Exactly what is WoA? - Friday

You've all heard about it time and time again, so what exactly is it? Here's what I've got on the main intro page. "Set in a fantasy period, World of arl is a 'postal wargame'. You are a leader of a country, every week you give orders to that country. The orders are gathered from all the countries in the game and the outcome decided by the Custodians. The outcome is decided from the extensive, yet easy to learn and grasp, game rules." Yes, it's a game and it's run on the internet over a forum. It's full of great people, at the last count there are at least 58 players from all over the world. Every week they post orders and make sneaky dealings with each other. Every weekend they find out what happened and if their sneaky dealings were sneaky enough. So far I've had very few people say that they don't like the game. People that do say they don't like it are listened to and their input taken, the game is then changed for the better based on what they say. I feel that this is what sets WoA apart from other games, the playerse make a difference. I suppose you're probably wondering what the goal of a player is. Well, that's not easy. It all depends on their team, and we've had a lot of very interesting teams. I'll list them below and what they appeared to set out to achieve Zeroth Order: Pretty much the complete and utter ahnilation of every single other team. Coel managed to frame several other people for his work before he was found out. He was helped in large due to the rather vague nature of the game and his experiance at it. Owing to almost all players asking, the game has now become much more precise, though little is certain. Taranaska: The burning of all magic users. This is an interesting one as Magic is a key force in WoA, thus requiring some smart play from Taranaska. They are led by a Dutchman called Markpieter and have survived a whole three worlds, a feat matched only by two other teams. Navarites: The general taunting of anything they like. This team started as a spin-off from a warhammer team and changed radically. Each game the players teams may spend evolution points, Arakasi (now also a Custodian) spent his points on wings. Owing to his work in the game at advancing towards it he could afford it and became the first flying team. He also showed the players what could be achieved with some imagination (as if the Zeroth Order's massive Decimator wasn't enough). And finnally the Lords of Chaos: General World Domination. This group of 4 core players has been a strong team since world 1 and almost won it. In fact, they may well have won it had they not been betrayed. Ironically they won world 2 due to the other side being a target of massive betrayal. They experiment very well, they even built a floating city (it crushed a whole fleet in world 2) and spent their evolution points on breathing underwater. So, there's no end to the goals you can set yourself (some are more fun then others) and so far, almost no limits to the game. And if you find a limit we can always extend it (based on player voting). If this report has piqued your interest, come give us a visit. Our Boiler Our Boiler, when set on the wrong temperature makes a low vibrating annoyance of itself. I can Annoyance Factor - 8 Weirdness Factor - 8 Volume Factor - 10 Ease of Creation - 2 Average - 7

Family Holiday - Thursday

I got up at 0730. The reason was that at about 0815 we left for Somerset for my Nan and Grandad's. We got there and I got another bit of money for some stuff (It's going towards a server and possibly some speakers). My Uncle and Cousins arrived (more money) and we made lots of jokes. The subject of these jokes shall be today's story. Nana Duck Due to being rather stupid at the age of 3 (Family Response: Not much has changed) I used to call this Nana, "Nana Quack Quack". This is because she lives on a farm and had lots of ducks. My Mum decided that 'Nana Duck' was slightly more dignified and a better choice so it was used. Nana Duck (and Grandad Duck) had two children. My Dad and Uncle Brett. She won't admit it to us but she's very proud of them. Hence every time we go down there to visit we make fun of her and it is here that I get my sense of humour from. The ceiling at the farm are low, they look like they're designed for really short people. To increase the problem Nana Duck hangs Christmas decorations very low. When we got there we spent 5 minutes pretending to strangle outselves on them, knock them down. After that we spent 5 minutes rearranging them. When my Uncle and is children arrived it really got funny. Dinner was an excellent affair. Nana Duck managed to 'miss count' the number of people and not make enough Yorkshire puddings (everything else was fine...). The adults therefore didn't get any and they made lots of fun of her for that. Before we left she mentioned that she reads my blog and that she tries to talk to me telepathically and she hopes I can hear her. I don't think she needs to go into a home yet, but the time is approaching fast.... Squeeking Brakes We had a long drive back and the wheel squeeks on the family car. It's a loud squeek as well. Annoyance Factor - 7 Weirdness Factor - 5 Volume Factor - 8 Ease of Creation - 4 Average - 6

My first adventure on a Web Forum - Wednesday

I need to get up earlier, I got up at 1300 today. Maybe I'm just trying to catch up on all that sleep I miss at Uni? I spent today improving more areas of the WoA readme, messing around on Candy Crisis and generally neglecting my studies. Tomorrow I've got a nice long car journey and plan to use it to design my AI for my Othello game at the end of the year. My first adventure on a Web Forum By a certain 'Nightbringer' (I know his real name) this might be called "That git locked me out of my forum". He is of course very wrong. Nightbringer had this forum, and, being the sort of slow witted person that he is promoted me to Moderator on it after I got loads of people to join it. At this time I had been using Web Forums for under a month and was not the best person to be a moderator. Nightbringer had some sort of holiday and decided to leave me as resident Admin. During the time on the board we had been planning for a big warhammer campaign. We decided it'd be a cool idea to get the evil side organised and so I started 'fixing' stuff. Within an hour of logging onto the Admin control pannel I had (without realsing) removed the Admin status of both myself AND Nightbringer. When he got back from holiday he was not best pleased but took it in good humour and decided that it was okay for me to be a moderator where I could stop spam, but not wreck the board. He also got someone in to sort out my mess. More recently when I installed my new forum he made a lot of snide jokes about it when it didn't quite work at first. I think I deserved them. I don't know that he reads this so I'm pretty sure that I'm safe. And remember, you don't need to be logged in anymore to post comments Your sister running up the stairs at 1200 When you are trying to lie in, you do not like this happening. Annoyance Factor - 10 Weirdness Factor - 0 Volume Factor - 8 Ease of Creation - 2 Average - 5

My first attempt at spot cream - Tuesday

Of course I've tried spot cream before, it's just a good title for today. Plus it's the title of today's story. Teifion's First attempt at using Spot Cream Around the start of my second year of sixth form it dawned on me that it might be nice to get a Girlfriend. For some reason this thought struck me much later than it appeared to have struck my classmates. Unlike many books say, I did not suddenly notice girls everywhere, I happen to be observent when I want to be. Suffice to say I was very spotty then, I'm still a little now, but it's much better. My Mum being the helpful person that she is found something that was meant to be quite good. It was a packet of cloths and you'd wipe them over your face, spots would go soon and you'd look awsome. Well, I've serious doubts that the last thing would come true but, no pain, no gain. I applied the cloth on wednessday morning. Wednessday afternoon we had some sort of presentation thing, I thought I did pretty well, even if I did talk a little fast. After the presentation thingie I had psychology. For whatever reason, there were I think 3 Boys in a class of 15 (one of the Boys left a bit later or had already). For those unsure of Wales, the rest were in fact, Girls. After a while they managed to ask why my face was so red. I was puzzled, surely my face was not red, for I hadn't been embarissed all day. One of them commented that I looked sunburnt. We paid no further heed to it (I wasn't getting embarissed at all) and I went home. My Mum also commented on it, she also asked if I had washed my face after using the cloth. I had to apply skin moisturiser to my face for the next week before it looked better. Everybody had thought (to my annoyance) that I was embarissed to give the presentation that Wednessday. As a side note, the spots didn't vanish. Balloons rubbing together Get two balloons, rub them together. End of 'how to make' section. Annoyance Factor - 10 Weirdness Factor - 6 Volume Factor - 5 Ease of Creation - 9 Average - 7.5

Boring day, too late for a story - Monday

I got up at about 1200 and spent the rest of the day playing a little CC and writing revisions for some WoA stuff. I also had a Christmas dinner at my Grans. It was lovely. Car Alarms Assuming it keeps going it's pretty annoying Annoyance Factor - 6 Weirdness Factor - 4 Volume Factor - 9 Ease of Creation - 0 Average - 4.75

Merry Christmas - Sunday

I awoke late, mostly because I wasn't that fussed about getting the presents right away. However, I don't like being smelly so got up and washed. My family and I opened our presents together (taking it in turns) and I'll list what I got and from who later. My Grandmother and Uncle Steven came over just as we finished so another round of present opening ensued. Shortly after that Auntie Laura and her boyfriend Anton came over. It should be noted that I didn't talk to the Swedish Anton all day so don't get them mixed up. Anton isn't used to family gatherings of the size we are, but he's getting better. Lunch was great and delicious too. After lunch I mostly played Candy Crisis against the computer and then Anton. I've gotten up to level 11 out of 12 and the computer moves so fast it's amazing I managed to score points. The blocks also fall so fast that the down key becomes unused. Candy Crisis is very similar to Tetris (figured I should clear that up). Later in the day I completed the Divination and Psychic lore write-ups for WoA. I also played a little more Candy Crisis. Also worth mentioning is that Lord Vivi from WoA nas a Skype phone. Skype is the telephone service over the internet. It was amusing. My Presents ~ Lots of Chocolates and sweets - Lots of people ~ Thinking Putty - Parents ~ Bike Lock - Parents ~ Toiletries - Parent (are they trying to say something?) ~ Book: The Timewaster Letters - Auntie Laura and Anton (not the Swedish guy I talk about) ~ Book: AI Game Programming Wisdom - Parents ~ Book: O'Reilly's Book on AI ~ Dilbert and Know it All mini Calendars - Gran and Auntie Laura and Anton ~ Max and Paddy's Road to nowhere wall calendar - Coel ~ Luminous Jacket - Mother ~ Underwear - Parents (again, are they trying to say something?) ~ Soft Cat toy - Auntie Laura and Anton (it's really soft) ~ Electric Razorblade - Uncle Steven and Sue ~ Plastic Feet for the laptop - Parents ~ Travel bag - Uncle Steven and Sue ~ LOUD bike horn - Parents (aparently airhorns are considered TOO loud) ~ Money - Auntie Margaret and Uncle Steven Swansea Accent Okay, I lie, it's not annoying. But it is very amusing to make jokes about Lord Vivi's Swansea accent. Annoyance Factor - 1 Weirdness Factor - 3 Volume Factor - 5 Ease of Creation - 3 Average - 3

Guess who spent the last 12 hours playing games - Saturday

Well, Cernunnos won the current World of Ar, I however wasn't too fussed, I wanted a good night sleep, well morning sleep anyway. When I got up at 1200 ish I had a haircut (it's why I got up) and now have nice short hair. I spent the rest of the day messing with the forum, not writing for the blog and playing Candy Crisis. Note: You no longer need an account to leave messages, you can leave them from any computer

I didn't fall asleep all day - Friday

I got up at 0900 and got into Ammonford at 1000. I walked around with my friend Edward and we got some stuff. We sat down in Tescos over some coffee and chatted. It was nice to talk to him some more. After that I posted some stuff and walked back to Glanamman where I called in on my Gran and Uncle. I spent some time talking to them (at least an hour) and then rode home on a bike. My Uncle used to be really into cycling and had an old road bike (it's mine now). The gears on it are apparently real gears and much more reliable. This was confirmed as they broke on the way home. Though the bike is very old and it was because of rust rather than bad design. I spent the rest of the day practising my awsome Candy Crisis skills. The computer still beats me, but then again, it is several times faster than I can hit buttons. Later that evening I played Warcraft 3 with WarpGhost (WoA player) until we decided it was time to start on the WoA results. I write this at 0116 the day after this blog is written about. There will be no story today sorry, or noise.

