I GOT A NEW BLOG!

Yes that's right, I have a new blog!

It's all about ducks. They deserve their own blog. It's called Duck's Duck Blog and I'm sure you'll be overly amused by it, unlike this blog, this blog is boring.

Well... I'd better put something interesting in this blog...

Misinformed

I found this app on my computer. It got my hopes up, but I was misinformed. The name of this application is very misleading...

IT SAYS IT'S A TIME MACHINE! AND NOW I'M VERY ANGRY!

Puns

Puns are funny. Puns are hilarious. Everyone likes a good pun. Here are some puns to make your day better,

You laughed didn't you? You must have laughed on at least all of them. You must have. If you say you didn't then you're lying. 

An Idea.

Hi.

I haven't posted in a while so I decided to post now. But what to write about? I don't know, recent thoughts I suppose.

So I was thinking, if I write a novel, a big novel, and get it published, would I get heaps more publicity because of  my age? I think I would. I can hear the news lines now: "16 year old writes epic novel, selling over 60 million copies". And then they would make a movie, and I'll become famous, and then I'll get heaps of money, and be richer than J.K. Rowling, and thus being one of the richest people on Earth. And then I'ld write a sequel.

The main problem with that life plan is what to write about. I was brain storming a bit yesterday. Some of my ideas were about time traveling, the depressing life of a soldier in World War II, and the adventure of a cow escaping an abattoir. But the best idea I had was about the relationship between a man and his neighbour's goat. The goat kind of stalks the man and finds out all his secrets and then the man goes insane and tries to kill the goat on many occasions but fails terribly every single time.

I think that's a pretty good idea. Wait, not a pretty good idea, an EPICLY-AWESOME idea!

And none of you shall copy this idea. If you do I'll take you to court and show the jury this blog post.

 

Definitely not a coincidence...

I have figured out something so horribly magnificent that you may suffer from a heart attack or worse. Perhaps I should put up a warning so I don't get sued.

WARNING: CONTENT MAY BE LETHAL

Okay, now seriously, prepare to witness a coincidence so utterly shocking that the above warning has to be used.
I feel like I can't say it straight away. You will have to suffer through the harrowing path I took to figure it all out. And it all... makes... sense. Perfect sense. It all fits perfectly into place.

Skulduggery Pleasant. A tall skeleton detective who wears expensive suits. He is also an elemental and necromancer and was trapped in an alternate universe where the Faceless Ones ruled for nearly a year.

What do you think would happen if Skulduggery was taken over by a Faceless One and used as a vessel. I know that this actually can't be done seeing as Skulduggery is dead, but I was just wondering, what if...
Well, the physical look for Skulduggery would change. Faceless Ones are renowned for being faceless but Skulduggery doesn't have a face. But you see, if an insanely powerful god did use him as a vessel, then he could grow skin, blood, organs and that sort of thing. So now he has a proper head with skin, but  no face.
So who are we left with...

F%#%*&G SLENDER MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(excuse the bleeped language there, but I had to be done)

And those tentacle things behind him, THAT'S NECROMANCY!

In case you do not know who Slender man is, he is an urban legend that stalks kids by haunting them to the edge of insanity, and then pushes them over that edge, into complete insanity. He can usually be found in dark forests or woods, abandoned wards, desolate towns and, of course, graveyards. But now Slender man is seen only as a game to scare people. I suggest playing the game put always remember to watch your back...

Yeah, so Skulduggery Pleasant is practically Slender man, who knew.

(Also quite similar to The Silence from Doctor Who and that skeleton from a Christmas Carole.)

Fandoms!

I was bored right, and then I thought to myself, 'how can I be un-bored', and so now I am here. It didn't make me un-bored because, lets face it, this is a boring blog.

I have just spontaneously thought about what I'm going to write on this post: FANDOM!

I'll just talk about stuff that I like too much and tell you how I got to like that stuff. This blog is really living up to its name, huh.

