There are probably only four things you want to know about me. So here they are:
What's the name all about?
Well, that's easily explainable. As I mentioned on the index page, I have a great linking for a trilogy of books called The Depford Mice and green mouse is the name of the deity which guides the mice in the book.
Originally, I went round the net under the name of Blind I/O (a God from Terry Pratchetts Discworld) but after reading the books I decided to pick a new pseudonym from one of them. Originally I was goingto stick with Orion, or some other name related to the star glass (which interests me immensely, read the review to find out why) But that was all related to the starwife and wasn't mouse oriented enough, so in the end after messing around in word pad I accidentally stumbled upon my E-mail sig and found that the words Green Mouse fit into it perfectly.
My friends have complained, especially Deano. I can understand why of course. Me and hi mare the children of the infomation age, it's not exactly the most 'cyberpunk' of names. But then, Deano complains about just about everything I say. Apparently, phrases like 'Groovy' and 'Dig it' are no longer used amoungst 'cool' people. It isn't even cool to say 'cool' which kind of makes me wonder what the world is coming to.
As for the real name... I can't tell you.
Any one who really wants to know should be able to figure it our from: 'the rock of metalwork'
And that's All I can say.
What's Apodemus Sylvaticus all about?
Oh sure, ask the tough one. Anyone who's visited tihs site previously will know that the plot for Apodemus Sylvaticus has changed a lot. This is because this is the twelfth relaunch (and hopefully the final one, I don't want to end it on thirteen).
Only two ofthen ever got to the net - the last one, and this one.
From my lack of constructive E-mails I can tell that the last one was never actually used by anyone, so no one should mind abou the transition.
The old plot was that the human race had died out and mice had taken over, but that meant drawing up new maps of the whole place and deicding on how far secies had advanced etc etc.
The new plot is much better, Heres the blurb and basic idea:
You may think you have a normal life. You go to work, you fill in crosswords in newspapersand occasionally you go out to the pub with your friends. A nice normal life.
But even though you don't know it, you've been chosen. So have others, and they don't know it yet. infact ,the omnly time you will find out is when they come to fetch you.
You come home from work one day, fill in the crossword in the newpaper on the train, walk up to your fron door and there they are. And before you know it, you're out cold.
Then you wake up. Something's wrong. You aren't normal anymore, infact far from it. you're no longer huamn. You're one of them. Their incantations have gone wrong, they weren't supposed to fully transform you. But now it's permananent and there's no going back.
Mice have taken you into their society. You were going to be thier diplomat to the human race, now you're thier only hope against the humans. Man vs Mouse in the armageddon that could decide onthe fate of the whole universe.
And that's what Apodemus Sylvaticus is about - being forced to fight onthe other side of the abttle you've been winning for thousands of years. Except it's no longer just about getting rid of the mice, it's about conquest of infinity.
That makes as much sense as the new statue they've put up in liverpool, but it all adds up if you read the full rule book on the @$ page.
What kind of person is G.M.?
Erm.. OK. Everyone writes somethign abotu themselves on these things ans it usually goes something along the lines of 'oh gosh, I'm so glad you asked as I'm so incredibly smart and strong and good at everything!' and fortunatelyfor you, I'm not like that.
I'm of slightly above average intelligence, or at least I was the last time I checked. when I was eight I took a test which said my mental age wassixteen. Now that I'm sixteen I hope it's thirty two.
Unfortunately I live in the shadow of an older brother who is of exceptional intelligence and ego. My parents are unable to grasp the fact that he is simply better than me and reward his sucesses much more than mine, even though I'm trying as hard as I can.
My father works shifts, we're a very working class family - something which I hope to break free from as soon as possible - which means I see very little of him. Obviously I don't mean one a month or anything, He's there every night but when he's working nights he sleeps all the time I'm in. I don't blame him.
My mother is an unemployed workaholic. She constantly cleans, cooks and works herself into an early grave using every offer of help as a chance to complain about why we've never helped before.