Guess who left their blog until the last moment again - Thursday

I got up well before 1200. I then spent that time wisely mucking around with something I can't remmeber. I can only assume and hope it was useful. I did some webdesign that day and played through the Vell Os campaign in EV Nova. Well, on to today's story, it's going to have to be quick. I've gotta get up before 0900 tomorrow to get into Ammanford and meet a friend. How I won my first computer This story was a while ago. While I was living in England to be more precise. I was about 8 ish and Coel was 7. At that time I can remmeber we loved playing computer games. In fact, for my birthday some time I got to play on the computer for a whole half hour as a present (yeah, we had tough parents). Playing on the computer in the early days is a story for another day, suffice to say I enjoyed it a lot. My Dad was at the time some sort of computer guy thingie, I care not about the details and I doubt you do either. Anyhoo, my Dad and Grandad went to some seminar thing in the Science museum. Because I loved the science museum my Dad took me and my brother along. On the way in they gave out some goodie bags to the children. Being the well mannered little boys that we were we didn't push or shove to get one, we waited our turn. (For those that play WoA, see how much Coel has changed?) In the science museum I must admit I wasn't that interesting in the talk, it was being given by some computer guy about stuff I didn't understand. At the end of the talk they wheeled out a state of the art computer. This thing was a beuty, 75mhz clock, 500meg of hard drive space and too much RAM to count on one hand. They then said "Whoever has the gold star in their goody bag can come down and get their free computer". Five minutes ago I had found the gold star in my bag. I walked down there (not in the least bit embarissed) and held out my gold star. I shook hands with the speaker and also recieved what must have been over £100 of free software. I later learnt that the name of the speaker was some 'Bill Gates' and that he was moderatly famous. I also have a picture of me shaking hands with him (well, accoriding to my Dad anyhoo). I feel that winning that computer caused a large part of my interest in computers and software. As for getting the gold star, I really hope that it wasn't random luck, but the lovely ladies that were handing out the goody bags picking the good manered ones. So, if by some fluke chance Bill Gates is reading this, thank you very much Bill, the computer was most appricaiated. CS:S Teamspeak I currently have to use the computer in the family office. This office is home to two other Desktop computers, both PCs. These PCs run Coutner Strike Source. For those not in the know, it's a game. The important part is the way that you can talk over the internet to the people you are haplessly gunning down. Brecon get's very involved in it, but seeing as he and Coel take turns to play on the faster computer, he only has 30 minutes to do so at a time. Gethin on the other hand plays non-stop as nobody wants to use that computer. This means he gets very engrosed, and, when annoyed, loud too. I can hear him through head-phones and it is VERY annoying. Yet if I were to play my music (Currenly it's Technobee from the Ares soundtrack) he would be mildly annoyed. Sorry, did I say mildly? Annoyance Factor - 10 Weirdness Factor - 4 Volume Factor - 8 Ease of Creation - 5 Average - 6.75

How I used to recite the Periodic Table - Wednessday

Seeing as nothing much will be happening most days I shall instead tell tales (all true) about myself and also present thoughts on certain things if I can't think of a story. Todays story is about how I came to recite the Periodic Table and made money out of it. It's not the greatest story ever but it'll do for now. Reciting the Periodic Table It all started way way back in primary school, I think I was about 8. I for reasons I can't remmeber became fascinated with the Periodic Table. For those not in the know, there are over 100 elements, most with such easy to remember and pronounce names as Rubidium, Neptunium and Seaborgium. I wrote all of them down (up to 103 which is where my table at the time went up to) and began learning them and a little about them. I recall one school walk to somewhere I spent the whole hour or so simply reading (out loud) from the small book. I've no idea where the book is now. I continued this practice until sometime in secondary school. There people actually knew what the table was and needed to learn the first twenty elements. I at that point could recite up to 90+ of them. I would walk around the tables in the dinner hall and recite the table for money. I made at least £10 in a week, which, when I was in my first year of secondary school, is a good bit of money. The headmaster and other heads sit at a table on the stage and so unsurprisingly saw me. I assume they asked someone what I was doing because I was told to not recite the table for money any more. What did I do then? Well, there's this thing called the Greek alphabet... Other people's snores I, while at home, sleep in the same room as Coel. I take a long time to get to sleep in almost any situation. This means that people, such as Coel, fall asleep before me. I must say that some of the noises he makes are very interesting, half of them sound as if he's choking to death as quietly as possible. All scores are based on the fact that I'm half-way to sleep (well, was) and it's otherwise silent. It's also pitch black because we don't sleep in the light. Annoyance Factor - 9 Weirdness Factor - Between 5 and 10 Volume Factor - 7 Ease of Creation - Between 0 and 10 Average - 7.125

Not many people to talk to - Tuesday

I got up nice and late. After getting up I began work on my new XML thingie. During the day I spent a good bit of time trying to get Javascript to work on the page, but it for some reason, hates me. As such I consider that time semi-wasted. Thanks for the help from Aaron though. For my Internet apps coursework I have to create a personal website and fill it with as many pages as possible, as such I am going to have to put up stories about myself. What sort of stories (all will be true) would you like to hear. I will be putting at least the following classics of my time. Note that I'll also put up 'thoughts' too. - How I won my first computer - In my days... - Why CS:S is a good thing - My greatest, non-family role models I'm guessing that Anton will have something to say about love and making a move, but I'm unsure I want to put that up. At least yet anyway. Cat snores My cat is amazing, today he slept on my lap for a good 6 out of 7 hours. During that time he snored loud enough that I had to put headphones on to block him out. Annoyance Factor - 4 Weirdness Factor - 10 Volume Factor - 6 Ease of Creation - 6 if you have my cat Average - 6.5

Teifion Appriciation Day - Monday

Okay, the name's a lie but I like it. I got up nice and late at about 0900. I spent some time working on my new XML page to save time on WoA, well it will once it's done. This took up most of the portion of the day. I talked to some random people over MSN and looked forwards to meeting up with all my old friends from school later. The school presentation was boring to say the least. Though I did think I got an extra big round of applause and even a cheer (not sure why, must be my good looks). Edward got some special award as did several other people that haven't bothered statying in contact with me and as such are not mentioned by name. After the evening we went to the pub. Edward and I turned up to the wrong one, got drinks and wondered where everybody was. We found out and took time drinking our drinks. After that Edward got us lost before managing (through luck I think) to find the correct pub. It was nice meeting all the people again, even if they did talk only about rugby. Steven's sense of humour has not changed since going to Oxford Uni. I pulled my to-do list out of my pocket and he said that at the top of it would be 'get a life'. I decided that I shouldn't embariss him in front of his mates. I left the pub smelling of smoke (it's always the way) and got a lift home. I'm glad I went to the evening, it gave me a chance to see people again, even though none of them seemed particularly interested in seeing me. I also forgot to tell them about the blog ^^ The sound of applause, lots of it If you don't know how to clap, you shouldn't be reading my blog. Annoyance Factor - 0 + 1 for every 20 minutes of it ( 6 ) Weirdness Factor - 0 Volume Factor - 7 Ease of Creation - 8 Average - 5.25

The Fickle Nature of Computers - Sunday

I awoke at I've no idea what time. I got up at 1010. Shower and log onto WoA. I set the WoA message to 'Results are Underway' and had breakfast. The reason for this was that WarpGhost wasn't there and I figured I could wait. Plus I was hungry. After comming back to the computer, now filled by some Jam on toast, I found that WarpGhost was not there. Well, it was a half turn this time so I did it alone. My laziness, hunger for free food and general breaks meant that they took a while to arrive. After the results I managed, with help from my Dad, to get the phpBB working. Then, disaster struck. The database was misslinknig some stuff and I had to reinstall the whole forum, twice. Luckily I managed to put my mods back onto it very easily. During this whole incident the wit of Ian 'Nightbringer' (surname kept secret cos he'd cry if I put it here) to taunt me. There is a story behind this. Back in the mists of time when I was a mod on his forum (well, still am) he made me an Admin (probably on drugs or pissed up on booze) and I broke his forum. Therefore he felt it only fair to laugh at me when I mucked up. BUT, the last laugh shall be had by me, I'm the forum admin and I can do funny things to his account :D I also had the somewhat slower wit of Siän to contend with. The conversation basically involved her trying to do some basic math and no matter the answer, I said she was wrong and I right (it was of coruse the complete opposite). Languages student's it appears are not very good at arguing or debating, dud subject if you ask me... The sound of something not working Yeah, it's a noise alright. One problem, it cannot be humanly reproduced without massive effort, I simply can't be bothered to explain it. Annoyance Factor - 1.1 * time spent * urgency (in my case, 6) Weirdness Factor - 0 Volume Factor - 2 Ease of Creation - 10 Average - 4.5