1. Doctor Who.
My fandom of Doctor Who actually has a bit of a story. Back when I was seven or something we had an old TV with a remote that didn't work. My viewing cycle was very basic, I would watch cartoons and kid's shows on ABC and then at 6:00pm I would change it over to The Simpsons on channel TEN.  I would have to get up out of my comfy chair, walk to the TV, and change the channels manually.
So this one time I just really wasn't bothered to change the channel at 6:00pm so I just stayed where I was and watched the news bulletin that was after all the cartoons. It was only a short news bulletin, so after that, because of my laziness, Doctor Who popped up. This was one of the older episodes (at the time their weren't any new episodes) and featured the fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. I really liked it and soon I preferred to watch Doctor Who over The Simpsons.
Then I found out that there was a newer, more modern series and I got to see the second episode (missed the first).
And now I have to watch every single episode and if I miss one I go bonkers.
The episode more recently have gotten duller. I always like David Tennant but have never liked Matt Smith, ever since he spat in the TARDIS on his first appearance.

2. Skulduggery Pleasant
I was introduced to this series by a good friend of mine. This was back when the Faceless Ones was only just released. I was a bit of a reader back in year... five? I think. Yeah, so I read quite a bit, mainly only Deltora Quest and Roald Dahl books but then my friend let me borrow the first Skulduggery book and I have never looked back. I never even knew books could be that exciting. I was gobsmaked by chapter three! Now when I look back, Deltora Quest was a piece of rubbish. The action scenes would be: 'They fought for a bit and then they won' and that isn't very good story telling. Since then I have become more of a fan then the friend that introduced SP to me was. I would check out Derek Landy's blog all the time hoping to get news of new book, and then I started to comment on them (that was only, like, six months ago!). And now I am completely engrossed in it all.

3. Dinosaurs!
What's not to love about dinosaurs. Massive reptilian monsters that died out millions of years ago! Just awesome they are, just awesome. I've liked dinosaurs ever since I knew they existed and I've wanted to become a palaeontologist ever since I knew that that was what a dinosaur researcher was.
And now that is my main ambition in life, to became a palaeontologist.
Apparently it isn't a good ambition. They don't get paid much and you have to become a geologist first. Geologist get paid heaps in the mines so it would be a risk to go beyond that, wouldn't it be?

So there are all my main fandoms. If you have any questions, any at all, don't be afraid to knock yourself out.

Exams and other going-ons

Hi all!
I did kind of forget about this blog when it was my birthday. A few days before my birthday I thought of all the stuff I was going to put in my birthday post but I was too busy telling people it was my birthday that I forgot about this blog. That's probably because my birthday is strictly a non-boring thing and has no right to be mentioned on this blog.
But guess what does have the right.

Exams.

Stupid, bloody, not very interesting, boring exams. No one likes them and so this blog post is especially for them. Tomorrow, on Monday, I have maths and English. Two of the worst and most boring subject and the same boring day. I am meant to be studying at the moment but it's early in the morning and I am, quite honestly, just not bothered.
I thought I would have learnt my lesson after I failed my Driver's Knowledge Test but no, I'm going to go into the examination all cocky thinking that I'll get 100% but then when the results come back I realise I should have studied more. 92% wasn't high enough.

In other news I'm on Twitter, I have practically no idea how to use Twitter but I'll learn. So far I have two followers which is awesomely great. I shall not be tweeting that much but I may, every now and then, twit something that is boring. It's just in my nature.

Here is a collage thing I made on my phone. I think it's pretty cool, so it is, and no one can say it's not.

Homecoming

So this is my Lego stop-motion animation movie based on the poem Homecoming. It took me AGES to finish this and now that it's finally done I can relax, for a bit, because in three weeks time half yearly exams are starting.

And that just sucks.

Any who, with out any further delay, Homecoming!

It didn't work.

The thing just won't upload! I finished it a week ago and have been trying to post it on here for the whole entire week, but NOOOOOO, it just doesn't upload.

I'll post some pictures instead, a lot easier and faster.

The set

Last scene- Family receiving telegram of the passing

                                                                     

...dogs in frozen sunset raise muzzles in mute salute...

First scene- Finding the dead soldiers

Loading the dead onto the plane

Not Living

Well the holidays are over and I went back to school today. Nothing interesting happened as per usual except that we now have a French exchange student in our class. But what about the holidays, what did you do? Where did you go? Did you have lots of fun?
And the answers to those questions which you would undoubtedly be asking are nothing, nowhere and no.