I'm hated by the world in general, this gives me a unique view of the human race. i always see the bad side of people because it's all they ever show me.
The above factors all add up to the reason why I like mice more than people.
Obviously, I have some friends - Death, Nick the name, Cass and Deano - but I don't really know any of them as much as I'd like to.
Death shares my interest in literature (although we like totally different books) but has a strange obsession with corny horror movies (hence his pseudonym).
Nick the name Shares my interest in libraries. We both do - well, did - voluntary work in the school library.
Cass shares my interest in Red Dwarf (it's a TV show) but it's like an obession to her, she thinks of nothing else and occasionally I wonder if she actually likes me as a person at all.
Deano and me share an interest in electronics computers and anything technological but he doesn't know anything else about me.
There's more info about them on The Lads page.
Recently I've sort of sunk into the books I read. Very little else occupies my thoughts.
Even when listening to music the books are there. The words sort of reflect the characters.
If you don't believe me, read the books and listen for yourself.
That's all I can really say. Oh, a summary of things I like and hate:
I Like
Music
Madness, Monaco,The Lightning Seeds, Space, Catch, Chumbawamba, Super Furry Animals, James, Supergrass, Vangelis, Chirs DeBurg and The Wonder Stuff.
Food
Cheese(only the good English stuff), sausage, haggis, pork products, yoghurt, chocolate, crumpets and grapes.
Films
Shooting Fish, Bean, Time Nandits, Water, The Life Of Brian, Asterix and the Big Fight, anything with mice in it.
I Dislike
Music
All of those bloody stupid four/five blokes and no musician bands, The spice girls, jungle/hardcore music, Aqua and all those heavy metal bands that smash up guitars and wail because they haven't got the intelligence to think up words.
Food
Ash, cabbage, sprouts, chewy beef (some places cook beef so tough it makes me want to wretch), over spicy foods (I don't mind the odd curry. It's really odd curries I don't like), soggy bananas (I eat them while they're green), anything with too much wine.
Films
Sphere, Event Horizon, Dawn of the Dead (not because any of them are all that scary, they're just dire and plotless), Asterix in Egypt (this is the only Asterix film my friend has seen and it put him off all the others for life), Flubber and anythign which takes talking animals too seriously or not seriously enough or in which animals are supposed ot represent people.
As an example of the above animal fils, for too seriously read 'The lion king', for not seriously enough read 'Babe' and for as a substiute for people read 'Disney's Robin Hood'
Oh yeah, one other thing:
Person I most aspire to be like: Mike Harding
Person I would least want to end up like: Bill Gates
How did G.M. get where he is today?
This is tricky. First I have to say where I am today - I'm on the internet.
I got there through Deano, for which I am eternally thankful. It all started in the library. I was working there with Nick because Simbod (an aquaintance more than a friend) was taking more and more time off.
One day out of the blue a guy I had never met before walked up to me and gave me a computer disk.
It had a few files on it, mostly stuff He'd pulled off the net, and a small epxlanation that he was into prgramming as well. I don't know how he found out that I was a minority programmer (one who writes programs only for themselves).
But after reading the files, I went to see him in a science lesson (We share lots of classes but I'd never spoken to him before then) and had a short conversation about the stuff on the disk. It was mostly abotu networking and things. I told him I's liek to try a few of the things out and asked if he'd got a modem.
It turned out he hadn't but we still worked on it, knowing that one day, one of us would have.
The disks went backwards and forwards, we talked in lessons ,drew up schematics for signaling devices and interface chip programmers. All of it was above the syllabus, but that was what we loved about it.
The nwhen we started working on radio circuits, He invited me to see the net cafe with him. That was where he got all his internet info.
So I went along. Before I knew what I was doing I'd gotten myself and E-mail address, A web site, a disk full of files on my favourite books and we'd been there for two hours.
I was astonished. Handing eight quid over the counter for the time he showed me the buss routes home and after a quick conversation about music and a phone card reader in an electronics magazine I was home.
