Dan Q
I’ve taken a step towards fixing AbNib. It now works correctly with Alec and Andy‘s LiveJournals, and loads significantly quicker by not updating the live-feed of everybody’s journals at the same time. Yay. Also, have swopped out Claire (who was never updating her blog anyway) for Bryn, a proper Welshman: give him a read!
I’d still like to finish AbNib one of these days… soo much to do…
I should be working;
Troma Night on Saturday was another good one: we think we’ve got the recipe of attendance numbers, film content, and other silliness just right now. I’ve even promised to update the Troma night web site when I get round to it.
Claire, Paul and I took some magic mushrooms, acquired from Little Amsterdam, Aberystwyth’s first sex shop (scoring each of us at least one purity test point we didn’t already have). Apart from potentially enhancing the general feeling of drunkenness that comes about from Troma Night; the only effect of Claire & I’s limited (experimental) dose came later, when we giggled incessantly about the idea of penises with hands. It was funny at the time. Claire went out like a lamp and reports weird dreams. I couldn’t get to sleep until about 4:30am. Weird. Paul reports little other than a feeling of weightlessness while travelling home.
On a not-too-dissimilar drug-related note, overdosed stupidly on caffeine on Tuesday and pranced around excitedly, like a fairy, before throwing up. Not so good. Felt somewhat better after that, though.
Go look up Bondage-and-Discipline Language in dictionary.com. I was surprised to find it in there, too.
Watched The Matrix: Revolutions last night at the Commodore. It was pretty much what I expected: great special effects and a less impressive plot than all of it’s prequels – improved only by having experienced the plot ‘asides’ of the comic books and stories and by the (sucky) computer game and (great) Animatrix. Unfortunatley I ‘saw it all coming’. Perhaps I am The Oracle?
Nevertheless – for those of you who’ve seen it – I can imagine the conversation now:
“This fight scene is perhaps the most ambitious and beautifully-choreographed use of computer graphics ever.”
“Hmm… it’s not quite… enough…”
“What?”
“The computers only took a few weeks to draw it all. Let’s increase the render time. Do the whole thing again, but this time in the rain.
[sounds of visual effects technitians hitting the floor]
I’m at the office. It’s almost 5pm. So far today I’ve achieved what should be estimated as approximately 7 days work. Some days the code just flows. I like being me.
On the other hand, it may be that I’ve just written the wrong 7 days worth of code – as in; the 7 days worth of code I should be starting next week. Despite having achieved the entirety of my work schedule for the next month, I haven’t yet finished what I was supposed to be doing this morning.
My boss is pretty level-headed and appreciates the way I work, though – that if he doesn’t expect me to do things in the order he asks, and he doesn’t mind that some days I achieve nothing but surfing the web and posting to my blog, and that other days are like this one, with immense productivity. I’m an outlier even by software engineering standards. I’m a bit of a loose cannon. But in any case; I’m worth more than he’s paying me and we both know it, and neither of us care terribly, so everything’s pretty damn sweet.
Got my assignment in on time. Think I’ve done it quite well (actually went to the library and read old journals and books and things – very scary and academic and cool at the same time: after all; it’s just about possible to pass a comp. sci degree with Google as your primary reference). Time will tell.
Chez Geek night tonight at the Ship. Looking forward to it.
Vauxhall Corsa: £2,515
Ford Fiesta Zetec: £2,745
Petrol to get the above two cars, containing Bryn, Claire, Kit, Adam, Liz, and me to Shrewsbury and back: £20
Three stuffed-crust pizzas, one plate of mixed snacks, six soft drinks with free refils, two double chocolate sundaes, two portions of chocolate cake, one portion of cheesecake and one
portion of fruity sponge stuff from Pizza Hut Shrewsbury: £68, plus tip
Celebrating Liz’s birthday and a fun night out with great company: priceless
Goodnight;
I have shedloads of work to do: a whole heap of stuff for Bovini, a bit of catching up with my self-imposed tight schedule for my dissertation, a worksheet on formal methods for software engineering [PDF]…
…and then there’s all the other stuff: gotta do my laundry, remember that it’s my dad’s birthday next week, write some more Three Rings code. By rights, I should be busy.
On the other hand, I celebrated (finally) getting my student loan cheque this week by buying a copy of UFO: Aftermath (good, but buggy – buy it if you’re a fan of the X-COM series, but otherwise, pirate a copy in a week or two when it’ll be in heavy circulation), and I’ve been playing that a lot instead of all the things I should be doing. Still; it makes a change from NetHack (I have copies on my university user space compiled for both Windows and Solaris, now; and keep a copy on a *nix box I can log in to remotely, just in case) and Puzzle Pirates.
Probably going to be a busy weekend.
P.S. Read the reports of Paul’s attempts to get himself evicted by tipping off Enviromental Health about how unfit for human habitation his house is on his and Kit’s blogs, if you haven’t already. I can’t be bothered working out the URLs: find them on AbNib
Apparently it’s our duty to the British economy to call in sick whenever we feel like some time off. This web site, Anxiety Culture, is the inevitable result of a confused fusion of the directive, business-driven mind of a free market capitalist, and a plethora of "very 90’s" confused and complicated morals. It’s rather odd. Very pretty site, though. Take a look.
Both The Register and the BBC have stories today on bluejacking – that is, the practice of sending unsolicited messages to open Bluetooth relay points, typically mobile phones. There’s even a web site dedicated to bluejacking.
One of my personal favourites is the cinema. It’s fun to fire off pictures of fridge magnet letters with my web site URL, or note text, to random people as they come in to the cinema or as they turn their phones on and leave. Lectures, too: had a bluejack-chat with somebody a little while back. As always, us geeks are well ahead of the technological fashion trends.