The holidays go for two weeks. I have completely forgotten what I did on the first seven days (although I'm pretty sure there was sleeping, X boxing and the words 'I'm bored' being repeated over and over) but the second week I hardly lived. I read. I read WAY too much. I finished the entire Maze Runner series which are amazing books that I have recently discovered (also found out they're making a movie to be released next year so now I can spoil it for all my friends [insert evil laugh]) I still haven't fished the fourth one (or prequel) yet because it isn't as exciting and there's not enough mystery.

Last Saturday I finished the third one in the series just in time to go to the Wellington Show. That was fun, there was a spinny around octopus like thingy, a spin around and upside down thingy, a turn really fast stick to the walls thingy and a haunted house, which sucked, mainly because it does't have thingy at the end of it's name.

On Sunday a dead sheep puked on me.

But now, as soon as I was going to finish the fourth Maze Runner (which I would have) I am suddenly hit with an English assessment task on the first day of school. We have to have a visual and written response to a war poem. Most of my other class mates are doing dioramas but fancy pants mr show off here (i.e. me) had to come up with the idea of having a stop motion animation movie with Lego that I have to finish in two weeks. Do you know how bloody hard it is to make one of those! You have to take a picture, move the Lego guy a tinny bit, then take another picture and repeat for, like, 20 hours to get a three minute video. And I had chose a long poem didn't I. So far I have made an army truck, a plane and a few characters and that's taken me around six hours for some preposterous reason. Not one photo taken yet.

It is going to be a long, long, long time before I figuratively start living again.

100 Views + Complaining

Well, well well. Here I am on my blog and, believe it or not, the Boring Blog that People Shouldn't Read has over 100 views. Flabbergasted I am, truly and utterly flabbergasted. There were warnings you know. The title, the description and the very fact that this blog is boring. Do you want to know what I felt when I saw the count hit 100, pity.

Most of my pitiful viewers were from countries that don't even speak or read English such as South Korea, India, Ukraine and Germany. And I am fairly certain that at least half the Australian views were from me.

In other news, Doctor Who has finally being aired and I was HIGHLY unimpressed. So unimpressed that that the word highly had to be in capitals and bold font. They were just not written well. The first one was about people being downloaded into the Wi-fi, which I found quite stupid really, and the second one was about an alien girl being sacrificed to a big sun/god thing that got full on a leaf. The graphics weren't as good as previous episodes, there wasn't much to laugh about and near the end of the second one there was a massively over exaggerated speech lasting a good 15 minutes directed to the sun/god ting that  probably couldn't hear them on the account of it being a few thousand kilometres away.

But wait there's more I'm going to complain about (isn't complaining the main point of blogs nowadays).

My Wi-fi. Thankfully I don't get downloaded into it but I still just really dislike my wi-fi. It's a Telstra mobile one and should be 4G, it sometimes gets 3G and is usually always on DC (which sucks).

I am also going to complain about my room mate because complaining has suddenly become the theme of this post. My room mate is my brother and he has always being my room mate. The truly horrible thing about that is that he is a complainer. He complains if I'm on the computer, he complains if I'm reading at night and he complains if I wear something that doesn't go with something else. I am not such a great complainer (this post excluded) and so I let him do what he wants. His is playing his new guitar right now and hardly knows how to play so it's just horrible music. He practically forces me to turn of my light stuck to my bed so I can't read and then he listens to his iPod for an extra three hours (he does play Hamish and Andy podcasts but then I can't get to sleep because I'm always concentrated on it), he claims it helps him sleep.

I'm not expecting that you would read this blog post but I just needed to complain a bit, that's all.

Reasons

Oh Em Gee, a new post from the Boring Blog that People Shouldn't read!
You must all be so excited.

I haven't put up a post for over two months now and I have perfectly good reasons for that.

1. This blog is very boring, to make it more boring I just decided to not touch it for ages.

2. I had school and, surprisingly, a life.

3. (The actual reason) My Google account wanted to 'be more secure' so they wanted my phone number and I wasn't going to give it to them for three reasons:
A) They were going to spam me with Google websites and spam me with spam advertisements that nobody really wants to see.
B) I have a right to stand up to stuff. They will write stories about me because I didn't do what Google told me to do and I will be remembered in history books as 'The Guy who Stood Up to Google'.
C) I don't have a phone.
Only half an hour ago I realised that there was a skip option, it was a real 'face-palm' moment.