Going Home - Saturday

I got into the refectory at 0900 and had double helpings of a yummy fry up. I did some more packing and managed to leave at 1045 as planned. The train was due at 1130 and I wanted to be on time. I quickly found that leaving my gloves at my room was a bad idea. There was a good bit of windchill and due to having a carrier bag of stuff I had to have at least one exposed hand at all times. I got to the station 15 minutes early, as expected. My hands warmed up while I waited for the train. The train arrived promptly and I got on and sat down. I began to plan the WoA Liaison but felt too tired after about 15 minutes. My ticket got checked and I pulled out the laptop. After 30 minutes of modding the forum it decided that it'd like to have a low battery so I was forced to stop. The rest of the journey was slowed by some sort of a delay. This meant that when I got to Newport I had a nice 20 minute wait for my next train. I ended up getting off at Port Talbort half an hour after first planned. But, it could have been a lot worse so, I wasn't fussed. It was good being back home, my cat didn't miss me at all but was happy to play hide and seek, or whatever you'd call taunting a cat with a pen. The broadband wasn't up to scratch. If you start hogging it here you get complaints of 'L4GG' from the CS:S n00bs in the other room from me. Well, if they complain too much I'll actually start to use bandwidth beyond the 4kbps that I'm used to :) Dinner was a nice pasta, chickein and bacon affair with my Gran and Uncle comming over. We talked about various things. I modded my forum some more after dinner. It'll be going up soon. All WoA players that are reading this, keep it to yourself because it's a special treat/christmas present for those that read the blog. It will be up in the next few days at this address in the next few days. I'll wait at least a day before announcing it on the main website. Silence Technically not a noise. Simply see how long other people are happy to let complete silence ensue, it's interesting. Annoyance Factor - 0 yet also 10 Weirdness Factor - 0 yet also 5 Volume Factor - 0 yet also 10 Ease of Creation - 10 Average - (5 + 2.5 + 5 + 10)/4 = 5.625

Holidays! - Friday

The plan, to get up at 0730 and catch the 0800 bus. The reality, I spent up until 0100 this morning modding my forum and got the 0830 bus without have breakfast. There is, however, an unlerior motive for no breakfast. I was out of non-perishable food, I'm not using stuff up if I don't have to. The three hour lab was not too bad, I was half asleep for most of it but I think I did okay. After the lab I caught the bus back to Langstone and sat in the refectory talking to Tom about Monty Python. Sharon (one of the cooks) asked Tom what to do for tonights pudding. After Tom told her to make Jelly I volunteered to taste test it. I was joking, but 5 minutes later Sharon passed me the 2 Gallon bowl that they make the jelly in. I got through about 5 helpings of it before feeling too ill to continue. Still, that made lunch. After that I went back to my room and more modding of my board. I'm getting very good at it and actually improved one of the mods by a decent ammount. Dinner was excellent, Chickein pie and chips. Halfway through dinner I told Tom about my 5 hour train journey and how I was almost considering keeping my pie for then. Tom simply took one of the (limited number of) pies from the tray thingie and put it aside for me. I've gathered that Jack is ever so slightly envious of my ability to get free food... After dinner it was time to tidy up. I've even vacumed my room, I hope you're all suitably impressed. After cleaning I wrapped some presents, thanks very much to Sarah and her floormate for the paper. I'm half asleep and managed to not bodge up any mods so I'm overall pleased. Looking forwards to going home tomorrow. Annoying Noise of the Day Arrrrrr. Arr is a very easy noise to make. Simply create a continuous Arrr noise and alter the pitch and volume to suit your situation. Annoyance Factor - 3 Weirdness Factor - 1 Volume Factor - 8 Ease of Creation - 9 Average - 5.25

The Clock Counts! - Thursday

I woke up at 0720. This was as planned, what was not planned was snoozing. I re-awoke at about 0800, my plan had been to be in the refectory 15 minutes earlier. Shower, dressing and packing of bag took a whole 8 minutes, I managed to rush an extra large lunch and get the bus. David had done some great work during some of his free-time, the clock now counted. Over the two hours we took it from counting on one digit, to counting on all of them and flickering horribly, almost counting how we want it to. We now just need to fiddle with the numbers and we've got it almost all done. My job over the holidays is to document the code so that we get a bajillion marks for it. I got a book out of the library on SQL, I'm assuming that it's rather similar to MySQL. The database I have uses MySQL. The bus ride back was interesting as Jack and Graham sat just behind me. We saw a mechanic that looked drunk and discussed stupid subjects, such as B101. During my break I had nothing to eat at all, I'm going over Andrew's later and he's cooking dinner so I'm saving myself for that. I talked to a wacky Swedish guy over MSN and he kept on telling me to 'make a move'. The problem is, all of the girls that I've met don't seem to like me that much. Anton, the Swede, was very unimpressed when I told him this, but, tough cookies to him. Hassan's afternoon lecture was interesting and I'm glad I did attend it. I consulted Google Maps for Beatrice Road Portsmouth and found out how to get to Andrew's house. Shortly before leaving I got a call from Sarah saying that they were all going down the pub at 1930. After that I missed the bus faffing about with a couple of things, that meant a nice long walk. Half an hour later I got to Andrew's house. We talked about christianity, it was good talking to Andrew because I know him well enough that I felt fine telling him what I truely felt about Christianity and Religion in general. After the discussion we made dinner. Their kitchen was disgusting. I had stern words with all of them while cleaning up. My missing lunch was an excellent plan, it meant I could eat a whole half of my dinner before I felt full. Andrew, Steve and Colin like their food. After dinner I walked down to the pub. I got there at 1940 and found nobody, that I knew, there. I went to the library to wait for the bus and read about Viruses (computer ones). I sat and chatted to Jack on the bus home. The driver was wearing his santa outfit, I'll have it online soon. Once I got back I took a picture of the driver and got a call from Sarah. She was wondering where I was. Apparently Richard Priddy, yes, the weird looking guy on the cast page, saw me walk in and out while looking for Sarah. I can only assume that being a bit weird it must be hard to get up and yell down a street. Just so you know, Richard made some snide comments on the phone while I was talking. I sat down and did some modding of my phpBB forum before going to bed. As promised however, I have a list of coursework I'll be doing over the christmas period. B101 - Presentation B103 - Revision on Diffrentiation B121 - Comment Code, Make diagrams and revise B141 - Mess around with C code B161 - Revise B143Make a personal website I should be able to get the coursework side of stuff out of the way before christmas, thus leaving post christmas for revision. Annoying Noise of the Day Oooboooboo. The Oobooboo noise is created by making a constant 'OO' sound. That is, the 'oo' you get in Ooze. You then move the palm of your hand closer to and away from your mouth, thus creating the noise. Annoyance Factor - 8 if given time Weirdness Factor - 6 Volume Factor - 10 Ease of Creation - 7 Average - 7.75

Crash Course in Java - Wednesday

I got in nice and early via the 0800 bus. Aaron and I surfed the internet until the lesson in C. It has occoured to me that most of you will not know what these words or terms are, as such I am now going to start using a specail webdesgin thingie that allows you to move the mouse over stuff and find out what it means. Try it on the 'C' just a few lines ago. Chi was taking the lecture and talked on Recursion. Here's the exception to the info tags, there won't be any when I explain what something is just after it. Recursion is a very very nifty tool used by programmers. It involves running a section of code that you are already in. At first it is all a bit mind boggling but Chi explains it very well. I will not atttempt to teach you it too, if you're interested in programming, you can learn it yourself or contact me and I'll help. I took some neat notes and Chi is more than happy for me to volunteer to put them on the ECE forum. After that was some really really boring stuff about buisness. Seeing as he'd lost everybody after a minute or two (again) we got a good game of Quake going. During the games I made several very important observations. More players made more lag While not lagging I was master of the map While lagging my only hope was to shoot randomly and hope they were lining up in front of me Actually, I'm pretty impressed that a 5 year old computer can do what it does, goes to show, it's built to last. Maths is going to be easy to do thanks, mostly, to my very great maths teachers from my old school. I can remmeber how to do the final question on the paper which will get my 8 out of 20 marks, and 2 more marks than I need to get 40% on the module, I'm feeling confident. But, that is no reason to not work and I shall revise. After maths there was a quick chat with out personal tutor. I told Robert that I was going to a 'Crash Course in Java' and asked him what he thought. He wanted to come along and I informed him that it was open to anybody, even staff. Nick Savage had told us he was comming to heckle. He didn't turn up. Matt is a very good teacher and as he was teaching from the ground up, taught me a lot of stuff. Robert also learnt a lot but forgot to bring a power supply so couldn't take notes. I'll be making them into a web site and sending them to my friends that want them. The CU went Ice Skating today, and surprisingly enough, I joined in. I've never been ice skating before and so I was not at all apprehensive. I manged to not fall over at all on my first lap, I did however cling to the side the whole time and save myself purely through good balance. After a while I improved somewhat. By the end of it I had fallen over 4+ times. One of these was when I fell over, Andrew tried to help me up and we both fell over. Also, at the end, Sarah was trying to race me, my feet went forwards and my torso backwards. According to Sarah it was very funny, I've got to say that I laughed a lot too. After the Ice Skating we all went to the pub. Recently Sarah had her hair dyed a brown colour with a hint of red. She thinks it is atrotious. She also kept saying this even after myself and others disagreed with her. I told her that if she was going to be stroppy about it, I would insult her hair too. She had no problem with it. If it wern't for funny noises the highlight of the day would be that Sarah, Siän, Steven, Briley, Greg and one or two other people couldn't keep a straight face the whole time. I remember discussing the blog with Siän and saying that something she had done would be up on it, but I can't remember what it is so I'll just have to say that she did something stupid, humourus or silly and deserves to be mentioned. I got the bus back alone because Sarah and Briley didn't want to come back with me. The bus driver is going to be wearing his Santa outfit tomorrow afternoon. But, the timing requries that I actually go out of my way to see it, I'll take a camera if I remember to. Currently I've gottten no feedback on what parts of the blog are good and what's not. I can't make it better until I do... Annoying Noise of the Day Meeep. This is a phoenetic sound and does not require any explanation. Annoyance Factor - 3 Weirdness Factor - 4 Volume Factor - 10 Ease of Creation - 10 Average - 4.25