I’ve gotten no work at all done so far today. Hmm.
Amazon book recommendations have just recommended me the book ‘A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting’. Their reasoning for this is that I have ‘Amelie’ on my WishList. There is a prize for anyone who can explain to me the logic behind this.
It’s at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890159026/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-9579525-7588416, for those of you who want to read the reviews etc.
Interestingly, I’ve also had this book recommended to me. Not by Amazon, I don’t think, but instead by this page on sexuality.org. Look about half-way down where there’s a section on fisting, and I quote:
Some women enjoy vaginal fisting (having all or most of their lover’s hand in their vagina). This is DEFINITELY a case where you should proceed only with your partner’s active and ongoing encouragement and within her comfort level. If you two would like to give vaginal fisting a try, then I’d recommend first reading Deborah Addington’s book A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting. However, the basic technique is as follows: with your hand palm up (and your lover on her back or on all fours) bring your fingers and thumb together to form something that looks like a duck bill. With massaging, and possibly gentle twisting motions, slowly tease your hand into her vagina. If your anatomies allows it, once you get past the third knuckles your fingers will start to gently and naturally curve back to form a fist. The whole procedure takes time and plenty of trust, but the women and men who can take a whole hand vaginally or anally often claim that it leads them to transcendent, ecstatic altered states (read TRUST/The Hand Book by Bert Herrman for a discussion of anal fisting, if that is your area of interest).
Even if safer sex issues are not a concern, many women find that it is more physically comfortable to be fisted when their partner is wearing (possibly powder-free) latex gloves.
Also some good tips on G-Spot hunting on that page. Sexuality.org is a damn good site.
Having read the BBC’s article about cannabis reforms from Class B to Class C drugs, and a new “semi-legal” stance over (ab)users, I can’t help but think that, for the purposes, “semi-legal” is best defined as “it’s fine, unless you get caught doing it”.
And isn’t exactly the same as with other crimes. Like burglary, say? It’s fine unless you get caught. Is that also “semi-legal”, then?
Oh… but I see the difference. You won’t get nicked and you won’t get fined, but the drug will be confiscated. Now here’s a thought – you’re a police officer and you’ve just caught some kids skinning up a nice fat one, and so you confiscate it and send them running off back to school. Now you could return to the station… to report a crime for which there will never, ever be a trial… and turn in the joint to be destroyed… or…
…what’s the bet that drug use on the beat will increase somewhat when these changes go through?
In any case, I’m all in favour of the decriminalisation of cannabis, but I still think it should be legalised and controlled, like tobacco. And the tax benefits to the treasuary would be fantastic. Not to mention the better control over where it is grown and sold, reducing drug-related crime (not a huge issue with cannabis, anyway, but nevertheless a good move).
In other news: I e-mailed Emma, the girl I quite horribly dumped for Claire (who I was already sleeping with) about 18 months ago, and we made peace. Which is very nice, because I was a complete bastard and I broke her poor little heart when I left her. Anyway: she’s doing really well with the guy she’s with now, who is, let’s face it, far more suited to her than I ever was, and I wish her the best. It feels good to be on better terms with people like that.
My mum and my sisters came down for the weekend. I’d not quite gotten around to recovering from my illness these past few days, so I was probably at least slightly grotty company, but nonetheless we all had a good time.
We visited Little Amsterdam, Aberystwyth’s first sex shop, shortly after they opened on Monday morning. They’ve got a huge selection of smoking goodies on display, and magic mushrooms for sale, but the sex toys won’t be arriving until Friday, I’m told. Aww. I play with myself a lot more often than I smoke. Ah well; I’ll return when they have some. At any rate, I got the chance to congratulate the store on making it to Aber after it’s months of legal efforts. Great work!
I’ve just bought a lifetime subscription to Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates!, perhaps the best MMORPG I’ve ever seen. It’s very, very impressive. If you haven’t seen it yet, give it a go.
When my family left, Paul, Claire and I lounged, drank a couple of bottles of red wine, and played You Don’t Know Jack, a hilarious quiz game, on our TV. Paul won by a mile, and only a few times did I manage to finish with a score above zero (although I did improve as I got more drunk). Claire puked.
I need to catch up on all the lecture notes I’ve missed this last week. And apologise to my personal tutor for not having been at the tutorial meeting. And get to the office tomorrow and catch up on some *real* work. And harrass the Student Loans Company into getting me money faster.
This made my day:
If I were a NetHack monster, I would be a mimic. I can be whatever I think you need me to be – it might look like I’m here to help you, but really you’re here to help me.
Which NetHack Monster Are You?
I laughed until I mimicked a boulder.
(if by some strangeness you know me but don’t know what NetHack is, start here)
Had a heated debate with Paul, Kit, Claire and Bryn about religion, morals, and parenting. And I’m proud to say that I’ve come to the conclusion that my parents acted in a way that I believe exemplifies the best aspects of morality, tolerance, spirituality, open-mindedness, protection, and honesty. I’m immensely proud of the way that I was brought up, and wish that other children could be so lucky as to have such enlightened and level-headed parents as mine were for me during my youth. They… were there when I needed them, but they weren’t always standing over my shoulder. They… were selfless in their dedication to my wellbeing, their love for me, and their respect for my individuality. And I owe them the world.
In other happy news, my friends – in particular Paul – made me very happy today when they revealed that they had secretely acquired from the states Chez Greek and Chez Grunt, two rare and brilliant additions to complete my Chez Geek card game collection, which will undoubtedly provide much enjoyment for both myself and all of them in the future. It’s great to have friends who really care. I love you guys.
I have lots of work to do tomorrow, and a busy weekend ahead of me, so I’m likely to be offline for a few days. Be happy;