Nothing to report

I'd say "It does what it says on the tin" except there is no tin and my blog gives data not function. I am also quite tired.

Walking 500 Miles would be very Slow, 1000 would be worse

Wednesday morning I got up and went to the Java lecture where I learnt very little. After Java I decided that I needed some Sunglasses and Chocolate. After comparing prices I found some nice glasses for £2. here is a picture of me wearing them. I packed and got a train to London. At London I met my Dad and we travelled by train to my Uncle (Brett)'s house. When Coel, Brett and one of Brett's friends Anthony arrived we all tucked into some Kebabs. It was really nice to see Brett, Coel, my Dad and to meet Anthony. The Kebabs were really nice and we had a really good time. That night I went to bed about midnight and despite the heat I got a decent sleep. At 0600 my Dad and I left Brett's and headed for Newcastle. The roads were near dead and we made good time. Once we got some distance I started to rest my eyes, I was feeling semi-sleepy. I was jolted awake when my Dad yelled "No no no!" I thought I'd had some sort of a bad dream and then the car started to hit the hard shoulder. No, my Dad is actually a very good driver and it's because he's such a good driver that we were not in an accident. A truck on the left-most lane moved into the center lane just behind a car with a very low trailer. The truck could not see the trailer and as such moved into the trailer, we were to the right of the trailer and thankfully my Dad saw what was happening and accelerated while dodging the moving problem. Later we passed something with a cherry-picker, it'd happened probably a minute before we got there and so didn't hold us up. We heard on the radio it took an hour to clean up. At Newcastle I was to have an interview with HP. The interview was at 1500 and we arrived at about 1000. This was very useful as it allowed time to relax a little by visiting the Angel of the North (a big metal sculpture). Here are some pictures of me standing by it. Click to Enlarge. We also walked around PC World where I poked around with Vista for a good 15 seconds. I can see that the interface is laid out almost identically to XP but with more of a Mac OSX look to it. The computer I used it on responded fairly fast but I don't know how fast that computer was, I have doubts it was 400mhz with 1GB of RAM (which is what I have found you can comfortably run Mac OSX on). I put my shirt on and we took some pictures of me in it later that day, note how non-photogenic I am. The interview with HP went really well. I first had to give a 10 minute presentation with 5 minutes afterwards for questions. First of all I gave them a plastic sleeve of 3 handouts, in the sleeve was a biscuit which they obviously asked about to which I replied "Well, I put it there incase you were hungry, my Dad and I figured it'd lighten the mood a little". As predicted, it did. The presentation was about a Database system I wrote for WoA. First of all I outlined the system, I then explained how I made two key choices, they were.... 1) The old system was Paper Based, did I really need to change it? 2) Should the system be part of the phpBB forum we use or should I make it standalone? The first two handouts listed the pros and cons for both sides, I elaborated on the pros and cons and used these two points to show my logical thinking and analytical approach to problems. I then moved on to explaining how I overcame problems that arose during development and testing. They were... 1) Where to host it? 2) Dealing with Users that made typos 3) Storing the key data These points showed how I looked into things that people suggested, how I got as many of my users onboard and provided a very "customer focused system". The last point was crucial as it showed that I am not afraid to re-do what I've already done if it is needed. The final section involved me telling them how great the users thought the system was, how they really appreciated the open-beta (where anybody can test out the system) and finished by giving them login details to a test account I'd setup on the system which they seemed quite impressed at that. After the interview my Dad and I went to Tesco to get some food for that night and the next morning. We would be staying at a Travel Lodge in Newcastle. Newcastle was blocked up as it was rush hour, we sat in a slowly moving car, me alternating between shoving pringles into my mouth and placing pringles on the dashboard for my dad to eat without needing to take his eyes off the road. We got to the travel lodge and watched some of "My name is Earl" and a little "Scrubs". We both started feeling very tired so went to bed at.... 2100 However, we did get up today (Friday for those that have managed to not keep up so far) at 0500 and left around 0530 where the roads were again clear. Amazingly we got into Birmingham without hitting a load of traffic and walked around. We had a Mc Donalds breakfast (mmmm) and then visited the Apple Store. I really really like the look of the 30" display, however, I am not sure that it's anything but a display and I believe other places might make them and sell them in at less of a price, if I ever get a desktop Computer I might invest in one :) At 1030 my Dad dropped me off at the station and continued on his way to Wales, I waited for my train. Normally I get a rubbishy looking "Alpha Line" train to Wales and get onto a more normal sort of train which has a smoother ride to it. The train from Portsmouth to London was also in the "Normal" category. The train I got here was a Virgin train and it had a power supply in it! I spent the journey writing everything above this line and listening to some music (Nightwish are really good). I really appreciate all the help my Mum and Dad gave me. They sorted out all my travel arrangements, my Dad helped loads with preparing the presentation and also Drove me all the way to Newcastle. It's just a shame that when I checked my email when it read the following. Dear Teifion Further to your Interview Day with HP, we are writing to inform you that you have been unsuccessful in meeting the required criteria on this occasion. May we take this opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown in HP and we would like to wish you every success with your future career. Now for the reason that I am very very confused. I am not confused because I think that the interview went well, I think most of my exams go well and I fail those. It's quite possible (and quite likely) that someone else was more suited to the job. No, I am confused because everything up till this point has "worked". I've been praying to God that He would be in control of the situation and direct it, I believe others have been doing so too. God's hand has been apparent over the past couple of days, so why make it abundantly clear that I should go to the interview if I would gain nothing from it? The CU did a Social thing on the Southsea Common. I went and we were going to play rugby when it was changed to touch rugby. I was not in the most amazing of moods, probably tiredness. So when people kept moving when I touched them or tried to bend the rules I moved to simply stop them. It turns out that when people move from "fast" to "almost stopped" in under a second they also move from "vertical" to "almost horizontal", the rate of the two changes appear to be correlated. So, touch rugby was abandoned (I did tell them that it'd fail but they ignored me) and we played Baseball. Overall the social was nice but it was overshadowed by the whole interview thing. I am very confused as to what God wants me to do. There has however been 1 good thing today. Recently I began the creation of a second game, it was put on hold due to time constraints, I have no figured that I started it because I was not happy with the way WoA is being run and felt I had no way to solve the problems. I've since decided that's silly and with the tact of a honeycombed brick I will be solving the problems, should that fail I'll use the tact of a normal brick.