Two man Lan party - Tuesday

I decided to give my 0900 lecture a miss, it's Internet Apps and the lecturer has specifically said I don't need to go (for now). I got in for the Engineering Analasys lecture. Next test is on Diffrentiation. I also found the following out. The mark needed for test 4 and 5 was not 22 (combined) but 18. The mark recieved for test 4 was 12, this means I need 6 marks to pass the module The lectuer who marked tests 2 and 3 will hopefully never mark any of my tests again, he marks harshly. After Maths lecture Howard and myself got lunch and filled in an individual Learning profile thingie, it looks like a load of rubbish. Cripps' lecture was on security so was more interesting than usual. During the break 8 of us played Quake 3 over wireless. I'd like to point out that I need a newer and faster computer and 400mhz is not able to cope with large maps and lots of players. That said my knowledge of the maps and practice at sniping kept me in the upper reaches of the scoreboards. After the lecture I went to ASK and learnt all about commas. It was very interesting, I got a free cup of tea without even asking). On the way back to Langstone I was at the top of the double decker bus with Aaron. We played a game of Quake on the bus, it was most amusing. We had to use trackpads and so couldn't shoot straight at all. I think I managed to hit Aaron about 5 times, all of which were by luck. The rest of the time I relied on the explosive nature of the guns. It's certanly the best way to drain a laptop battery. Dinner tonight was tasty, some sort of steak, and chips. After dinner I tried to find out why Marisa's CD drive was not reading CDs. I have no idea why and I'm not taking it apart to find out. While I tried to fix it Sam, Jack and Marisa watched Neighbours. I repeatedly pointed out things that were wrong in it. After that myself, Sam and Marisa watched the Simpsons. I played some Quake and modded my forum some more before going to bed. I hope you all like my current aim of writing more comprehensive reports. In return, I want to see comments, lots of comments from lots of people. Spread the word. Annoying Noise of the Day Slurp. The Slurping noise is created by making an 'O' shape with your mouth and sucking gently. If done correctly the air will be sucked through the mouth and create the slurping noise against the cheecks. The cheeks should, by nature of the shape of the mouth, be indented and pointing inwards. Annoyance Factor - 9 Weirdness Factor - 0 Volume Factor - 4 Ease of Creation - 7 Average - 5

I have a new chair - Monday

I got up in time for my 0900 lecture. It was astoundingly boring, UNTIL that is, Gareth gave me a game of Quake 3. While some boring person was telling us how we were killing the enviroment, I was busy fragging (and getting fragged) by Gareth. It was one of the best B101 lectures ever. After the lecture I went to computing and did some C code. After that lecture we had a fire drill. After that I did some work in the lab with David. Our program just 'stopped' working and we had to start again. After the lab session I played a little more Quake 3 with Gareth before catching the bus back to halls. I sat down and wasted some time implimenting a mod that wouldn't work. During this I got weak arms as the blood once again drained from them due to my low chair. I went down to reception, complained, carried a table and got a nice FREE REPLACEMENT swivel chair. Much to the envy of Sam, Duane, Marisa and Jack. In particular Marisa. During dinner Jack commented that the 'item for the day' could become 'Annoying Noise' for the day. Sam is now mildly unhappy with Jack as I like the idea and sam has about 3cm of plaster speperating him from me. I went to the Carol service (a Uni one) with Sarah, Briley and Lorna. It was quite good, Sarah seems to be taking on my sense of humour and keeps daring me to do stuff. There was a guy standing a row back who sung LOUDLY and out of tune. She dared me to sing louder than him. I put on my best 'macho/opera' voice and did so. She went bright red and tried to get my attention for some reason. After the service we had free mince pies and hot drinks. Being a cool sort of person I blagged a spare box of 6 mince pies. In combination with the 42 from the CU carol service I have taken to halls a total of 48 mince pies :) On the subject of my tongue. I can now touch nose hair, the challange, is that Helen from hall group can also touch the tip of her nose with her tongue. Annoying Noise of the Day Wheeeeee - This is the noise made by a person enjoying the spinning ability of their swivel chair. It is high pitched and is prounounced 'Wee'. Annoyance Factor - 7 Weirdness Factor - 1 Volume Factor - 8 Ease of Creation - 9 Average - 6.25

Sunday Summation

As Sunday's are normally similar, I figured I'd use them to recap on the week and say what the highlights were. Monday - Nothing special Tuesday - Nothing special Wednesday - SSCC meeting Thursday - Open Day Guide Friday - Math test was nasty Aside from being Hot, Fit and Exciting. I am now Wierd. This is from Siän who thinks that it's weird that my tounge can touch the tip of my nose. No, that's not weird. What's weird is that two weeks ago it could only touch the base of my nose.

Groggy Day - Saturday

I woke up at 0750. But rather than get up I stayed in bed until well, I got up in time for 1000. The World of Arl results took 6 hours from start to finnish, they were not helped a lot by people asking how long they were going to be and getting annoyed when we said "When they're ready". After the results I went back to my room and began looking at why my MySQL Database was broken. I restarted the computer twice, reinstalled once and it all worked. I then began downloading some more phpBB mods and listened to "The Day Today". Overall, nothing spectacular today, so I'll give you this.. Hi, I'm Alan Partridge and here is today's betting Onion Terror 2 to 1 Favourite 7 to 1, Massive Bereavement 113 to 1, Trust me, I'm a stomach All the rest 3-1 bar

Math Test and Modding - Friday

0720, music starts playing. 0730, I'm up and eating a sandwhich. 0800, I'm on the bus and on my way into uni to fill out a timesheet for yesterday and to get to my lab on time. I filled out the time sheet and found I don't have a lab untill next week, this was mildly annoying. I spent the next 4 or so hours revising for the test and I'm glad I did, it helped a lot. Tawfik's lecture was cancelled, this was even more helpful as I could squeeze in some more revision. The test itself was a bit harder than I anticipated, this meant I don't think I did as well as I wanted, but I don't feel that I did too badly either. Here's the value of the revision that I did and how many of the 20 possible marks it gave me. First two hours of the day - 4 of the 20 marks Next two ish hours - 3 of the 20 marks The last two ish hours - 3 of the 20 marks After the test myself and Howard found that there was no 1600 bus so walked back. We took about an hour, which was interesting because we were not walking that slowly, I'm not sure where the time went, we did stop at Lidl, but not for long. After getting into the refectory and getting served first, I sat down and ate. As there was only one counter open, the queue became HUGE very fast. After dinner I found that my legs were cramping up from walking 3+ miles today, 2 ish miles yesterday and running most of another 2 miles yesterday (walking as a rest). They still ache a little. In the evening I spent time modding my phpBB board. For the technologically minded, I have a PHP and MySQL 4.something server running on my computer, I'm using the command line to control the database. For those not technologically minded, I've got some snazzy stuff working on my computer and I'm enjoying it immensely. Lesson of the Day - When modding something like a phpBB, backup, reguarly. I did this and it saved me a good hour or two when I mucked it up. I'd have had something funny in here, but I'm a boring person and nothing amusing ever happens to me.

Student Guide - Thursday

Firstly, this will be a short entry. I've gotta make sure I get up early tomorrow to do lots of revision for my test. I got to uni for 0900, went to the lab and spent two hours not getting my chip to delay properly. Hassan had no problems with me missing his lecture ^^. I got a nice t-shirt and spent some time chatting to un-talkative people. On one trip between locations I ran into the class I was missing, I obviously laughed at them (and they at me for some reason). Overall it was good fun. The Carol service wasn't as good as I thought, but I do now have 42 mince pies to share with people :) Laugh of the Day - Nick Savage is the admissions tutor. With the goodie bags he gave out a knoppix cd. This contains a copy of Unix software. When he showed it to me and someone else it pretty much killed the computer. We spent five minutes laughing at him and wondering if it'd kill any others (apparently it'd worked every time before that)

SSCC Meeting and Christmas Dinner - Wednesday

I got up in time to have breakfast in the refectory, mmmm, fry up. My morning lecture with Chi was good and interesting. The Technology Context however could not be further from that. The lecturer started by telling us how he was chartered this, amazing that and generally annoyed everybody. THEN, he started talking about stuff we really have no interest in. Several people left. After a good, solid hour of boredom I found what my mark for the Trig test was. I had predicted myself a mark of between 12 and 16. I got 5. I am appaled at the result and as soon as I get my test paper back will be seeing Alexi (the person who marked it) and asking why he marked as he did. Maybe going so far as to request a re-mark depending on what he says. Note, no marks are final until the board sits on it and and decides, this has yet to be done. Feeling slightly miffed I spent some time browsing random bike sites. While helping Marisa to install her MP3 player yesterday I saw Top Gear on her TV. There was a cyclist racing a Clio through town, it was pretty impressive and I figured that getting a bike with small wheels may not be quite as bad as I thought (his were rather small). I also talked to Rick about the army, he's in the TA and knows about Command Tasks, Jerry Can runs etc. Branislav wanted to have a prelim to the SSCC meeting with us. We turned up early and found a code on the door. We of course didn't know it. Someone with all the biscuits turned up and put them in the room. When Branislav arrived he didn't know the code. I 'guessed' the code and we all walked inside (Okay okay, I have good eyesight). Nothing majorly interesting happened at the meeting. There was nothing about the coruses themselves (different meeting for some reason) and so I had no points to raise (otherwise we'd have griped about our 1000 lecture). It transpired that the meeting had ended minutes after the bus left so Rick very kindly gave me a lift home. It turned out then, that both busses were at Langstone. I've got serious doubts that any would've turned up at all. In the evening I went to hall groups. It should be noted that I did not have lunch, or dinner. Until now. We had a massive roast dinner (Lawrence and Sarah took a lot of time over it). It was excellent and a good time had by all. I'm a student Guide tomorrow and a somewhat more important math test on Friday. I need a good night sleep and some revision. As for the suggestion of eating vegitables, a new one each day, well. Ummm, no? Moron of the Day - Collin. Collin locked his bike up and found that he forgot his bike lock key, much to our amusement (Sarah gave him a lift home and back).

Overall, a bit down - Tuesday

I set my alarm for 0940, meaning to set it for 8:40. Luckily I woke up in time to get the bus and attend the lecture on Maths. It transpired that the bus after maths had just been missed by myself. I found this out 20 minutes before the bus got there. I walked back. The bus overtook me at the last leg of the journey, the tower was clearly in sight. I grabbed lunch and got the bus in for Cripps' lecture. During the break we tried to get a quake 3 game going. BUT, all my mates have illegitiamate versions. Hence, updates broke their copies. After getting back I did some looking at phpBB forums and downloaded a lot of mods, trouble is that they need to be installed by hand. But I've got MySQL working so I can dry run most stuff :) I went and did my washing before going to bed. I FAILED, there is no person of the day today. Post a comment and suggest a new challange, see how long I can keep it up for.

Chavs - Monday

I would have turned up to the 0900 lecture, but I overslept. Apparently I didn't miss anything important. During the Computing Lab I discovered that someone had seen 4 chavs messing around on a day they 'think' was wednessday. This means that the chance that the bike is still in Portsmouth is high. After dinner I went to the CU meeting to help setup sound. The sound was really really easy to setup today, I'm not sure why. After the meeting we went to the wrong pub because someone managed to get them mixed up. I'm tired and don't need to go to my 0900 lecture tomorrow :) Person of the Day - Rick. Rick is a Course Rep, he's a mature student and in my Digital Electronics course. He's quite smart, married and has children.

