Author Archives: Silver Arrows

Playground Clapping Songs from the Late 80s/Early 90s

My niece is five now, and I've been trying to teach her the clapping games. I tried to remember some of the songs we used to sing as kids.

Before we start, please remember that these songs are products of their time and therefore might be considered a little offensive at times. When teaching my niece, I will alter these to make them acceptable, but I'm documenting them here just for a record of my school days.

Ai Shu Shweila

I don't know how this name is meant to be spelt. It's pronounced like "eye", "shoe" and "shweila" to rhyme with the name "Layla/Leila". I can't find a record of this particular variant. I've also forgotten how the first line goes, so I've taken it from others that I've seen online.

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Thoughts So Far on WordPress vs Blogger

All right, I'm still setting up all my stuff here. I didn't think I'd see the day where I would move from WordPress to Blogger, and yet here we are. Even if I never triggered the sidebar glitch, it was only a matter of time before WP's "change for change's sake" drove me off. Despite that there is so much objection to the Block nonsense, they are still insisting on pushing it on everyone. The Classic Editor is due to be phased out from next year, and once that happened, I would have had to leave anyway. It's a shame, it really is. Anyway, enough of the angst.

Compared to WordPress at its best, Blogger is severely lacking. For one thing, the media uploader is terrible. You can't drag and drop as you can in WordPress, and when you access your media gallery, you're shown a gallery of everything, with the oldest images first, and no way to search or filter.

WP media manager
Wordpress

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Hello World

This is the new home of silverssimstuff.wordpress.com for the foreseeable future. I'm currently working on archiving some of the more significant/better (I use that term loosely) posts, so please be patient while I sift through my archives.

I'm done with WP.com's glitchy crap and "upgrades". Nuking my sidebar was the last straw. I hope to return home one day, but WP is making that look increasingly unlikely. I'll keep my old blogs up, and I won't transfer most of the Sims stuff here, despite the name (outtolunch was taken). I'll try to get some form of navigation here to the stuff there in case there's still any demand.

I’m Done with WordPress for Now…

[This post and all prior to this are from my old WordPress blog]

I've been blogging with WP since Jun 2007. That's 14 years (not including the many years I blogged with the .org version). I've always liked how user-friendly the software is, and even though the .com version lacks the flexibility of the .org experience, it was still a solid, easy-to-use piece of software. And despite being annoyed by all the "upgrades", I've stuck with it.

And now it seems WordPress doesn't really want me here anymore.

The changes to the editor were the first push. But so far, I can still get the old editor to work, so I keep on blogging. But it's getting worse.

I tried to make one tweak to bring back the link to the Storytelling page in the sidebar, and my entire sidebar was gone. Despite assurances that my old widgets are safe, none of them were.

WP reassures me my widgets are safe. How many more lies have I been told by the council? Continue reading →

Sasukin Skywhiner

Okay, I'm past chapter 400, and my gosh, Sasuke is more annoying than Sakura now. He's even more annoying than Anakin, dammit. How does this whiner have such a big fanbase? Anyway, here is some general snark for what I've read so far.

Firstly, the Kakashi Gaiden:

chefs kiss

I actually spent £7 on Volume 27 just for this. Minato is the best thing about the series. He's such a cupcake! So wholesome! Dammit, Kishimoto.


Yah yes!

Also, I watched Tsunade's Infinite Tsukuyomi dream, and why do you do this to us, Kishimoto? Why?! Tsunade's tsukuyomi dream is forever my headcanon!

Anyway, on to the snark...

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私じゃない[歌詞] (Not Me, Not I — Japanese Version)

This is my Japanese version of Delta Goodrem's Not Me, Not I. Lyrics by me, with corrections by my good friend Yuki-san. Instrumental here:


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弱っていくよりもむしろ強くなってる VERSE
Yowatteku yorimo mushiro tsuyoku natteru		 VERSE
Rather than getting weaker, I am getting stronger.
いいえ、私は傷ついたが大丈夫になる。 Iie, watashi wa kizutsuita ga daijoubu ni naru. No, you broke my heart, but I'll be okay.

Jasmine Elemita… Remember Her?

So a couple of weeks ago, I ploughed through the entire saga so far, and wow, I didn't realise just how bad it was. Now, in my defence, it was meant to be a simple, mostly light hearted, short story, and I kinda made it up as I went along, but it ended being a lot more complicated and dark than I had originally planned. The early chapters, even after revisions, still feel very cobbled together. I think they need a complete rewrite.

The bigger issue I have is with Jasmine though. I don't like how emotionally dependent she became on Ash and I guess I was drawing a little on my own experiences there, because I, too, was that pathetic co-dependent fiancée at one point. I really feel that her dependency should have been addressed, and shown for the unhealthy behaviour it was. Plus there was a lot of enabling behaviour from her social circle that should have been addressed too. And people cried far too much, it was ridiculous.