Preperation

I have an interview on Thursday and so I spent today sleeping, preparing for the interview, eating, more preperation, learning about computer stuff, preparing, warcraft 3 and a smidgin more preperation. Sadly I've not been able to come up with any handouts that are any good. Maybe I can get by on my good looks?

And the Pegging shall begin

I didn't post it yesterday or the day before, but I got a letter from Tulleys (the letting agency I am using). It said that I did not pay my rent. This was confusing to me because of two things. 1) I use Direct Debit 2) I have money in my account Turns out it was an Admin error on their part. Apparently they're going to charge me £5 for every letter they send me regarding rent. I sure hope they charge someone other than me for that letter as it's entirely their fault. I went into town and acquired a few varieties of pegs. I plan to make a full review into the different peg types, however, I've only used the Asda ones so far and have only the receipts for the Tesco and Wilkinson ones (so can't remember the price of the others). From left to right it is Woolworths, Wilkinsons, Tesco, Asda. - Tesco Value pegs (they look a bit naff in person too) are 42p for 36 or 1.166667 pence per peg - Wilkinson pegs are 49p for 30, a somewhat higher 1.633333 pence per peg, however, they do look stronger and come in 3 colours. Nothing incredible happened in any of the lectures, however, after the final lecture something very good did happen. I and Gareth had just left our building and who should I see on the opposite side of the pedestrian road? Becca! I tucked my head down and moved my jacket so she didn't recognise me, waited until she had her back to us and then got Gareth to hold my stuff. With a complete lack of noise I darted across the street with a peg in my hand, I then snuck up behind Becca and attached said peg to her bag without her noticing. I darted (near silently) back to Gareth and we carried on. I went back into Uni for the website thing (though the lecturer we thought would be there wasn't) and on my way, yes, you know already, I saw Becca. However, she didn't see me. Yes, I pegged her bag again. Fast-forward to CU. I arrived at the Union building and Becca was very eager to try and peg me, imagine the surprise she had when she arrived at the lecture and noticed a peg on her bag, not having seen anybody that would do such a thing she obviously assumed me. That is bad enough, imagine that when she got back to her halls she found another peg? How can Teifion have been there both times? Either way it was most amusing and Becca really got into the swing of it as did Sarah. I was pegged twice, once by Emma and once by Hannah. Becca failed to peg me and I think I got her an additional 3 times this evening. Some people *cough* Jo *cough* were not so eager to have fun and took a slightly "mature" attitude as it were. We of course pegged them too.