Hardly in my room - Sunday

I got up in time to walk to Easterney with Lorna and Faye. Lawrence and Sarah walked some of the way but Sarah was feeling ill so they had to turn back. I hope Sarah feels better soon. After the service myself, Briley, Sarah and Siän went to the Mitchel's house for lunch, it was delicious. After lunch we went for a walk in the park. After the walk we were invited to a light dinner (they called it tea) which was also very nice. After the evening service we went to Steve's house. 4 Guys live there, it's spotless. I was impressed. We got back from Steve's at 0050 on Monday, I'm a little tired and have a lecture in 8 hours. Person of the Day - Tim. Tim is Steve's brother and studies plumbing. He currently is doing his work experiance thingie at a hospital, the work is mostly maintenance.

Bike Theft is Common - Saturday

I got up at the early early time of 0900. Okay, early for some, for me, that's a long long lie in. World of Arl results took a good 5-6 hours today, but Arakasi had connection problems. After the results I worked on the website and played a bit of Quake 3. I also looked on the Uni forums and found that last year there were lots of bike thefts, I'm impressed that everybody I asked said there was no bike theft. Even more worrying is that the University hasn't done anything about last years thefts yet says that biking is still a good idea. I think that's going to be my contribution to the SSCC meeting (Staff Student Committee somethingorother) Person of the Day - Is really a whole load of 'people' for the day. 419eater.com is a site dedicated to wasting the time of scam artists. These scam artists have ruined lives and the site is therefore both funny and helpful.

End of the Week - Friday

I got up at 0900, had breakfast and went down to the cafeteria. I used the great wireless to upload a new World of Arl site and add two items to the Chirstmas List. Both are books. I then went to Tawfik's lecture, it was pretty boring (as usual). Ironically, since my bike has been stolen the weather has been arotious for biking in. Today we had strong strong winds, yesterday, strong winds and lots of rain, the sort that gives me at least a little pause for thought. This evening myself, Briley, Sarah, Lorna and Lorna's sister, Faye went to the pub. There we met Greg, Sam and someone called Emma. I managed a good three pints of Coke tonight. I spent the time being told that I was very similar to someone from where Lorna and Faye lived called 'charlie'. From what I've heard he sounds similar, but different from me, I'd like to meet him. Person of the Day - Faye. Faye is Lorna's sister. Lorna, Faye and their brother are triplets. Faye isn't at Uni, but next year will be going to Southhampton university. Faye currently works at a care home.

Coursework handed in - Thursday

I got up nice and early, 0630 to be precise. 30 seconds after waking up, I knocked the alarm off for an hour and fell asleep. I managed to get all my breakfast down, dressed and washed before I had to go to the bus. I first went to Hassan's lab. David and myself were assessed and got 50%. We inquired as to why, we had the display working after all. We were told that we weren't doing something. I plan to have a quiet word with Hassan tomorrow if possible, he didn't emphasise that we had to do that, all of his lectures were on the programming side (which was top notch). After the lab I handed in my coursework and walked to Tesco with Robert and his floormate Sam. I got some milk and between us Robert and myself got some big chocolate cookies, mmmmm. After getting back I sat in the refectory and browsed the internet (Hassan's afternoon lecture was cancelled). Tom gave me free sandwiches, mmmmm, which were going to be left out for dinner (they hadn't sold or something). They were very nice. I think I had too many sandwiches, because I didn't eat all my dinner and couldn't go up for a second pudding (Tom had offered me one to start with). I went back to my room and played a bit of quake, finnished most of the stuff on my site, played some more quake and went to bed. Person of the Day - Sam. He lives on the same floor as Robert and Lawrence. Sam studies Computer Animation or Graphics.

Bike = Gone, Teifion = Not happy - Wednesday

I got in nice and early, in fact, I got in a good 10 minutes earlier than usual. Locked bike to bike rack. Went to lessons, came back 4 hours later. No bike. History has taught me that assuming the worst straight away (i.e. someone stole it) is not a good idea. I thought that maybe I had left it on the other side of Angelsea, I had turned up extra early to look for my water bottle that I'd managed to forget in a lecture theater, it was of course not still there. A short search revealed no bike, I went back, examined the scene a little more closely and found my lock snapped into two different bits (those are three difference pics of the lock, notice how thin and crappy it looks close up...). Well, it would once unlocked. I talked to security, talked to the police and did what I could. Ben saw me talking on the phone with a security person next to me and sussed out something wasn't good. He decided to walk back to my place with me (we had a 40 minute wait and we both walk fast) and stayed for lunch. I must say it was very nice of him to do that, he said that I can borrow his bike (which he doesn't use) assuming I get a new lock. Not only that, but Ben also taught me how to properly eat noodles, I assumed you left the water in. Wow they taste much nicer without it. I've got a picture of Ben and his laptop. He's just bought an iPod mini off EBay and it came with an apple sticker, he's put it on the back of his laptop, it looks pretty good. After Ben left I went to dinner, told Jack and a few others about it. During CU I got a few more bits of advice about posting up some messages about it on the Uni forums and also talking to some of the bike shops in Southsea (I know of only one, the map only shows one). After CU hallgroup myself and Sam put invites to the Carol service under the doors of all the people in the Tower. I got back to my room, finnished my work and decided to back up my laptop (I do it often anyway) and take off auto-login. I then restarted my computer. Now if that goes missing they can't use it as my password isn't exactly rubbish. Well, looks like I'll be riding the bus like a 'shmuck' tomorrow (it's what I called Gareth yesterday). I've figured that if the bike doesn't turn up and I manage to get a Job, I'll spend some student loan on a new one. Person of the Day - I'd love to stick Ben here, but I knew him already (incidentally he's Welsh) but the rules say it's gotta be someone I don't know. So I've got to introduce Marisa's friend Emily. She studies languages, lives in Dymond House and appears to have no clue as to how easily a bolt clipper will go through steel.

Quake 3 - Tuesday

I turned up to the 0900 Internet apps lecture. It was on the basics of CSS so I spent the time finding out that 15% of thejordans.biz server was due to one file. My next math test is on Complex Numbers, it looks like it'll be hard. David and myself managed to get our clock project working, we spent a good 15 minutes making sure that the display read 13:37 for when Hassan came over, only for him to say that he doesn't know what 1337 means and that we're meant to have 4 different digits... Cripp's lecture was semi-interesting. Someone brought along a Star Wars DVD so I spent some time looking at it in a program to do with DVDs and the Hard Drive, need I say more. After getting back I collected 201 rows of data for my B101 stuff. I'm going to talk to Chi about exactly what I need to do tomorrow and have it done for Thursday, we get 50% for just the spreadsheet! I got Quake 3 working on OSX, it runs nicely and I'm looking forwards to wiping the floor with my friends next time they play. I played it for about half an hour before I decided to chat to random people on MSN and get to bed not too late. New person of the Day - Dave. Dave is from Guernsey and knows Tom from school. Apparently Tom was an idiot there too. Dave studies some sort of computer course and is in the same year as me.

Good News - Monday

I don't have a cough. I got in for my 0900, despite being tired. After my first two lectures, I spent some time in the lab with David. We managed to get most of the stuff working. In the lab I was told that I should wear shorts, not sure why. I've also found some data to use for the Thursday thingie. After getting back I found I had mail. Thanks Dad for the CD, problem is, it won't work properly. I'm looking into getting a Mac OSX mod for it. I also recieved some mail from my Grandma, I can't however, remember her EMail address so can't contact her very easily. At the CU meeting I was told that I should wear trousers more often by several people and shorts by others. I'm starting to think that there's more to it than simple apperance. I was also called both Fit and Hot by someone, multiple times. Sadly, I can't tell when people are joking, so I'll have to assume they mean it. On the way home from the CU I sort of Raced Sarah, it was a good 3 miles, no traffic and no headstart, she of course won. My modem was also playing up, hence the late post. Item of the Day - I'll be replacing this with a new thing. Person of the Day. The challange is to every day meet a new person, get their name a little about them. Today I met someone called Deniese. I call her 'Der-Neez' becuase she calls me something I've forgotten. She's a second year and goes to the CU, I didn't ask her what she studies. I challange you to meet a new person every day and post about them.

I think I gave myself a cough - Sunday

I got up in time to get to Church. The service was interesting, the problem is that Jonathan kept on jumping all over the place, I could have used a PDF Bible very happily there. After the service I cycled back and began looking on the internet for some tabular data of Apple Share prices. I realised that I need by thursday... Seeing as I didn't find the data, I'll be talking to Chi about it tomorrow. I was given free food by the cafeteria staff (they have leftovers on sundays, I'll be going there more often). At 1600 I went over to Feebies (I think I spelt your name right) along with a load of other people from the CU. We watched Vegitales, laughed and sung some songs. After the service I race Sarah back to Langstone. The problem is that I left my coat unzipped. This meant that it looked really cool, but let my chest get nice and cold. I now have a slight cough. Item of the Day - Girls don't have balance, none of them can mount my bike (partly because they're all really short)

Five Hours of Fun - Saturday

I got up at about 0955. This was a problem as I had agreed with Arakasi that we'd do the WoA results at 1000. I managed to shower and get into the refectory by 1000. Arakasi doesn't read this so there's no way you'll know if I'm lying. I had a nice fry up there before doing the results. The results took five hours to do, or more. And the first thing that happens when they're done? Someone complains that I did something wrong, which I didn't. (It's okay to complain if you're right, but not if you're wrong). I talked to Edward Harry once I got back to my room. Edward is in Warrick *sniggers* and studying some dud course, physics or maths. Edward's been having fun and for some reason, when he shops at Tesco, gets FOUR bags of stuff. I'm not sure what he's getting, but there's certanly a lot of it. I cycled into Tesco and got my stuff. I popped into the GW and found that they don't have job vacancies, ah well. It was a match day so there were police everywhere along the way back. I think it was against Chelsea, with a Portsmouth victory. The reason I say this is because I passed some kids behind a big fence singing. 'Goodbye Chelsea, goodbye chelseea' (You can see it was imaginative) I almost got run over when a car broke the highway code (He wanted to turn right, I wanted to go straight ahead). The amusing thing is that there were 4 policemen on bikes about 5m away, I wonder if they took his numberplate :) I spent the rest of the evening re-writting some of the WoA readme stuff. It's now got more full stops in it. I also did various other little things to the site, it's getting a slightly new look and a massively new layout (from my end, not yours). Item of the Day - My lights get dimmer over the duration of a 3 mile cycle in the dark because it's cold, not because they are low on batteries (which is what I thought)

Yay, end of the week - Friday

I had no 0900 today, whoopie. That meant a lie in until 1000 ish. After getting up, having breakfast and browsing the net I did some maths revision, it paid off. When I got to uni and sat down after Tawfik's lecutre (real boring) I really learnt the questions well. In fact, by the time the exam came, I was worryingly confident. The exam is out of 20 marks (maths for those who have only just joined). This exam was on Trigonometary and nobody was looking forwards to it very much. Here are the marks I think I can forsee comming out of it, 40% is a pass (8 marks). Minimum Mark = 9 Probable Mark = 13ish Maximum Mark = 16 Mentally I think I got 16, but so far I've rarely been right there so I'm going to go with 13. The question I couldn't do is below. Solve 16cos^Øsin^Ø - 12cos^Ø - 12sin^Ø + 9 = 0 The ^ means that it is squared, and the Ø is the closest I could get to Theta. I cycled home, remmebered that I had the Student Training and found I had half an hour to get to the union. I downed a mug of tea, tunafish sandwhich and a couple of sweets and headed off. The whole thing looks like it'll be good, they're working on getting stuff for us such as book vouchers and free entry to the Union (club) in the evenings. I got back, found I'd missed dinner so had another sandwhich. I spent the rest of the evening doing some C and munching on sweeties. Interesting Item of Yesterday - For those that don't read the comments, yesterday a lady said that I looked very good in trousers. It looks like the nickname shorts won't be sticking for long...