4. Holidays! And because the title of this post is 'Reasons', I'm going to give you reasons why holidays made me not blog.
A) My last post was in the holidays and the holidays are coming up so maybe this blog is a holidays only thing because most people get bored in the holidays.
B) I had a few weekends away on holidays.
C) I can't think of another reason why holidays made me not blog.

So now you know why I haven't being blogging. And now, for entertaining reasons (a bit odd on the Boring Blog), I have a photo of me in the U.S.A, at the White House, in the President's chair talking on the phone with Barak Obama beside me.

Boring Facts

If you saw the title Boring Facts you would think that there would be uninteresting facts about boring things.
WRONG!
In fact, it's facts about being bored. This isn't boring at all really but it's so interesting that you can make something about being bored interesting.
And in case you think I'm copyrighting or something I have the website I got all this interesting boring stuff from here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-History-of-Boredom-180161211.html?c=y&page=1

Also, just to let you know, I spent yesterday (from 12:00 noon to midnight) reading Feedback. So I'm not overly depressed anymore! Very good book, I didn't put it down until I was finished. Odd ending though, it didn't answer every question and it ended abruptly. Still a very good and well written book. But now I must let you read the Boring Facts.

Boredom’s Origins

“Boredom” first became a word in 1852, with the publication of Charles Dickens’ convoluted (and sometimes boring) serial, Bleak House; as an emotional state, it obviously dates back a lot further. Roman philosopher Seneca talks about boredom as a kind of nausea, while Greek historian Plutarch notes that Pyrrhus (he of the “Pyrrhic victory”) became desperately bored in his retirement. Dr. Peter Toohey, a Classics professor at the University of Calgary, traced the path of being bored in 2011 in Boredom: A Lively History.

Among the stories he uncovered was one from the 2nd century AD in which one Roman official was memorialized with a public inscription for rescuing an entire town from boredom (the Latin taedia), though exactly how is lost to the ages. And the vast amount of ancient graffiti on Roman walls is a testament to the fact that teenagers in every era deface property when they have nothing else to do.

In Christian tradition, chronic boredom was “acedia”, a sin that’s sort of a proto-sloth. The “noonday demon”, as one of its early chroniclers called it, refers to a state of being simultaneously listless and restless and was often ascribed to monks and other people who led cloistered lives. By the Renaissance, it had morphed from a demon-induced sin into melancholia, a depression brought on by too aggressive study of maths and sciences; later, it was the French ennui.

In the 18th century, boredom became a punitive tool, although the Quakers who built the first “penitentiary” probably didn’t see it that way. In 1790, they constructed a prison in Philadelphia in which inmates were kept in isolation at all hours of the day. The idea was that the silence would help them to seek forgiveness from God. In reality, it just drove them insane.

Studying boredom

It wasn’t until the 1930s that science took an interest in boredom. In 1938, psychologist Joseph Ephraim Barmack looked at how factory workers coped with the tedium of being factory workers. Stimulants – caffeine, amphetamines, and ephedrine – was the answer.

Barmack was particularly concerned with what can be termed situational boredom, the kind of boredom that is perceived as a temporary state, such as being on a long car ride. This kind of boredom is relieved by change, or, as Barmack found, drugs.

But modern psychologists think boredom might be a lot more complicated than that. It’s appropriate that Dickens coined the word boredom, as literature is littered with characters for whom boredom became dangerously existential (think Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina or Jack Torrance in The Shining. What countless novels of the 19th and 20th century showed was that boredom has a much darker side, that it can be something much more akin to depression.

Recent scientific research agrees: A host of studies have found that people who are easily bored may also be at greater risk for depression, anxiety disorders, gambling addictions, eating disorders, aggression and other psychosocial issues. Boredom can also exacerbate existing mental illness. And, according to at least one 2010 study, people who are more easily bored are two-and-a-half times more likely to die of heart disease than people who are not.

