August 2003 Archives

Stress

Things that are causing me excess stress and reduced sleep:

WORK

I’m writing program features that have been paid for, but may never be used.
I can’t keep a pcAnywhere connection to the client open for more than a few minutes.
I’ve been abandoned to sort out the database replication by myself.
A colleague insists upon demonstrating how stressed they are about their upcoming deadline, as if I needed reminding about mine (I’m already past it, and the client keeps phoning me to tell me all about it).
Pulling extra hours isn’t actually getting that much more work done.

HOME

I still have lots of Three Rings to go, most notably a file-storing system, and I can’t find a way to focus on it.
I have heaps of laundry to do…
…oughta tidy up, too…
…and sort some things out with the bank, with my parents, with the Dept. of Comp. Sci…

But, above it all – the killer:

I can’t find the motivation to get on with any of it, and it’s all building up into a mammoth heap of incompleteness.

End of rant.

Those Commie Martians

This story about the European Space Agency by the BBC reads:

…The Mars Exploration Rovers will touch down in January next year, just after the Europeans arrive with their Marx Express mission in December…

Marx Express? I suppose we should have guessed that the so-called ‘red planet’ was communist.

Final Episode Of Futurama

Just watched the final (ever?) episode of Futurama, “The Devil’s Hands Make Idol Work”, with Claire, Paul, Kit and Bryn. Quite stunning. Very impressive. Very brave. Cool. Watch it.

Up all night

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

I’ve drunk too much coffee and can’t sleep. After “Equilibre” last night, Dan and I discovered the difference between men and women is that men don’t understand art, and women don’t understand art but are good at pretending they do.
Been coding all day. Creating adventure games is harder than it looks! I have two games on the go – one called “Absurd” and one called “Dungeon.” Both are in their early stages. I have to be doing several things at once or I get bored, so when I get stuck on one bug i swap to the other adventure.

Have been pondering the fact that I’ve spent most of my life trying to find something to belong to, to fit in with, to be part of, and i think i’ve found most of it now. No reason to stop searching through the maze though ;) I flitted through friendship groups faster than a speeding meercat in the past, but at least at uni it feels a little more permanent, if an illusion as everyone leaves sometime. I have Dan. Hooray! Enough soppiness (I’m not good at expressing my feelings, but I love you, my dearest, always and forever).

I have Aberystwyth. Ok, I *will* leave at some point, but it will always be here and in my memories as home. Hopefully my new degree will become part of this happy set-up.

I have coffee. This is why I’m still up. Suppose I’ll hack till I drop. I chose hacking over shopping today, normally its playing pc games that wins but now I’m writing my own games, which is more fun.
At least when i go see CompSci’s admissions tutor I can say “Sorry if I’m tired, I drank too much coffee and spent the small hours coding in an object oriented fashion.” He’ll be delighted to have me aboard.

I’d best stop my rambling and get some code done that will be incomprehendable by the morning. Just like this post.

Claire

What Meatloaf Song Are You?

I’m I’ll Kill You If You Don’t Come Back. Excellent.

“When you fall, you fall hard. Maybe you get a bit obsessive. Maybe you get a bit homicidal, even. But you’ve got a rockin’ melody and a beat you can dance to.”

What Meatloaf Song Are You?

Equilibre – Theatre For Horse-Lovers And Other Wierdos

Just got back from seeing Equilibre (horse theatre thingy) with Claire. What can I say? Great music, brilliant dancing, some very impressive singing, the second best use of stagecraft (circumstances given) that I’ve ever seen, the work of a director with great imagination, impressive horseplay…

…but I can’t help but feel that I’ve come away from it missing something. Perhaps I just didn’t ‘get it’, but I did find it difficult to follow the plot, or, at times, even find one at all. Perhaps something to do with the fact that, of the four languages used during the show, I understood only the third-most frequently used.

Still: if you like horses, and you’d like to see them trot their stuff alongside opera singers on stilts, gypsies dancing with a horse skull, and flame-flinging people from earlier in my journal, this is the show for you. If, however, you don’t speak either Italian or Romany and don’t like horses, don’t bother.

They’re performing all of this week. Tickets £10 adults, £6 children.

Train Girl Fantasy

Take a look at the thread on Train Girl Fantasies that Andy has accidentally started. Participate! Tell us all about your Train Girl Fantasies. We all know you’ve had them.

Last night I fixed eight or so of the bugs that Paul and Kit found in my software project the night before. They’ve promised not to find any more before I’ve had a chance to fix these ones.