18 Miles - Thursday

0900 lab for two hours, well, I got up late, but beat the bus there, I'm happy. After the lab I cycled back, did some PHP and ate lunch. The afternoon lecture was good fun. We tallied 7 stupid questions by Tom. Hassan knows that Tom is an idiot and made several remarks that we all thought were hilarious. Hassan also presented a problem, I solved it and he got me to explain how to the class. After the elevator pitch yesterday, it was easy. The problem was a simple formula and I of coruse explained it very well. Right after the lecture I went to tighten up my brakes, I'd almost crashed into a car the other day ^^. Deano came out and asked me if there was a problem with my bike. He then pulled out some Hex keys and really tightened up my brakes for me. I got some hex keys from Wilkinson for 2.50 at Deano's suggestion. Thanks Deano. My front brakes are now much better. I moped around the library for three quarters of an hour before meeting with the CU to help set up the sound for the night. I had to leave early to get dinner, but I came back and played doorman. After the service we walked to a pub, found it full and instead went to a candy shop. I bought some sweets (and so did everybody else). After that I walked Sophie, Sian and then Sam home. You'd think it weird me walking a guy home, but I figured that if he's on his own he's a target, and I've got a bike so I don't care. Of interest is that Sian and Sophie still don't believe I can go more than 20mph on my bike on a flat road.... I cycled back through SNOW, my eyes stung every time a snowflake hit them. Item of the Day - I didn't visit the WoA page once today

Toffee Squares - Wednessday

First order of the day, my 0900 lecture *groan*. The computing thingie was about files, while listening I got the terminal working on my Mac for C files similar to how they do it in Uni, that's GREAT news. Affter that we had the Technology Context and the 'Elevator Pitch'. An Elevator Pitch is where you have 60 seconds (roughly) to describe your product. Chi knew he'd have a hard time getting people to volunteer to do this (with only 3 minutes of prep time) in front of 200+ people. So he had three 256mb flash drives, I of course volunteered after a little thoguht (I already had one but I'm greedy). I did a presentation on Macs. Knowing that the prize was dependant on VOTES not SELLING POWER I made it ironic, I would 'Dis' Macs. This is roughly what I said. The Mac, it's great, it's got LOADS of features. It's got so many features, you've no idea what any of them do. What's a DASHboard doing on a computer, this isn't a CAR... Spotlight has Google Technology, well, WHO WANTS GOOGLE ON THEIR MAC? Gaming, well, sorry to say gents. It's non-existant on a Mac, no games whatsoever. Media. Macs are good at that, but how many people here do media? *Waits for show of hands* Anybody who just showed their hand is a moron, you shouldn't be doing computer science. Macs suck, but I still use one, thank you, you've been great. I didn't get as many votes as I thought :( I got back, did random stuff on the internet (I've gotten MSN working on the uni network) and then went to dinner. Their toffee squares are MASSIVE chunks of shortbread, a generous ammount of toffee and almost no chocolate. I talked to Dionne and apparently she didn't have time to add more chocolate. Still, that didn't stop me from having two... I got back, did some PHP and then went to CU hall group. Got back from that, did some more PHP until it was mostly working, blogged and went to bed. Interesting Item of the Day - I thought that 4 0900 lectures a week was bad, Lorna has 4 0530 starts this week!

Grimy Wheels - Tuesday

I got up in time for the 0900 lecture, went there, went to my maths one. Neither were particularly interesting, though in the maths one I had to pay attention as I didn't know everything there. I cycled back, sat down, had lunch, sat down again and cycled back in. I stopped off at Tesco to get some toothpaste and cornflakes. There was a two for one offer so my bag became a funny square shape as I just about fit the two boxes of 500g Cornflakes into it. The two hour lecture with Martin Cripps was interesting. He was talking about fibre optics and some stuff I have vague memories of from Physics AS level. After that lecture I cycled down to Portsmouth Cycle exchange and got them to have a look at my front brakes. Simply put, they used coarse language, were not very attentive to customers entering the shop and overall made me dislike them, I'll be looking at the other cycle shops soon. Upon getting back I took the front wheel off the bike and gave it a very good clean, I also cleaned the brake pads. I'll tell you how well it works tomorrow, suffice to say that today I was not slowing down very much at all. (scary when going 15mph in the first place). It's dawned on me today that every time I cycle into Uni, I cycle 6 miles. This means that this week (well, the 5 days of lectures) I will cycle approximatly (6 + 12 + 6 + 18 + 12) = 54 miles. The 18 is for thursday when I've got a mahoosive split between morning and afternoon lectures and then a CU event which is normally on monday. The Whale is here and it's not a sight for the faint of heart either. I've added about three more pictures to the cast page too. Item of the Day - Some muppet tried to use a brunch ticket to pay for his evening meal today, suffice to say he was laughed at by my table once I found this out. More importantly, they are apparently making toffee squares tomorrow :D

Aching - Monday

I overslept my 0900 lecture, which isn't a problem, apparently it was useless anyway. I turned up to the C lab and managed to do okay. After the lab I talked to Shikun Zhou and found that I didn't need to turn up to the lab that afternoon, wooohoo, free afternoon. I spent that afternoon talking to Aaron and watching various funny videos off the net. Dinner was below standard, I'm hoping Tom will make up for it tomorrow. I spent the Evening talking to a friend from Wales, a guy from Sweden (telling me why shorts are not as good in the eyes of the ladies as trousers). I also wrote out some stuff for WoA. With regards to the name of the post, My whole torso, that means stomach, back, chest and shoulders has been aching all day. I think I need to do push ups every day, sit ups too.... Intersting thingie of the Day - What I was most asked about by people on MSN today = Whale photos....

The Weekend Away

I fretted about missing the bus, and with just cause. I've yet to find out why, but on Friday the busses were rubbish, Lorna and I got a Taxi (she had a change of plans) and managed to get to the Hovercraft Terminal fine. The Hovercraft is really strange. It's not bumpy at all. When we got to the Isle of Wight we were given a minibus ride to the house. The guys were all downstairs and the girlies in the nicer upstairs rooms (well, warmer I think). We played some games, they were great fun and I got some pictures. Dinner was scrumptious. The evening meeting was rather long, but the speaker was intersting (you wait till you see the picture of him). He's called Dave Fenton and is from a church in Southampton. After the talk I chatted to random people and a load of us went to the beach. I was told a lot of times "You'll be cold in shorts". I had shorts, T-Shirt and Jacket (plus gloves incase it was cold). I threw rocks into the water for a while. I then, with everybody else, walked back to the house without a jacket on, I had almost worked up a sweat. 0725 in the morning was announced by Colin ringing a bell as hard as he could announcing morning prayer, most people didn't go. After breakfast we had another talk from Dave, he's a very good speaker. A mention must also go to the band. The band are from who-knows where but they were excellent and I told them so. The outdoor games were AWSOME. We first played bulldogs. By some fluke of chance, Andrew, the president of the CU was the winner of game two. Andrew was then the starting bulldog for game 3. He was pilled by about 7 people, all of whom were bigger than him. After Bulldogs we played some hide and seek, but that was called off because it was really boring. Then we played Capture the Flag. This would have been a great game, but most people started sliding around in the mud. After watching the various mud fights and not joining in there was another talk, dinner and a talk. The talks have proved to be intellectually stimulating and got me thinking a bit. Dinner that evening was again very nice, the talk equally interseting. I also went down to see a dead whale on the beach (pictures soon), it was HUGE. I wok up on Sunday rather tired, not however, as tired as some others. Some people had gone to bed at 0300 that morning, I didn't pity them at all. There were some group photos and I took many of them (I wasn't fussed about being in the pictures). We were all nackered so I can't remember an awful lot, the last time I felt like this physically was after the Britains Toughest Family weekend, I need to exercise more often. Once I got back I took my shorts off, I had worn them all weekend. Did my laundry, cycled to Tescos and got some basic supplies for myself and some milk for Lorna. The Langstone group minus Jack went to Easterney church. I went in Jeans, I of course regretted it shortly and wished I had cycled (I was somehow not worn out any more for a while). Now I'm tired and off to bed Interesting thing of the Weekened - Whales are HUGE

Safe and Sound

The weekend away was awsome, I've got pictures of everything from eating to a dead whale (I'm not joking, I saw a dead whale on the beach and took pictures). It was great fun and I'll edit this post later to say exactly what's happened. Thingie of the Day - Whales are HUGE

Posting Early Today - Friday

At 1715 I'll be on a hovercraft on my way to the Isle of Wight, this means no blog for the weekend. Got up for my 0900 lecture, it was a bit chillier today and there was no double decker bus. That meant I couldn't wave at people ^^. The lab was okay, that 'moron' on a motorbike a few weeks ago was my partner, we laughed a bit. He said sorry and that he thought I was a nutcase because I went so fast. We had a cracking time. I got back, had a big lunch (no idea when dinner is) and downloaded Gods Debris by Scott Adams. I then packed and spent some time reading it, it's gripping (description on the site). I'm taking the laptop as I'm also taking the camera, this means I'll be able to get tons of pictures and also blog the whole thing, I will NOT be doing web-design or WoA results this weekend, even if I've got the fastest connection going, it's a CU weekend and I'm only taking the laptop to enhance it, not take over from it. Item of the Day - Awsome Book