Why is unclear. Take depression: “One possibility is that boredom causes depression; another is that depression causes boredom; another is that they’re mutually causative; another is that boredom is an epi-phenomenon or another component of depression; and another is that there’s another third variable that causes both boredom and depression,” explains Dr. John Eastwood, a clinical psychologist at York University in Toronto. “So we’re at the very beginning stages of trying to figure it out.”

That’s partly because up until very recently, he says, psychologists weren’t working with a very good definition of boredom. Eastwood is one of a growing number of researchers dedicated to understanding boredom; in the October 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, Eastwood and his colleagues published “The Unengaged Mind”, an attempt to define boredom.

The paper claimed that boredom is a state in which the sufferer wants to be engaged in some meaningful activity but cannot, characterized by both restlessness and lethargy. With that in mind, Eastwood says that it all is essentially an issue of attention. “Which kind of makes sense, because attention is the process by which we connect with the world,” explains Eastwood

Boredom may be the result of a combination of factors – a situation that is actually boring, a predisposition to boredom, or even an indication of an underlying mental condition. What that says about how the brain works requires more research.

“I’m quite sure that when people are bored, their brain is in a different state,” says Eastwood. “But the question is not just is your brain in a different state, but what that tells us about the way the brain works and the way attention works.”

Why is Boredom Good For You?

There has to be a reason for boredom and why people suffer it; one theory is that boredom is the evolutionary cousin to disgust.

In Toohey’s Boredom: A Living History, the author notes that when writers as far back as Seneca talk about boredom, they often describe it was a kind of nausea or sickness. The title of famous 20th century existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel about existential boredom was, after all, Nausea. Even now, if someone is bored of something, they’re “sick of it” or “fed up”. So if disgust is a mechanism by which humans avoid harmful things, then boredom is an evolutionary response to harmful social situations or even their own descent into depression.

“Emotions are there to help us react to, register and regulate our response to stimulus from our environment,” he says. Boredom, therefore, can be a kind of early warning system. “We don’t usually take it as a warning – but children do, they badger you to get you out of the situation.”

And though getting out of boredom can lead to extreme measures to alleviate it, such as drug taking or an extramarital affair, it can also lead to positive change. Boredom has found champions in those who see it as a necessary element in creativity. In 2011, Manohla Dargis, New York Times film critic, offered up a defense of “boring” films, declaring that they offer the viewer the opportunity to mentally wander: “In wandering there can be revelation as you meditate, trance out, bliss out, luxuriate in your thoughts, think.”

But how humans respond to boredom may have changed dramatically in the last century. In Eastwood’s opinion, humans have become used to doing less to get more, achieving intense stimulation at the click of a mouse or touch of a screen.

“We are very used to being passively entertained,” he says. “We have changed our understanding of the human condition as one of a vessel that needs to be filled.” And it’s become something like a drug – “where we need another hit to remain at the same level of satisfaction,” says Eastwood.

There is hope, however, and it’s back at the Boring Conference. Rather than turning to a quick fix – YouTube videos of funny cats, Facebook – the Boring Conference wants people to use the mundane as an impetus to creative thinking and observation.

“It’s not the most amazing idea in the world, but I think it’s a nice idea – to look around, notice things,” says Ward, the conference organizer. “I guess that’s the message: Look at stuff.”

'Tis the day to be bored!

Happy, no... Merry, no that's not good either. Boring? Yeah I suppose that works.

BORING BORING DAY!

I hope you have all had a very boring day so far. I have, four long hours in a car re-reading a book I read the day before. A VERY boring day indeed. It started hailing as well as a few minutes after we arrive home which was strange.
(In case yo believe everything you see on the internet, International Boring day isn't a real thing. I made it up. With your support it might actually become a reality)
Did you have a boring International Boring day? I bet you did, in fact the the only interesting thing about your day was reading this. I'll try to make it as boring as possible, I swear.

Where have I been?
Just super secret business
Super secret holiday business!
I went to Soldiers Point at Port Stephens which was nice. We went kayaking and we went to the beach and...wait a second, this is super secret holiday business.
Okay, don't tell anyone, hush hush (they won't care anyway).