So... you know how the in-game screenshot tool stopped working last time I used it? So I moved the whole Sims 2 folder out, let it reset, checked screenshots worked again, then put the folder back in but without downloads, checked the screenshots still worked, then used binary sort to find out which download was causing the issue, ended up restoring every download file without it botching the screenshot function, and so I don't even know what was going on there. EA just sucks, amirite?

Does this mean that I will finally finish Jasmine's story? I want to, I really do. I vaguely remember what was supposed to happen, but I feel that I really need to sort out what I've already written, because it's so badly written and it bugs me. But I think if I do, I'll do it Dreamsong style: prose with the odd screenshot, rather than the photo album format. Speaking of which, I never finished Dreamsong either.

Attempting to Fix Sakura Haruno – Part 2: The Actual Fix

Part 1: How did Sakura even qualify as a genin?

So just to clarify, it's been a loooong time since I watched/read Part 2 of Naruto, so this is just in the context of Part 1.

So the biggest problem with Part 1 Sakura is that she is 95% Sasuke-stalker, 5% self-absorbed brat. Let's start fixing this.

Our first proper introduction to Sakura is when she joins Team 7. Kakashi asks them to introduce themselves. Sasuke and Naruto answer as they originally did, and then it's Sakura's turn.

"My name is Sakura Haruno. Things I like... Well, I really like my best friend Ino, and my parrot, Mr Feathers," she says, with a big smile on her face. "My hobbies... Well, my dad is a master pastry chef, and on weekends--" She stops suddenly, remembering that both her team-mates are orphans. She looks over to Sasuke, who is looking into the distance, seemingly oblivious as usual. Naruto is just looking at her with a big goofy grin on his face. She hesitates a moment, then continues. "My dad teaches me how to make all kinds of fancy desserts, and my mum is a master woodworker, and she's teaching me how to carve traditional figurines."

"And things you dislike?" Kakashi prompts.

Sakura looks despondent for a moment. "What I dislike is that I'm really bad at both of them."

We see a still of her standing next to her burnt and misshapen pastries, and another of her next to a hideously deformed kimekomi doll. In the background though, we see the respective parent smiling proudly at their beloved daughter.

"That's why my dream is to be Continue reading →

How did Sakura Even Qualify as a Genin? Attempting to Fix Sakura Haruno

I used to be a big Naruto fan. I used to watch the anime, and my gosh, the flashbacks, the monologues, and the pointless explanations of what just happened, and then another character explaining what just happened again in case we forgot in those last 5 seconds. Holy carp. [Edit: Naruto Kai is a thing, but even with all the filler and padding removed, it still drags.] I got through some of Shippuden, and I then went on to the manga because the dubs were taking too long, but I didn't get all that far.

Anyway, I got a little fed up, because it seemed every story followed the same formula of: baddie does bad guy stuff, Naruto gives a pep talk, bad guy decides to be good. This must be where Dhar Mann got his formula from.

So I was watching Abridged recently, and it made me curious about what actually happened in canon, so I decided to start reading the manga from the beginning, because ain't no one got time for those flashbacks, yo. And boy, did I forget just how bad of a character Sakura is. I'm not just talking about her general uselessness throughout Part 1. Her whole character sucks. She is literally a terribly written character, and an awful role model for girls. Kishimoto writes females badly in general, but he really messed up with Sakura.

And I don't for one minute buy the excuse that he's "bad at writing good female characters". What a cop out. What an absolutely lazy, pathetic excuse for a cop out.

I've seen reports that he even said he didn't bother to improve Sakura as a character because the fans hated her anyway, and if that's true then feck off, Kishimoto. You don't get to blame the fans for your crappy writing.

Here's how you do it: write a good character. Make them female. That's it. That's all you have to do.

If Itachi and Sasuke were sisters, their character arcs would still be the same. Genderswap Naruto, Kakashi, Neji, any male character at all, and nothing would change but their appearance. They would still be well developed characters. So why can't he do the same for the female characters? Because I think in Kishimoto's mind, females are less than males. That's what I think anyway.

Kishimoto's guiding principle on writing female characters
Kishimoto's guiding principle on writing female characters. Continue reading →

In Your Face from Outer Bass!

Oh yeah, who's the boss now? Yeah, that's what I thought.

hand clapper

Darth Jar Jar has resumed his place as the No. 1 Sith Lord! All hail are-sa bombad boss!

This was like a level 2 or something, and I'm struggling to finish level 3. That Toss the Feathers one was hard, but I eventually did it. I'm stuck on the last exercise. Umm, anyway, Yousician is actually good you know. I feel like I am actually making progress.

Update: no, it gets better!

flying thumb

This one is Continue reading →