Free Hot Chocolate - Saturday - 22nd of October

I got up early ish, well, for a student. I was in the city center to return some books and pay my 40p fine (they were a day late), I then went to the bank to get my student stuff. I'd have seen the student finance people but they are not in on the weekends so I couldn't. On the way back I meant to get some bottles of stuff to drink for tomorrow but completely forgot, looks like I'll be popping into Asda or Lidl tomorrow morning on my way to the Church Crawl. Once I got back I went down to the refectory, found a power socket, checked with Tom that I could use it, sat down, and connected to the Internet. I had a couple of things that I had to update, I also looked at all the webcomics I wanted to. Towards the end of the four hours that the refectory would be open for I asked for and was allowed some free Hot Chocolate, mmmmmm. The really really funny part however, was when everybody else was asked to leave because they were closing but I was told I could stay, neat huh :) After that I had the WoA results to do with WarpGhost and Arakasi, I do know their real names, but I wont be posting them here. We had great fun, well, I did, they hadn't realised the scale of the work I single handedly did every week, they also managed to allocate themselves the teams with the biggest orders topics (they take more time). I used that time to sort out some Admin stuff on the site so it did work out to be fair. Overall it was a lot better, despite taking longer, because we were chatting to each other most of the time, the time went much faster. During the results I had lunch and dinner, both were two slices of bread and a half slice of Gammon, it was yummy, mmmmm. A special mention must now go to a couple of people. Anton from WoA (not the Anton from Wales) and James (he is from Wales). They have been continuously 'wishing me well with the ladies', well, they wanted to be mentioned and so they have, thanks guys, you are a constant source of amusement to me and I hope you never stop. I spent the rest of the evening downloading the webcomics to hard disk, some are pretty funny, they are gonna be my desktops. I would have used Adobe Acrobat to download them but for two reasons. With the broadband I have here and the size of the comics, it hits the comic servers a little too hard, secondly, it doesn't do it properly. looks like I'll have to do it the slow way :( Lesson of the Day - Not all cars/vans/trucks look in their mirrors before turning, I almost got my back wheel taken out by a Van (yes, back wheel, that's how fast I accelerate)

Free Hot Chocolate - Saturday - 22nd of October

I got up early ish, well, for a student. I was in the city center to return some books and pay my 40p fine (they were a day late), I then went to the bank to get my student stuff. I'd have seen the student finance people but they are not in on the weekends so I couldn't. On the way back I meant to get some bottles of stuff to drink for tomorrow but completely forgot, looks like I'll be popping into Asda or Lidl tomorrow morning on my way to the Church Crawl. Once I got back I went down to the refectory, found a power socket, checked with Tom that I could use it, sat down, and connected to the Internet. I had a couple of things that I had to update, I also looked at all the webcomics I wanted to. Towards the end of the four hours that the refectory would be open for I asked for and was allowed some free Hot Chocolate, mmmmmm. The really really funny part however, was when everybody else was asked to leave because they were closing but I was told I could stay, neat huh :) After that I had the WoA results to do with WarpGhost and Arakasi, I do know their real names, but I wont be posting them here. We had great fun, well, I did, they hadn't realised the scale of the work I single handedly did every week, they also managed to allocate themselves the teams with the biggest orders topics (they take more time). I used that time to sort out some Admin stuff on the site so it did work out to be fair. Overall it was a lot better, despite taking longer, because we were chatting to each other most of the time, the time went much faster. During the results I had lunch and dinner, both were two slices of bread and a half slice of Gammon, it was yummy, mmmmm. A special mention must now go to a couple of people. Anton from WoA (not the Anton from Wales) and James (he is from Wales). They have been continuously 'wishing me well with the ladies', well, they wanted to be mentioned and so they have, thanks guys, you are a constant source of amusement to me and I hope you never stop. I spent the rest of the evening downloading the webcomics to hard disk, some are pretty funny, they are gonna be my desktops. I would have used Adobe Acrobat to download them but for two reasons. With the broadband I have here and the size of the comics, it hits the comic servers a little too hard, secondly, it doesn't do it properly. looks like I'll have to do it the slow way :( Lesson of the Day - Not all cars/vans/trucks look in their mirrors before turning, I almost got my back wheel taken out by a Van (yes, back wheel, that's how fast I accelerate)

