that an entire country should have only accessories for the well-known Xboxius, and not even a single specimen for me to study.

As a last resort, I altered my pronunciation of the mating call that would usually summon it, but as I did, strange energies began to writhe and crackle about me, and I broke off my search abruptly. However, I could not pull back before a strange shape materialized in front of me. To my immense surprise it began to speak in a booming, otherworldly voice. "STOP!" it boomed. "THE SITE YOU REQUESTED IS BLOCKED UNDER EDUCATION QUEENSLAND'S MANAGED INTERNET SERVICE FILTERING POLICY!" Needless to say, I got out of there quick-smart. Even so, the strange shape that seemed to be able to alter even the inalterable laws of physics so as to deny me entrance to areas of the Web that it deemed unsuitable intrigued me. Perhaps I shall reflect upon it anon. Until next time, I take my leave.

Nombre Deux

Perhaps now it is time to furnish you, my humble subjects, with some information about myself. Or I could just remain compellingly mysterious, and force you to slowly uncover my identity by deciphering a series of fiendish clues...

After much thought, deliberation and also fasting for some reason, I have decided at length to be known, as before, as Nova Invicta, a 14 year-old with a vaguely disturbing interest in computer games. As to why exactly the interest is disturbing, well, that, my friend, is forever beyond the knowledge of mortal men...

I take an Information Technology class, just because I feel like it, and we are currently investigating online communities, hence this blog. We're also somehow investigating some murders, but that's beside the point. Unless, of course, I was to move the point. Hmm... this gives me an interesting idea. Namely, how far off topic can I get in this blog before my teacher starts looking for some pointy footwear on which to mount my seditious head?

Getting back to the point, if there is indeed a point to all this blessed madness, we're looking at online communities in INT, mostly forums and message boards, though the difference between the two still escapes even my towering intellect. Our work so far seems to consist of looking at forums, and then defining the word "forum". Stimulating stuff, you must agree. Ah, how I long for days past, when my day was filled with Visual Basic code and making fun of my sister's poor programming skills, as well as the poor programming skills of anyone else who would listen. I'm so modest and awesome. Until tomorrow, I take my leave.

Auctor

Hail and well-met, people! I'm Nova Invicta, and this is my ranting space, home to rambling, disconnected monologues and shameless plugs. By the way, I'm writing this so my Information Technology teacher will refrain from beating me with a shoe. People like shoes, right?

As for my interests, I have none, except for school, because this is being written as part of an assignment.

Until tomorrow, I take my leave. Bye!