So I have read this book (nearly twice in two days) that I got at the *nudge nudge wink wink* place. It's called Variant and I was addicted to it. I'm just going to type in the blurb at the back because I'm in the true spirit of Boring Day

TRUST NO ONE.

Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield

 Academy would be the ticket out of his dead end life.

He was wrong.

Now he's trapped in a school that's surrounded by a razor-

wire fence, where video cameras monitor his every move- 

and where breaking the rules equals death.

All Benson wants is to find a way out. But when he stumbles 

upon the real secret the school has been hiding, he realises 

that escape may be impossible.

Don't you want to read it now, it sounds so exiting and is so exiting (written by Robison Wells by the way). The worst thing about it though is that it has a sequel called Feedback. That pissed me off a bit because at the ending there were even more questions to be answered. I am going to be hugely depressed from now until I get the second book.

In other news the blog has had an extra viewer from the U.S.A. Hi American person and to piss you off (because I'm pissed off as well) I'm going to write a two sentences that you think are spelt wrong (I'm not sure if it will translate but I'm hoping it won't).

The colour of my mum's jewellery is her favourite. I will either honour or criticise those tyres and ploughs by skilfully memorising the programme with honour.

I also believe that the American voted on the poll 'Is this blog boring?'

We now have 4 votes with 9 days to go.

That's all I can think of to blog about at the moment so..

BORING INTERNATIONAL BORING DAY EVERYONE!

=EDIT=EDIT=EDIT=
There are now 5 votes!!! Oh em gee! And there could actually be two or more American viewers.

International Boring Day coming soon

Boring day is a day dedicated to boring things and boring people and being bored. Boring day is an international day where people be bored. It's quite a fun day actually. It is the day you wander around your house looking at the ceiling. It is the day you play solitaire on the computer. It is the day you say "I'm bored" to everyone you meet. It is the day you watch infomercials on TV about flavour stone pots and the fat-burning thigh-crunching Ab Circle Pro!

But what day is International Boring Day? International Boring Day is on the 23 of January. So do all your interesting stuff before the 23 so Boring Day will be a boring day.

The governments around the world are in full support, even the Queen. If things go great this year Boring Day will become an annual tradition!

Do you like the picture? I made it myself (apart from the 'Boring Day' bit of it, I got that off the internet).

In case you're wondering if you get a public holiday for International Boring Day you must be pretty stupid. Of course not, that would defeat the purpose. If you had a public holiday no one would be bored, would they? On Boring Day you will have to go to work (not school because it's the holidays but it is also late in the holidays so you would have being bored anyway) because work is boring. If you have a fun job such as a sky diving instructor or superhero then you will be instructed by your boss to do something boring such as paperwork or folding parachutes or ironing your spiderman outfit.

Twelve more days until International Boring Day!

Oh, it's like Christmas, I'm so exited!

Me

All of you, that's right, all of you maybe wondering 'who is this Random Fire Hand guy'. What's his purpose? Is he even a he? Where does he live? What does he look like? What's his fourth favourite subtropical carnivorous nocturnal mammal? Yes, all of you are wondering these questions so I am going to answer some of them. Not all of them, mind you. Some answers may be very vague. I'm not putting all my personal information on the World Wide Web. If I do the government could track me or there could be urr... pedophiles reading this.

So, let's get started.
I am not an adult, I'm a teenager.
I'm an Aussie.
I have red hair.
I also have a soul.
I can touch my nose with my tongue.
I am awesome.
I like caramel.
I have no idea what colour my eyes are, they're a cross between blue, green and grey.
I am a he.
I don't have a fourth favourite subtropical carnivorous nocturnal mammal. I don't know why you would ask that. It's such an odd question to ask. I Googled it and the only ones I could find were Hyaenas and Tasmanian devils. So I'm not even sure if there is a fourth one to choose as my favourite.
I have internet access.
I play Rugby Union.
I have a mouth.
I got school captain in year 9.
I want to be a palaeontologist.
I have the initials BMW.
I have an annoying little brother and an annoying big sister.
I drink so much milk that we never usually have any for breakfast.
My school is small. In secondary we have some 50 students.
I sleep in a bed.
I am VERY smart.
I read Skulduggery Pleasant and other books that interest me.
And I own this blog.