Bowling - Friday - 21st of October

I woke late, I didn't have a lecture until 1300. I had the last of the Chicken and some Tuna fish in a sandwich. I got into the Angelsea building for 1100 and sat leeching of the wireless for a while, then I had to go to my lecture. To be fair to Dr. Tawfik, he was a lot more interesting this time, though it really did take a lot of effort to understand him properly. While in the refectory Duane said that he didn't mean what he said as a threat, so I decided to give him another chance (I wanted to go Bowling too). I'm not sure what caused his change of attitude but a great time was had by all, I lost both games and drank several pints of Coke. To make things worse we had to wait in the car for well over 10 minutes for a pizza. The last laugh was however had by me, Dan was curios as to why I was so eager to get inside, I told him and so he deliberately moved slowly, I burst past him and raced up the stairs, he raced after me (holding pizzas) and managed to trip on the stairs, I got into my room and locked the door, moments later I heard sounds of Dan not being able to open my door. Lesson of the Day - Jeans, despite 'looking better than shorts' are tighter than shorts, you cannot run as fast in them

Agggh the Aggro - Thursday - 20th of October

I once again cycled to Uni, I had my first lecture at 1400 but got there for 1200 and saw my Computing teacher (Chi). He's a cracking fellow and managed to get C working on the Mac, he then gave me some web design tips and appears interested in WoA, yeah, I was surprised too, but it seems that he played D&D when he was younger. Interestingly Chi said that they may be interested in using REALBasic to teach people that don't do programming as their main course but should still understand it, heck, I didn't even try very hard to sell it. Chi also saw my Othello game, he said that I should put it on Sourceforge as it is, I'm not sure if he realizes how easy it is to program in REALBasic, however, I think that when I get some sort of better AI working I'll put it up. After chatting to Chi I turned up to my lecture. I think the name is spelt Hassan but I'm not sure. He's an interesting person, I was very very happy I turned up early, anybody that turned up late was told that next time, they shouldn't even come in the door, I thought he was going to kill one person who turned up 20 minutes late without any paper or pens, though his mates said that they had brought his stuff. Hassan also respects those that ask questions and actually pay attention, I think he'll be a very good teacher for me, especially as he takes the area of the course that I like the least. What I like most about Hassan is that apparently he marks based on how much work you do, if you fail the test but know the work, he'll pass you, and of course visa versa, in my opinion, that's what teaching is about. I then cycled back to halls, only to find that again, the 15" was mucking about with the PCMI airport card. I couldn't get it to work using Ben's method, so I cycled back in and a really nice guy called Rob helped me, he showed me there was a reset switch at the back of the computer. When I got back I messed around with C a little bit, wrote some blog and then did some work on the WTM (Something for WoA). For those that are fed up with wondering what WoA is, well, you can find out at http://thejordans.biz/woa feel free to explore the site and forum, feel free to also join in. I had dinner with a guy called Garath on a similar course to me, I then got bogged down trying to get an insertion sort to work on the WTM, so I went down the bar with Dan, Sam, Melanie and Duane. They suggested going bowling tomorrow, I was all up for it until Duane made a reply to me saying 'I'll go on one condition, Duane accepts that I am going to be sarcastic' 'F Off' I abruptly walked out, I was not impressed when he had earlier said that 'Tough Love' was him allowed to hit me and me not able to do anything about it, not being a confrontational person I didn't raise the issue, but this was going to far and I took my leave. I got back, showered and went to bed. Lesson of the Day - If the PCMI card works, leave it where it is

I rode my Bike - Wednesday - 19th of October

I woke at 0700, wow, a whole 7 ish hours sleep. But I didn't care, tuna/chicken sandwich then BIKE RIDE. I zoomed into town, overtaking over 100 cars. The reason for this was that there had been an accident somewhere and there was gridlock. Upon entering my first lecture I had a horrible experience, the Mac was not booting. It made the noise, but no screen, it didn't sleep.... Ben however came to the rescue, he removed the battery and held down the power button. This it appears resets something or other and it now works fine, the downside was that I had to re-do the clock. My first lecture was computing, Tom as usual turned up late, he then proceeded to make an idiot of himself by asking a load of stupid questions. The second lecture was something called 'The Technology Context' and I have to make some document or other about something, anything. I plan to make mine on World of Arl. After that was the Engineering Analysis where I taught Ben how to factorise or whatever it is where you find the roots of a quadratic equation. The last 'item' of the day was a chat with my personal Tutor. He's a really really nice guy called Reinard Khusainoe. I don't know if I spelt his first name correctly. He came to Portsmouth on the last day of August so is as new here as us. It appears that he would like to be (but isn't) teaching AI, I told him about the Othello game, it looks like I've found the best guy to help me. After that I headed home and grabbed a Tuna Fish + Chicken sandwich, Cup of Tea and a Toffee Square, mmmmmmmm. After a short time sitting down doing stuff I cycled back into the Uni, I cashed in some cheques and tried to change my Pin number (having forgotten it). The problem is that the new number is not being mailed to my current address... The other reason that I went there was to get my Student Account card, they didn't have it, all the people were once again really really friendly. Myself, Sam, Marisa and Abbey had dinner in the refectory, it was roast chicken and potatoes. Abbey's friend, Haddy (I think that's how it's spelt) was amazed that I liked the food, she was even more amazed that I went up to tell Tom about it on a regular basis. For my part I was aghast that her sense of humor was so bad she thought I was a funny person, yes it's true, somebody has a bad enough sense of humor to think that ^^. The CU hall group was great, we sat and chatted for a while, read some of the Bible and then all went off. I have a camera now, I am going to try to get some pictures of the prettier people near me on the web soon, then I'll put the uglier ones (Dan) up there too..... Lesson of the Day - That which you want will come to you if you wait

