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.