For some reason, very warm - Thursday

I got up nice and early. I had a damp jacket, a quick look at the frost on the grass told me it would be a bad idea to wear it to Uni. I went out in shorts and t-shirt to my bike and there was ice on the saddle. Yes, this is the first time I've ever had that happen. The bike was otherwise fine and there was also no ice on the road. I overtook the bus on a very good stretch of road that allowed me to pass it at about 5mph faster than itself. I used that time to wave at all the people I knew on the bus, some of them waved back :) The lab with Hassan was nothing special. Several people did comment that I was not mentally fit, they were of course ignored. The afternoon lesson with Hassan was good. We told Tom that he couldn't sit by us because we were getting fed up with not being able to hear Hassan. Tom sat at the front and asked a total of approximatly 7 stupid questions. After the lecture I went to the Academic Skills thingy. I talked to a lady called Emma. I'll be having help with not Spelling and Grammar, no, I don't need help there (apparently). Instead, I've had some help with writing shorter scentences, studying, researching (well, will have help) and hopefully some Memory stuff too. I sat down to dinner with Sam and Jack, Sam left soon after Briley and Lorna arrived. Lorna and Briley had a go at me saying something about me having too much sugar. I'd be interested to know if it's really a problem having all that sugar. I do burn off a lot of calories (I think) cycling in several times a day, often in what the weaklings here call 'cold'. After dinner I got some stuff for the Blog Homepage up and running, hopefully you'll like it, there's also a rudimentary Cast Page up with some pictures, Marisa asked to have her picture not put up there. Interesting Event of the Day - Nobody walked out on my today, I think they're getting wise to my sport

Pedjumping - Wednesday

I've decided to stop writing the date in the title, I get it wrong too often. My day started at 0900, the lectures were nothing special. The chat with Reinart (I spelt it wrong last time) was quite good, he's going to teach me some stuff on Neural Networks for the Othello game. I sat down for a few hours before the Student Guide thingy was due, I attended. It was quite good, I'm rather unhappy that Nick Savage isn't one of my lecturers, he's a really interseting person. I'm also going to be paid £5.98 an hour, specifically, 2.5*£5.98 for today :) On my way in I played a round of my new sport, Pedjumping. I really really scared someone. Pedjumping involves going as fast as possible, as close as possible to people that cross the road when you've got right of way, and scaring them as much as posslbe. On the way home I was attacked by some morons, they threw something like sand at me, however I long ago stopped cycling with my mouth open, things fly in there... I got back, washed what little had hit me off (incase it was something bad) and went down to dinner. I must say that Marisa dissapointed me, after asking me what type of dounut I liked she didn't give it to me ^^ However, I got a second anyway (without even asking, Tom just said to take one). The CU hall group was quite good, we're going to meet up outside the Union at 1700 and I'll be carying as many bags as possible (being a gentleman). I went back to my room blogged and slept. On a side note, feel free to comment, whoever you are, even if you don't want to say the most complimentary things about me, though please refrain from swearing, young people read this too. Interesting Item of the Day (IID or IIOTD) - Jupiter Misbehaves

The Achillies Heel of a Web Designer - Tuesday - 15th of November

I'm rather glad I went to my first lecture for 0900, it was puring with rain and chilly by even my standards. I was of course wearing shorts (nobody seems to get that it's easier and not cold in shorts). I took great pleasure in waving to the people on the bus (one of whom normally cycles) as I sailed past them. The lecture was Internet Apps and again, we were discussing stuff. The Lecturer was explaining about good layout, specifically where links should go on a page. We were in a BIG room, the one with 200+ capacity, though there was more like 100 people in there. Firstly he went to Microsoft.com, I thought it was okay but he said it really wasn't (too many links on the front page). The Portsmouth website was really bad (links all over the place), then, his website. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it really wasn't very good (he said so himself). Then he went to the Uni forums, and scrolled down. I saw one of my posts come up, I knew it was mine because it's got a Apple logo in the signature and a picture of me for the Avatar, he looked at me and said. 'Can I use your site for the lesson?" I of course said 'Sure, go for it'. 100 people saw the nice CSS layout, in IE! He switched to firefox and they saw what a real browser could do, 100 people saw the nice rollovers (no javascript, all CSS), 100 people saw the page change colour based on where he was on the site (colour coded readme). 100 people also saw him click on the only link that was broken, ONE link on the whole site, I'm sure of it, one link..... Still, I corrected the link in 60 seconds and told him to go back at the end of the lecture. Maths is going to be intersting, we have advanced Trig for the next test, definatly going to need to revise it. Prof Cripps' lecture was amusing as always, as promised, we started everyone clapping (all 8/10 of us at the back corner) at the end of a paragraph. I cycled back (it wasn't raining which was nice), showered, dried off, did some basic organisation of my bookmarks and some PHP experimentation. Myself and Jack sat down with Briley and Lorna for an hour or so for dinner. We're all looking forwards to the weekend away. Of note on my cycle home was one near hit, I was doing a good 15mph+ down a slight hill (yeah, they do exist here) and someone decided that they and a group of people should all walk out in front of me (while the lights were green for me). I managed to get within centimeters of the guy at the back and yell at the top of my lungs 'OI, WATCH IT'. He almost jumped out of his skin, I need an air horn, as such it's gone on my Christmas list. I got back to my room, did some more PHP, wrote the blog, chatted to some people on MSN. Of interest there was talking to a Mrs Svärd through her husband (I've yet to find out why she didn't want to use the keyboard herself). Lesson of the Day - Sacring stupid peds is fun

VANDALS! - Monday - 14th of November

I got in for a dud lecture, I can't actually remmeber what the person talked about (it was really really boring). After that we had a computing test, I think I did quite well, despite the compiler I used throwing me all kinds of wobblies. After the mini-test I cycled back, grabbed a sandwich and got back in time for a Web Apps lab. This lab was a complete waste of time in the sense that I knew all I needed to about it (it was an intro into using Dreamweaver, GoLive is much better). I spent the time using the high speed broadband and chatting to the lecturer. I then went to the lab with me lab partner David and we spent a good two hours managing to achieve very little. On exiting the building I found I had a flat tyre, this time however I had a pump. I pumped it up to see how fast it'd go down, it didn't go down noticably, so I cycled back on it, expecting to have to pump it up several times. I got back, it was still okay, I went to dinner, it was still okay. Someone had let the air out of it ^^ I got to the CU meeting in time to help set up the sound stuff, the room we were in was normally used for clubbing and so reflected sound back inside itself, the speakers there were also very large. After the service we sat in the Union bar and I had two pints of Coke, I've got to stop drinking so much of the stuff so fast. I spent the evening talking to Siån, Chloe and Joe. I then walked back with a lady named Abi/Abbey and Siån. Siån comes from Swansea and for some reason thinks it's warmer than portsmouth, I guess it must be me. After walking the ladies home (I'm a gentleman) I cycled back and went to bed. Interesting thing of the Day - I now have -another- nickname, a few weeks ago the fire department paid a visit to Langstone for their weekly 'someone set off the fire alarm' trip. Lorna lives on the second floor of her building and I told her what was happennig from the grass outside it. Sarah from the CU hall group got a perpendicular view of it and as such, I got a nickname. Romeo, to be honest, I'm not at all embarrassed about it.

A walk on the beach - Sunday - 13th of November

I got up in time to walk to Easterly Evangelical church with Lorna, Briley and Sarah. It was quite nice, the best bit was Jonathon and Rebecca (Pastor and his wife) inviting the students back to their house for a curry, it was excellent. After the delicious lunch we went for a walk, I came back to do some web browsing and then went to bed early, I've got a test tomorrow. While on the walk I offered to do a website for the church as apparently their current one is several years old. Lesson of the Day - It takes quite a long time for your hands to warm up fully

Validation - Saturday - 12th of November

I got up fairly early today, intime to be on the net for 0800. The WoA results were being done by only two pople today and we wanted to get them done (plus it meant he wasn't staying up too late). The results took a while but everything pretty much worked out well, I also took the time to upload a massive update to the WoA website, it's now browsable on a 56k modem. Though, this is no problem for me any more as I simply browse offline. I had sandwiches for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch AND.... sandwiches for dinner. Around 1400 I cycled into Tesos to get a pack of sugard and some milk. I also went to Wilksons and got a free pen (I had a voucher) and a mutli-plug thingy for when more than one person want's to use a laptop (it was 1.39). I got a discount becuase the person at the till managed to type in the wrong number for the pen voucher, wooo hoo, I'm ahead 20p. The evening was spent bringing the WoA website up to spec with the HTML standard, BBEdit not only has multiple file search and replace, it also has helper methods for everything, HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS and probably more validation features, it's really really good. Lesson of the Day - Stabilo pens are really neat, all the better if they're free

I love BBEdit - Friday - 11th of November

I got up nice an late, recently I haven't been getting as much sleep so I figured that now was a good time to snooze. I got in for Tawfik's lecture and learnt absolutely nothing new, next lecture will be similar to this one and I know all of that. My friends and I (that know it all) are considering taking notes in crayons for a joke (there is nothing saying that we CAN'T). After Tawfik's lecture my friends and I crammed some maths for an hour and then turned up to the test room. The test was very hard, I think I did worse than last time (60% last time), though I don't think I failed. After getting back I had dinner with Jack and Briley. After that I spent the rest of the evening finnishing a new look for the WoA website. I also had the presence of mind to check the pages in IE. The following was my response to what happened in IE and IE alone. !!! GAAAAAAAAAAH !!! It was atrocious (a bit like my spelling), I spent the rest of the evening finding a PHP script that worked (dry drunning is so useful) and made stuff show/not show if IE was the browser. The site wont look as nice in IE, then when you factor in that it has an edited CSS it gets worse. I was up until about 2350 trying to get everything working. WoA will now have a news page etc etc. Lesson of the Day - Dry run everything you can, wait until something is ready before showing it off