TOFFEE SQUARES, WOOO - Tuesday - 18th of October

I had stayed up late last night, so getting up at 0700 was not easy, however, I sort of managed it (10 minute lie in). As I had run out of bread I had some pot noodles, they were acceptable. I got on the bus and headed to my first lecture (Internet Applications) for 0900, despite having being told by the teacher yesterday that I probably didn't need to turn up to half of them, I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything, it turned out I was fine. I sat in my first lecture with Peter and Nick, seeing as we already knew HTML somewhat better than the rest of the group we spent the time chatting quietly (while ensuring that we knew what was being taught) and generally not falling asleep, I also write some more blog. I really need a new battery, this one runs out too fast, it's not THAT easy to type onto a pitch black screen. Of course, after asking, it turns out that I am allowed to use those power sockets, so in Cripps' lecture I was able to use the Laptop, but I'm getting ahead of myself. After Internet Applications I had Engineering Analysis (read Maths). As the bus timetable hates me I wouldn't be able to get back and relax for long enough to make it worth it. So I went to the library, found that my wireless was activated and so downloaded 40 megabytes of system updates at a rate of whatever my wireless card could manage. During Cripps' lecture Ben admired the 15" some more and I downloaded 218 meg of quicktime movies in the space of a few minutes, it was great. Later my Dad came round, I spent the hour and a half before he got there getting a CSS template and basic read me ready for him, I hope it works, if anybody else wants something similar, tell me. My Dad brought round a load of extra clothes, my bike (hoorah), bike locks and such, my book on Algorithms (how I forgot that I'll never know) and this amazing substance called 'Toffee Square'. This amazing food substance will last until late Wednesday when I share what little will be left of it with the rest of the CU hall group. We got some stuff from Tescos, I now have a lot of food, tuna and FEBI (Full English Breakfast Ingredients). We then went to the Old Customs House and I took home a 1/4 of a chicken, yummy. We got back, I bade him goodbye and started unpacking stuff. I went onto WoA to find that nobody had said no to the EGM topic, Arakasi is now a Custodian (GM) and there is one more who'll be changing soon ish, they have something to sort out first. Lesson of the Day - Halfords have the largest range of anything, but never what you need....

The Week of Work Begins - Monday - 17th of October

I had a practical computing session at 10 so got to the uni for that time. I sat next to Tom and we completed the work pretty well. However, Tom failed me on one key point during the session. We were told that if we took our Campus Card to a guy with a load of stuff, we would be given our lab kit, the lab kit it transpires, has some neat stuff. Tom already had a kit as he was staying back a year, he therefore had the opportunity to go up and get a second. He said that he didn't want a second, I informed him that I'd be happy to take it off his hands, he decided not to, I was most disappointed. After the session I found that I had printed out the wrong timetable (there were three to choose from a list that I didn't even see) and so I dashed back to Langstone to grab a slice of bread and a forkful of Tuna Fish, print out a new time table and grab a bus back for Internet Applications (another practical session). The lecturer was not lecturing, we had an online document to work through (teaching us HTML). I wanted to know if I could use my World of Arl website for the coursework, he promptly told me that I would not need to pay much attention for the next few lectures (I told him that I now code by hand, not GoLive), I spent the session doing HTML on the Mac for the WoA website. After messing around with HTML and CSS I showed the 15" Powerbook off to a guy named Ben, he's now seriously considering getting one off ebay :) My third lecture of the day was a mathsey one, I taught the FOIL rule to Ben, I'm sure my old Maths teachers will be proud to know that all the stuff they taught me is really coming in handy. After that I got a bus back, I met a lady from the CU called Briley. The number of people cramming onto the bus (single decker) was so much that I was forced to fold my seat up so that we could fit more on (My plan had been to push on so I could save a seat for Briley, being a Gentleman and all). In the end she did manage to get a seat when some people got off. After getting back the two of us grabbed a hasty lunch in the Refectory with Sam and Marisa. Both Marisa and Briley do languages and so knew each other, today Sam decided he would eat his donut, pity... The CU meeting was great fun and we all went to the Pub afterwards. After the pub another lady from the CU, also at Langstone called Sarah drove us back, but first we stopped at a petrol station to get some sweets. Being wimps, all the ladies said they felt too embarrassed to buy the sweets alone, and even with me saying 'Get these' Briley took a long time to get some. Then it turned out we were meant to get fruity sweets, I told them to wait there, I managed to get three times the amount that Briley did, and in less time too :P Lesson of the Day - Be decisive when you need to be, otherwise you'll be there all day