Within a week we'd decided to return. That time I'd written a bit of HTML and I posted it onto my page, I joined a Redwall club, looked for information on fractals and got a copy of an occult catalogue.
Before going home I went to Deano's house. I saw his computer (And is that thing powerful) and wer spent hours looking over collectedfiles and writign out code. I showed him a few things I'd programmed, he showed me a few things he'd altered the coding of and then I went home.
All the time, the internet was bulding in my mind. All I'd ever wanted in life was access to knowledge. Now I had it.
Ben Elton once said:
"They say the internet is like a vast room, within which is all the knowledge of the world and children can stroll in and wander round freely, just pickign up any bits of information they choose. Kind of like... A library."
I won't argue, the internet is just like a library, the only difference is, the internet stocks all the books you're looking for and they're never out when you visit. I like libraries and the internet was like a library of everything.
The only thing I don't like about it is the mentality which follows it:
Set the scene, some remote internet cafe, in the north of England. Some spotty little herbert walks in, hooks up to an aerican chat cafe and calls himself cyber slayer. also there is 'hot bitch' (a fat forty year old woman in america) and turbo steel (a ten year old with a superiority complex). Let the conversation commence:
Hot Bitch : Hey we've got some new meat on the rack.
Cyber Slayer: Hi there baby. How'd you like spicy sausgage?
Turbo Steel : Oi Lay off, dweeb, she's mine.
Cyber Slayer: Oh yeah, like you could hold dow na girlfriend!
Turbo Steel : I'll let you know I'm quite attractive actually!
Cyber Slayer: I meant phyisically :)
Hot Bitch : Leave it out boys, I'm sure I can make time for both of you.
Cyber slayer: What are you like then?
Hot Bitch : I come from Sweden, you can tell by my nubile figure.
Turbo Steel : How old are you then?
Hot Bitch : Old enough to know how and young enough to do it.
Kinky Minx has entered the room.
now although they seem to know a lot about each other, at the moment, the whole net cafe thinks that:
Cyber Slayer is a good looking well endowed hunk,
Turbo steel has reached sexual maturity,
and Hot Bitch is a swedish lass with big knockers and small everything else.
In truth Hot bitch is far too old to do it and and hasn't done it for so long that she's probably forgotten how. Back to the action, kinky minx has just entered the room:
Kinky Minx : Hello boys.
Hot Bitch : Leave off there, were having a threesome tonight.
Turbo Steel : Now with him I'm not.
Cyber Slayer: Ditto
Kinky Minx : Fine then, I'll have the one with the longest dick.
Now at this point, there is a long awkward silence. Both Cyber Slayer and Turbo Steel have got to lie, in intenet terms, anything you can't ype with is considered small and innoffensive.
But they know they've got to type thier in seconds to be sure that they type the longest.
Luckily, due to latency and the nature of the internet, the conversation above has taken forty five minutes and Cyber Slayer can't afford any longer.
So he leaves making his last message let's just say I don't need tent posts
Paying up his three quid, he leave, takign a quick glance at ther terminal next to his on which a twenty year old bloke called Bruno is ona chat site talking to Turbo Steel and Hot bitch under the name of Kinky Minx.
That's what the internet is like. On the internet people aren't who they are, they're who they want to be.
So that's why I amde this site.
It's not the best, it's not the funniest, it's not the most informative and it isn't the most sexually stimulating, but it's the most honest by far.
People put up so many visors and shields to hide themselves from the world around them that ocassionally, they get lost in them.
THE RPG
I know I said there were only four sections in this but I wanted to add one more for the hell of it.
I'm a roleplayer. Or rather, I want to be.
I've written an RPG, I've subscribed to a rolepalying mag but I've never actuallt roleplayed.
I there's anyone inthe sheffiel area willing to take a sixteen year old geek into thier roleplaying club/group/society, please contact me.
[email protected]
I'll play anything.
only through experience with other Genres can I refine @$.