Real Lab number 1 - Thursday - 10th of November

I got up earlyish, depsite the headwind and low tempreature I managed to get to the 0900 lab on time, which was important because we get marked for attendance. My lab partner Howard wanted to be a partner to someone else, which, seeing as he knew them, is fair enough. However, this left me on my own with no clue. A guy called David sitting next to me also had no partner so I sat next to him. Like Howard he's pretty good at electronics and so we got on well, we spent two hours working out how the Seven Segment Display works. After the lab I cycled back, grabbed some tuna fish sandwhiches and cycled back in. I sat down, took some pictures of my class mates and then attended the lecture. Sadly, most of the pictures I took last night are blurred so there's only two, on of Brliey and Sarah, and another with Sam and Helen, though Jack's just about in it too. Hassan was very amusing today. When a girl walked in 15minutes late (she was also in the wrong room and Hassan knew it) she said 'Am I meant to be here?', to which Hassan replied 'Yes, I'm the good looking teacher you are after'. The whole class laughed and she left. I answered several questions inteligently, and with the rest of my row told Tom to shut up whenever he asked a stupid one, it worked quite well. Hassan had two weeks ago told us a story about why he always cleaned boards, seeing him leave the board uncleaned, I shouted after him that he forgot to clean it, his exact words were. 'You clean it, I remmeber your face'. Gareth laughed at me, unfortunatly for him he was facing forwards, I was comming from the back of the class so gave him a slap across the back of his head, it made a great noise (without causing pain). That evening I sat down to dinner with Jack and Briley (after getting my coat off Lorna). On display were packs of sandwhiches almost past their sell-by date. I now have three of them, thank you very much Briley and Jack. After that I went back, got my laptop and sat down in the refectory. Gareth sat down next to me, we chatted and watched some parody movies ("Star Wars 3 a Lost Hope" and "A Glitch in the Matrix"), we're now thinking of making something like that ourselves (with the rest of our class). I have a math test tomorrow and need to do some revision, so, no web-design today ^^ Lesson of the Day - Sometimes drivers have no respect for cyclists, they deserve to go slower, remember that next time they cut you up (I overtook him seconds later).

A little nippy - Wednesday - 9th of October

I got up nice an early and cycled in. It was freezing cold, so naturally my body was fine, minus my fingers. They hurt for a good quarter of an hour after getting to the Uni. My first lecture was on computing, it was okay, I asked soem inteligent questions while Tom asked some stupid ones. After that lecture I had one on the Technology Context by Chi. Chi is a very funny professor who appears to know almost everything. He primaraly teaches the programming side and is the one who helped me get C working on my computer. I wish I'd taped the lecture as it was really very interesting, if I've ever got a laptop in a lecture and I know somebody on Skype then I'll be happy to let them listen in. After the lecture I cycled back, cooked some sausages (this time they took only 40 minutes, strange...) and started revamping the World of Arl website, it needed a slight difference, but the load times on my modem were getting annoying. I sat down and had dinner with Jack. Marisa very very kindly gave me her pudding (a cream horn), Jack was aghast, I wasn't. After eating Jack and myself walked back, we met Briley and Lorna, Jack carried on to his room while I sat down with the ladies and enjoyed the free hot drinks. The CU hall group was good, I got lots of pictures and will be posting them up soon but managed to leave my coat (and more importantly, gloves) in Lorna's room (it's a big room), looks like I'll be chilly for my 0900 start tomorrow. After the hall group Sam and myself fixed Jack's printer (I'd already had a go at it but couldn't manage) Lesson of the Day - Don't leave your shower on a little, if you do water will drip and bounce off the control-dial, all over the floor of your bathroom, it'll take all day for the water to evaporate, it may also damage a book on talking to people.

Uneventful, Boo Hiss - Tuesday - 8th of November

I got up in time for my 0900 start. The lecture on Internet Apps was the best yet, we discussed the corusework and asked lots of questions. After that I had some Maths, our exam will include Logarithms, Trigonometric Identities (urrrgh) and something else that's not 'too' bad. I cycled back after the lecture and had a lovely Gammon sandwich. I then cycled back in for the lecture from Cripps. He's very amusing and despite being two hours, is quite bearable. After the lecture I went on what seemed like a wild goose chase to see what I had to do to become a Course Representative. I found that Cripps was the person to talk to, then, that actually he wasn't, but we still chatted for a while. When I finnaly found the right guy (Branislav Vuksanovic, I think I spelt it right) and was told to email him.... I got back, did some basic web stuff and went to dinner with Jack. After dinner I went back to the refectory to have free broadband, email Branislav and free Hot Chocolate. After using the facilities (And chatting to the staff a little, Tom says he's going to try to make some Toffee Squares some time :D ) I sprinted back to my room (it was raining), showered, did some web design and some basic graphical work to some of the downloaded webcomics. I've also got a Christmas List - feel free to get me stuff on it.... Lesson of the Day - Never put off today what you can put off forever

Achtung, Puncture! - Monday - 7th of Novemember

The day started early, a nice 0900 lecture, this time the person turned up. Apparently I've got to do a 5 minute talk, along with 3 minutes of questions presentation on a subject. I think I'll be choosing WoA, I think I'm qualified to talk about it... After my second lecture I sat, chatted to some people and showed someone to their next lecture (they had no idea where it was and I managed to attend it by mistake on the first week). I decided to go home, of the horror, I had a puncture, I spent a while fixing it, here's the run down of how long everything took (approximatly) Walking Home - 1 hour Taking both wheels off bike and getting everything ready - 10 minutes Taking out rear inner-tube and leaving both wheels in the shower - 10 minutes Patching inner-tube - 15 minutes (I had to apply two patches, it was a couple of holes) Using a wire brush and hot water to scrape the muck off my wheels - 1 hour Break and more shower time - 30 minutes Oiling of the rest of the bike - 10 minutes Placing inner-tube back into wheel and waiting to double check it was fixed - 30 minutes Putting bike back together - 10 minutes Total - 3 Hours and 55 Minutes (approximatly) On the flip side my brakes are a little better and my bike wheels are now silver, not a grimy, oily black. The CU meeting at St Lukes was okay, I arrived early to help with the sound stuff. Afterwards we went to the Pub, I sat down and chatted for a while, the real enjoyment however came later. I walked back to Sarah's car with Sarah, Briley and Lorna. Yes, I've just realised that I spelt her name wrong all this time, I'm very sorry (I don't think she actually reads this so I'm okay....). Anyhoo, the fun part. After getting back to Sarah's car I proposed a race back to Langstone, I told them it'd be fair as there was no traffic to slow them down. My advantage was that they were in a car park, I managed to find a shortcut out. They overtook me at the last leg of the journey, BUT, they were breaking the speedlimit, my guess is that I was going a 20-25mph and to overtake in the space of two secodns required a speed of 40mph minimum. The limit there is 30 and it's not a wide road..... However, I count myself as winning because they couldn't find a parking space and they should have thought of that before taknig the car (okay, it's more of a moral victory). Next time, next time ladies.... Lesson of the Day - It's worth spending time to fix stuff like Punctures

Weekend in Wales - 5th and 6th of November

I got up I have no idea when on Saturday. The first thing I did was have breakfast, promise Arakasi that I'd be on MSN for a while then go shopping (within 5 minutes of saying I'd be online a while). I came back, did the WoA results and played some DOTA. After DOTA and soem delicious Curry for dinner I went down the pub with Lewis and played pool for a few hours, it was good fun. On the way home we watched cars race through a massive puddle (well out of the way of course), the highlight was a bus go through at the same time as a car (opposite directions), the car was completely covered in water. Sunday was quite good, I got up and played some DOTA, I managed to lose both games, clearly I should have tried harder. After that I sorted out some money stuff with my Mum (Student Loan going into my other account...), I then spent some time packing stuff up for the trip back to Uni. The Car journey back was fine, though a little long. Overall the weekend was great, I really enjoyed seeing my family again, especially my cat, he's so soft, stupid and downright cuddly :) Lesson of the Weekend - Just because you leave the motorway on the wrong junction and return after turning round, doesn't mean you'll be behind where you were 30 seconds ago...

Home Time - Friday - 4th of November

I got up late, 1000 ish to be more precise. I had some cornflakes and started some web design, I've now started using BBEdit as it's got a really nice colour coding system and generally useful interface, though it took a bit of configuring to get it to how I like it. My only lecture of the day was with Dr Tawfik so I had lunch and got in for 1300. The lecture itself was something I could have missed, and in retrospect, wish I had (I don't normally think that, even if I knew everything in it) as during the lecture, while Tawfik was talking I elaborated on something he had explined badly to a friend. Dr Tawfik walked up and asked my friend a question, he didn't know the answer and so Tawfik told us to stop talking, if he'd asked me the question I'd have answered, it'd have been funny to see what he'd have done. After getting back from the lecture (and Tescos, I needed a packed dinner) I began packing everything ready for my train journey home. It was at 1700 but I was nervous about missing it at 1600. I got onto the train just fine, the laptop battery lasted for a good hour before I had to stop typing stuff and start reading 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. The switching of trains went fine, except that I got on a train before the one I was meant to, this meant it was a bit smaller, but I did get back sooner. My Mum and Dad drove me back to my Welsh home, I missed my cat a little, he's so soft and furry... Lesson of the Day - A person with an extendable pointer yelling at you and waving it inches from your face is scary

I found Cake - Thursday - 3rd of November

I got in for my 0900 lab. My previous lab partner was nowhere to be seen, so I sat next to Howard, he's very very good at electronics, but says he's not so good at writing programs, looks like it'll be a good team (I'm the opposite). The lab was all about electronics, Howard kept on saying that he felt bad for doing everything, but I was learning by example quite well so reassured him I was fine. I think we were one of very few lab groups to complete the exercises before the lab ended (we had 3 minutes to spare). I cycled back and had a lovely fry up lunch, mmmmmmm. After lunch I found out that re-installing the PHP server made it so that PHP once again works on my computer. For those that don't know, PHP is a way of sticking really cool stuff on the web, such as databases, forums and more. My afternoon lecture with Hassan was great, minus that Tom sat next to me and asked stupid questions, he used to also attend year 2 lectures, but after asking stupid questions there was told by some students that if he came back, they'd kick his head in, I'm told that he took the hint. Dinner was nice, I had something with some very strong Curry in it, so I would have been a little empty in the stomach region, but lo and behold, Marisa saves the day. There was some very very nice cake, and Marisa took the largest (she got there first, despite my elbowing ability). One bite, "I don't like this anymore". I had it, that's the second pudding she's decided she didn't like, I'm just hoping that next time I have dinner near here they're doing masses of Toffee Squares, I'll have to ask Tom about that... After the dinner I sat down in the refectory and used the wireless, then went back and did some web design before going to bed. I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.... Lesson of the Day - When making friends in Uni, find someone like Marisa, I get the feeling she often leaves puddings on her plate (therefore more for me).