So that's me. This blog may be boring but I'm certainly not. If I didn't answer any of your question you could comment them or you could just mind your own business.

There is a poll to the side of this post that asked the question how boring is this blog. If you find this site please vote. It will make the outcome more interesting.

A Boring blog post

Ah, hello there, how are you. You may be surprised to know that this is a boring blog post. Are you surprised? You should be. I know this is the Boring Blog and the title says it's a Boring blog post but it is still astonishing that this is a boring blog post.

And that's all I have to say.


BY GOD that was a boring blog post.

UPDATES

Yes, if you have noticed (which I don't think anyone has) I have been adding some stuff to the blog. Little gadgets on the side, a Like/share thing down the bottom for Facebook and Twitter users and a poll so I can see how boring my blog actually is! But what else could I add? Can people comment what I should add. I know that none of you will comment but I may as well say it.
I'm not going to say what gadgets I can put on this blog, there's too many. If you have your own blog you may know. Some of them are clocks and virtual pet thingies that could probably annoy many of my few thousand followers.

Want to know what I've being doing today? Well of course you don't, why would you? My life has nothing to do with your and what I did today is extremely boring. But this is the boring blog, is it not?

I got up out of bed at 11:00 (It's the holidays, don't judge me), went to the toilet, washed my hands and then had a glass and a half of iced tea. I then started blogging. It's 1:30 now and I still haven't had breakfast.
My life is great isn't it

6 VIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW! 6 views, I'm really impressed that I have made another six people just as boring as me. Why would anyone bother to read this blog, it clearly states that this is a boring blog yet I have had six views in little more than twelve hours. Astonishing.

This blog tells me stuff you know, where you live, what computer you're using and even if you're using Safari or Firefox. If anyone would like to know (anyone = no one) four of the views came from Australia, one from Germany and the last in South Korea. Half of them were using Safari, the other half Firefox. Half were on a Mac, the other half Windows.

Oh the power of blogging.

I could stalk everyone of you viewers you know. I'll be disguised as an umbrella. Why? you ask. Because no one suspects the umbrella! Bwha ha ha ha ha!

The hugely interesting brick wall

Here is a brick wall.
There are around 160 bricks in this photos but no all of them are the same. Most of the bricks are brown   but some are a faded yellow or grey. There is a dirty brick in the ninth row up second from the right.

Why certainly, very excited yellow head, I will go on.
Umm... well what else is there to write about bricks? Not much I wager. So I'll write the rest of what I know about brick making.

Massively boring mind you so don't read it. There is no secret message or code fragment or anything funny it is just very boring stuff!

Because the steam shovel was not invented until 1879 early brickmakers had to dig for the clay on site with hand shovels. This was done in autumn. The early brickmaker chose his clay by it's color and texture and based on his experience. He sought clay that was located just under the topsoil to minimize the hard work of digging it with hand spades. The clay was exposed to the weather so that the freeze-thaw cycle of the winter could break the clay down and allow it to be worked by hand. The winter made the clay soft and removed unwanted oxides.

In the spring the clay was then able to be worked by hand. It was necessary to either grind the clay into a powder and screen it to remove stones or the clay was was placed into a soaking pit where it was mixed with water to obtain the right consistency for moulding. It was kneaded with the hands and feet to mix all the elements of the clay together. This step was called tempering or pugging and was the hardest work of all. In the mid-1800's horse driven pug mills were invented. (below)

The clay was removed from the soaking pit or pug mill by a temperer who delivered it to the moulding table.

The assistant brick mouder was called the "clot" moulder and he would prepare a lump of clay and give it to the brick moulder. The brickmoulder was the key to the operation and he was the head of the team. He would stand at the moulding table for twelve to fourteen hours a day and with the help of his assistants could make 3500 to 5000 bricks in a day. He would take the clot of clay, roll it in sand and "dash" it into the sanded mould. The clay was pressed into the mould with the hands and the excess clay removed from the top of the mould with a strike, which was a flat stick that had been soaking in water. This excess clay was returned to the clot moulder to be reformed . Sand was used to prevent the clay from sticking to the mould. 
Mould (top) and stockboard (below) of the kind used for making bricks in the nineteen century
Single, double, four or six brick moulds were used. The single brick mould had an advantage in that a child could carry it to the drying area. Beech wood was the prefered material for the mould for it was claimed that the clay would not stick to it. The top of the mould was laminated with iron to prevent wear. The brick slid easily out of the mould because it was sanded and these bricks are referred to as "sand struck bricks". The process was also referred to as slop moulding.
The next person on the team was called an off-bearer. He would walk up to the moulding table, remove the filled mould and take it to a drying area on a pallet or barrow where it would be placed on a level bed of sand. He would then return the mould to the table and wet and sand it to recieve the next brick.