Kit’s Rant

I agree with Kit’s rant:

I learn today that the funding may be cut *again* to the Nightline here is Aberystwyth. I don’t care what the reasoning is – cutting the funding anymore is plain dangerous.
Its lie after lie in the Union. I have seen little in five long years that has actually impressed me about the way it operates or the people involved (bar a few notable exceptions). Its a lie and an illusion to sit and pretend that cutting all budgets evenly is fair. Its actually lazy. That’s all – its the simplest “no brainer” approach to finance ever. I mean look at it another way – would a company do that? I know some have – but clever ones do not. They look where the money is being spent, and they look toward efficiencies. They also look for people who are misusing, under-using or inappropriately / inefficiently using their funds. You don’t simply hack money from everyone and expect them to cope.

Until now we have simply been a soft target. Time and time again they have cut our funds and received nothing but us working harder and harder to make ends meet. We have ended up funding things ourselves, supplying our own resources or equipment. This has to stop here and now. We are going to have to fight and push this back. The tide needs stopping here and now – as else we are simply not going to exist anymore.

Words are easy, action more difficult – but we have a load of strengths the union hasn’t got. We need to persuade them to cut somewhere else instead of us – yes its that bad, but I am afraid I see an even straight line cut as being an insult to the 2600 hours of open time (let alone meeting and organisational time) we put in. No other club and society is open *anything* like that long, or does anything for every other student.

I am bloody annoyed.

Current Mood: infuriated

Current Music: My fishtank filtration units

From my understanding, Nightline provides a listening ear to every student at the university for at least 12 hours, every night during termtime, run entirely by volunteer students – the money is spent on such necessities as a phone bill and publicity materials. No other student-run organisation on campus: the sports teams, the clubs and societies, etc., provides a service which is accessible to all, and saves lives. It’s outrageous that the Union don’t see the importance of things like this until they’re gone.

Bugger. Now I’m pissed-off, too.

Excellent Article On Music Piracy And CD Sales

A must-read! An excellently-written and concise article in dot.life about the falling sales of CDs being blamed on file-swappers, playing devil’s advocate. Go read it, people!

Now Where Did I Put My House?

Did anybody see the story about the American who had their house stolen this weekend? That’s a fantastic theft to pull off. Wish I’d thought of it first. Ah well.

Also this weekend, a man is killed in a collision between a car and a train. Not particularly noteworthy under normal circumstances, I know, but the train in question is a tourist attraction – a one-third scale steam train with a top speed of 15mph, and the car was a Ford Escort, probably about the same size as the steam engine and weighing about half as much. It takes a special kind of bad driver to get struck on a level crossing at which the trains go barely fast enough to outrun a sprinting child.

Enough newssurfing – back to work;

Saddles

As if Adam’s Bike Saddle Problems weren’t bad enough, somebody’s stolen mine! While left parked outside my house, somebody came along in the night and swiped the seat of my bike! I’m not in the slightest bit pleased.

Claire‘s not feeling well. Kit and I are keeping our eyes out for any good placebos. I need to go in to the office today. And, yes, I am aware that it’s Sunday. If Claire’s not up to it, I might have to find an alternative that bumming a lift from her. Hmm…

Edit, 17th September 2007: This post seems to be a hot blogspam target, presumably because it’s the fourth Google hit when searching for “bumming saddles” or some other nonsense reason. Comments closed.

Banks

It seems that NatWest now only open during the hours at which I am at work. Yet somehow I’m expected to deposit my paycheque. This makes no sense.

Mostly, I’ve been watching Futurama and drinking good beer. On Saturday, Claire and I went up to a forest North of Dolgellau and ate sandwiches and failed to find climbable trees. And I twisted my ankle. In any case, after a week of working late and coming home to evenings with everybody-in-Aber-I-know, it was good to spend some time alone with her.

I should be coding Three Rings, or Kit will shout at me. Better get on.

Science Graduates Earn More, Live Longer, Smoke Less

This report by the BBC, published yesterday, gives evidence that we science/engineering graduates live longer than our artsy opposite numbers. Made my day.

Helpless – Post Script

Yawny morning.

Got to sleep eventually. Basically, my friend’s problems can’t be solved by anybody but themselves. I’m going to offer to be there, be supportive, and to help them in any way they can, but in the end, what’s troubling them can’t be solved by anybody else. Will try to get a chance to speak to them later today.

For now, however, I have a deadline to wage war with.

Helpless

I can’t sleep.

For the last week or so, I’ve talked a little every day or two with a really good friend of mine who is, unfortunately, going through some problems at the moment. They’d been quite understating and evasive about talking about them at length until yesterday, when they suddenly revealed to me quite how difficult they’re finding their life, of late.

What scared me more than how bad their situation is is that I honestly don’t know what I can do or say to help them. I’ve tried everything I can think of and it’s beginning to upset me that I don’t know what else to try.

I still can’t sleep.