Two new sports

I got up very early considering the time I got to bed last night. I walked to Becca's Halls and then accompanied Becca and Luke to church, acquiring Siän on the way. The service did not (to my memory) contain a specific point which I found a bit off-putting. After the service myself, Brierley, Siän, Lizzie, Becca, Luke and Phil went to Amanda's for a Roast Dinner. During lunch Becca introduced a "Man Points" system. I'm not quite sure how Becca would describe it, however, from my understanding here is how it works. - If you do something nice you get a point - If you make a mistake doing it you lose 3 - If you fail to do something you should you lose between 3 and 10 points - If you do something silly you lose at least 10 - Sometimes points will be deducted on general principles which have no real reason Shortly after I sussed out how the scoring worked I figured if I were to aim for a high-score, I should aim for a negative one. A great tale of logic is also to be had at this lunch. Some of the ladies were surprised that I managed only a single Potato and single Chicken leg. I believe that even the ladies ate more than me, well, at some point Lizzie said "You need to eat more". After the customary twisting of words and asking her why she thinks I'd look better fat it was somehow mentioned (by me) that I have never actually cooked a potato, I might have been mentioning the Potato theory at the time. Rather than accepting the fact and just moving on, I was questioned "How can you never have cooked a Potato?" So, I will now attempt to explain it, for some reason my overly simple diagram still didn't explain it clearly to all of them (most Economics students are fairly smart, some are clearly not). Brierley has cooked Potatoes, therefore she can cook Potatoes or "cooks Potatoes" if you wish to express it so I have not cooked Potatoes, therefore I may or may not be able to cook them or "does not cook Potatoes" if explained so Lizzie and Siän went to Asda to get some Wine (probably to help deal with all the stress I cause) and I got some pegs before going home. On the way to Asda, I thought about how much I appreciate home meals, they're easy to take for granted when you're at home yet when you have to cook for yourself it's a big thing and so I'm taking this opportunity to say thank you to both my Mum and Dad for all the food they cook for me and also all the support with any other endeavor I make. Thank you. Now for the first of the two sports. It's called Pegging, I went to a birthday party and took 8 pegs with me. The objective is to attach as many common clothes pegs to someone as possible without them realising. Becca was an easy target, Jo was easier, Greg quite easy, Siän however proved a challenge, she was (justifiably) paranoid about me pegging her. However, I managed to get her by making her think I had just one peg and attaching that to Lizzie as she walked past. Before I left I made sure to get Becca again (she felt it was a very fun sport and so I feel she's a very good target). Now for the second sport, I just came up with it. During the course of a day (if not, at least a given time period where you will see people such as "when down the pub") you must try to use each adjective no more than once. It's rather hard but I am trying to do it here, I'd not be surprised if I failed.

The Long Road isn't so Long

The plan for today was. Parents give me lift into Cardiff I get on train and hope it all works However, Siän's parents offered me a lift along with Siän which meant that the trip was a lot better and shorter because of it. I got back to my house and everything was fine, Huw came over and we had a fried dinner, played some DotA and watched Monty Python. It was good.