Solved It - Sunday - 16th of October

Unfortunately I was kept awake by Abbey and her friend next door, if it happens again I'll have to ask her to be quiet, the result was that when I woke up at 7, I had had less than 5 hours sleep and so was not really ready to go on a church crawl, the last thing I wanted to do was yawn during a service. During the rest of the day I had a full English Brunch (Like a breakfast, just at lunch time) from the refectory and then some noodles for Linner (Breakfast + Lunch = Brunch, Lunch + Dinner = Linner). I spent the rest of the day working on some more stuff for the WoA website, I managed (with some help from a computer lecturer from Australia) to find the problem and correct it. Looking forwards to seeing my Dad on Tuesday, I just hope I don't get held up as I have an hour to get from my final lecture to the halls. Of note today was that I have a very light cough, and when I drink stuff I have a sore throat. Sam has had a cough, but I think that was the one I had last week (I certainly hope so). During the day, I also checked up on some webcomics that I follow, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade and PHWComics are all gaming related comics. A lawyer named Jack Thompson or something such has made some offer or other that he will donate 10 grand to charity if someone makes his game. He's strongly opposed to violence in games and so his idea is probably something about that, I really wasn't interested, violence in games is fine, if not taken to excess. Anyway, the point is that games cost far far more than that to make, it's a ridiculously small sum of money to make a professional game for. What I thought was REALLY funny was that one of the writers of Penny Arcade emailed him, rather than tell it second handedly I'll quote their news blog. Warning it is a little long, I've also edited out the bad language that they like to use. --- Tycho --- As I've suggested in this space before, Gabriel's "super power" (if you will) is to suss out the exact thing that will drive a person out of their minds. He's only utilized this ability on me twice, and it stings to recall them. They're actually too cruel to relate. It's important to me that you sort of like him, even in the abstract. He felt certain that the over half a million dollars raised by Child's Play would jab him brutally. He was not wrong. So certain was he that this knowledge would barb the codger into wild madness that he included his phone number in a hastily composed "sig." He was not surprised in the least when a number he did not recognize appeared on his cell. I was trying to collect the Iron Golem soul, I was busy at the time. Gabe turned to look at me, not just with his head but his whole body, a single motion that had a mechanical look. He asked if it was really Jack Thompson, and it was at this point I knew he had done something wrong. Conversation one is where Jack Thompson asks Gabe if Gabe has ever donated to charity. Of course, we have - it's usually a couple Gameboys a year for Child's Play, but the "take" from the distributed gamer metamind is over five hundred thousand dollars in two years. This answer did not satisfy him. He suggested that if Gabe mailed him again, he would be sued so fast that his head would "spin," and that he, Jack Thompson, had given more to charity that Gabe could even imagine. Gabe isn't very good at math, so he may have a point. I'm told that humbers larger than ten give him a headache. What's more, his donations were more valuable, because he wasn't some flush-with-cash game company. Which I guess is relevant to us, because... Well, I guess it's not relevant. Then he hung up. Usually when a person threatens us with a lawsuit we don't really pay attention. The fact of the matter is that rude people and idiots often try to threaten people by gesturing wildly at the edifice of the legal system. But this man is actually a lawyer, and also demonstrably crazy, and he apparently has time to call random people who mail him on the phone so maybe he's looking for something to do. In any case, we aren't a flush with cash game company, so at the very least my cohort wanted to excise this erroneous statement from the record. This next mail elicited a second call, which we have detailed in the strip. Gabe's own voice rose triumphantly throughout this phase, I thought perhaps he was just getting into the rhetorical spirit of the thing, but the reality is that Jack screamed at him the entire time. The point he submitted went without answer: if a company made his reprehensible game, he would literally have to sue himself and talk about what a horrible person he was on national television. Of course, he's not serious. Machination is too glorified a word for what he's doing. Ruse would make it seem debonair. He's essentially holding money hostage from charity, and if someone did make it, even as a joke, he would say that it didn't conform to his "design." This sort of thing is usually called a shell-game. The song license itself he mentions - Lawyers In Love - would probably run anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand by itself. --- Back to Teifion --- Lesson of the Day - Penny Arcade are funny