The moulded bricks were stacked in a herring bone pattern to dry in the air and the sun. The moulded bricks were first left to dry for two days at which time they were turned over to facilitate uniform drying and prevent warping. During this time tools called dressers or clappers were used by "edgers" to to straighten the bricks and obtain a smooth surface. After four days of dry hot weather the bricks were sufficiently hard to allow them to be stacked on end in a herringbone pattern with a finger's width between them to allow futher drying. This area was called a hack or a hackstead and the bricks were covered under roof or with straw to protect them from the rain or harsh sun. After two weeks the bricks were ready to be burned.

If fired bricks were on hand they were used to construct the outer walls of the kiln and the surface was daubed with mud to contain the heat. If no fired bricks were availible the kiln was constructed entirely of green or raw bricks which were stacked in such a way as to act as their own kiln. These kilns were called clamps or scove kilns. Wood and coal were used for fuel.
Even after drying in air the green bricks contained 9-15% water. For this reason the fires were kept low for 24-48 hours to finish the drying process and during this time steam could be seen coming from the top of the kiln. This was called "water smoke". Once the gases cleared this was the sign to increase the intensity of the fires. If it was done too soon the steam created in the bricks would cause them to explode. Intense fires were maintained in the fire holes around the clock for a week until temperatures of 1800 degrees F were reached. The knowledge and experience of the brickmaker dictated when the fireholes would be bricked over and the heat was allowed to slowly dissipate over another week.
When the kiln was disassembled the sorting process began. If only raw bricks were used, the bricks from the outermost walls were kept to be burned again in the next kiln. Some bricks which were closest to the fire recieved a natural wood ash glaze from the sand that fell into the fires and became vaporized and deposited on the bricks. These bricks were used in the interior courses of the walls. Bricks that became severely over burned and cracked or warped were called clinkers and were occasionally used for garden walls or garden paths.
The best bricks were chosen for use on the exterior walls of the building. Those that were only slightly underfired had a salmon color and early bricklayers knew that the porosity of these bricks would help to insulate the structure and they were placed on the innermost courses of the wall.
According to representatives from nothing, to protect the underfired bricks and mortar and to impart a uniform color to the exterior wall surface a "Color Wash" was applied. This consisted of glue sizing, pigment (iron oxide), and potash alum as illustrated below. The mortar joints were then painted white.



HOW BORING WAS THAT!
Could you have thought of anything more boring? I think not. And look, everyone in this imaginary classroom is wide awake and asking for more.

This is the first post that no one will read

Umm.. I'm sorry, are you reading this blog? Can't you read the title? It clearly says that this is The Boring Blog That People Shouldn't Read. And what are you doing? READING IT!

You may be very confusing, dear reader, and you may be thinking that I am confusing as well. Why, you ask, is this person writing a blog when they do not want people reading it? What's the point? To be truthful, there is no point. This blog is to be boring, so boring in fact that you'll get halfway through the title and fall asleep due to the sheer boringness of it all. It's so very, utterly, unbearable boring. Oh, the boredemness of it all.
If you're still reading this you must test how long long drying paint takes to dry for a living. Or maybe you measure the length of dead brown grass 24/7. Or maybe you live with the circus, because you are the most boring man alive.

In this blog, whose name I have already forgotten because it's so boring, there will be, you guessed it, super fun interesting stuff. No, I'm just kidding, it's going to be about boring stuff. Like the chemicals in pure water and the dimensions of the chair I'm sitting on (if you're lucky I might even announce the colour of it too).

This is to be...


THE BORING BLOG!
dun-dun dunn