January 2004 Archives

Claire Seems Distracted

[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]

[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Claims tiredness. Suspect she’s stressed about upcoming exams. Hope that it’s one or the other.

A handful of my friends keep posting entries to their ‘blogs rapidly, in quick succession. Have you heard of putting things in the same entry?. Save your friends from scrolling themselves to death!

My first exam, Monday (Formal Methods In Software Engineering), went better than expected; should have done quite well. Feel confident about The Internet: Architecture And Operation on Saturday morning.

In other news, my new soundcard arrived, giving me an audio system which doesn’t (a) short-circuit and cause my computer to crash from time to time, (b) give me quite painful electric shocks when I connect things to it and (c) gives me stereo sound all the time, without switching to mono for no apparent reason. In addition, I have a ‘front panel’ with heaps of cool-looking connectors, MIDI ports, etc. And a few tweaks later and it works fantastically with the …

Mushroom Mushroom

Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger.

Only When I Sleep

I remember fragments of a dream from last night:

I was back with Reb (the ex- I complain about); we were living together in a place in Aber. But I was secretly plotting to kill her so that I could escape with a pretty female train ticket inspector (entirely a figment of my imagination), who’s name I forget – could have been Louise. I remember a little a rather complicated scene in which Reb and I found ourselves on her train, and the plan nearly come out.

In any case: as far as I remember I woke up without having managed to murder Reb. More’s the pity.

Troma Night

[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]

[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Troma Night last night was a success, as was the Troma Night WebCam (Alpha Test), through which Paul could participate, despite his unfortunate absence.

We watched three Studio Ghibli flicks – Spirited Away (hadn’t seen this before: really quite impressive, but not quite a Totoro-beater), Tonari no Totoro itself, and Princess Mononoke. Everybody and his dog brought beer, so we all got pleasantly sloshed; the pizza was great, we still have mountains of Pringles (mmm… revision food), and altogether the night was just fab.

Ruth brought her boyfriend: GBH, or TNT, or something like that. I’m pretty sure we called him every three letter acronym under the sun during the course of the evening. He’s now the third Troma Night Partner to be brought along: let’s see if he ever comes back (none of the others – Kit’s …

It’s All Psychological, Or Why Men Buy Little Blue Pills

An article on the Register amused me this morning. Go read it.

In other (slightly more geeky) news, there’s a plan to put a wireless internet point in every lamp post. It’s a very clever idea. If the market’s feeling healthy enough, it’ll grant the conceivers some venture capitalists, and it’ll go-ahead. Here’s hoping.

The Student Loans Company Are Wankers

[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]

[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Well, they give me money, so I can’t complain too much, but regardless…

My student loan should have been credited to my account on Monday (12th). Paul got his on Sunday! But when mine hadn’t come through by this morning, I got a little concerned. So I phoned them up on the enquires number listed on their web site.

“You have called the Student Loans Company. For enquiries regarding your student loan, press 1. To change your bank account details, press 2. For any other enquires, press 3.”
I press 1.
“If you are calling on behalf of a third party, we must advise you that they must cal personally owing to customer confidentiality. If you have any general enquiries, please visit our web site at www.slc.co.uk. Thank you.” <click>
WTF?

I call again, and this time press 3. Some confusing buttons later, I get through to a nice Scottish woman called Alison. It turns out that they had the incorrect sort code for me (and they had known this for several months [sort code had come up invalid upon entry] – but hadn’t bothered to phone or write to me). How had they gotten the sort code wrong? Well; they’d read one of my …

Hand-Ins & Russian Spacecraft

[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]

[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Got my assignment finished in the end. Next stop: up to campus to deliver it.

I’ve got a fab Civ3: Conquests game on the go: I’m Premiere of the the Russians, and it’s 1856AD. I landed on the moon in 1812AD, and I’m now half-way to building an interstellar spacecraft. Damn I’m good at this game.

Unfortunatley, the Celts (with whom I share borders) have become jealous of my progress and have launched an invasion, which, while technologically inferior (mostly consisting of riflemen on horseback and on foot, and a handful of automatic weapons – compared to my M16s, TOW missiles, and jet aircraft) is a sizeable force and caught me very much off-guard, hitting me at a couple of weak points and capturing two cities, putting them in a good position to attack Moscow. I’ve begun conscription, drafting in citizens to military service to defend our country, and been pulling forward the military I have towards the front line… but this isn’t going to be pretty.

The AI in the game at the higher difficulty levels is really something. During my invasion of Spain in the 16th Century, the Spanish retreated deeper into their heartland, destroying key roads as they …

Ghiblitastic

Could I be a happier bunny?

A belated birthday present from Claire arrived in the post this afternoon – a stack of Studio Ghibli movies on R2 DVD:

Damn; I love that girl.

Bugger

I’ve just discovered that I have an assignment deadline tomorrow for an assessment I didn’t realise I had, in my weakest module. Joy!

On the upside, I’ve just looked at the assessment and it’s got very little to do with the module; in fact, it oughta be comparatively easy: still – 4-8 hours work I didn’t anticipate.

In other news; a stunning article (plain English, both an introduction to the subject and an ongoing summary) about the state of play with digital music, DRM, and all that on Bill Blog today. If you listen to music on CD or watch DVD movies, you oughta read this one.

I Wanna Wake Up Where You Are

Watching a Goo Goo Dolls concert on VideoCD.
They’re really quite remarkably good. I suppose you can’t help but respect the artistry that goes into making a song for which you need to re-tune your guitar such that five strings are tuned to the same note. I mean, can you see the conversation now? “Hey, Robby: tell you what, why don’t we see what this sounds like…” And Gutterflower is a simply stunning album.

Reading MMURTL v1.0 (Building Your Own 32 Bit Operating System)
It’s really quite remarkably geeky. I spent Christmas reading quotes from it to my family, Claire, and her dad. Claire understood bits of what I said. Sometimes. It’s great – a 600-page A4 book which contains at least 200 pages of solid assembly language (the most hardcore programming anybody could ever really justify doing) and another hundred of low-level C. It’s on a short print run – the attached CD-ROM is on CD-R media.

Missing Claire.

Ecstasy Is All You Need

[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]

[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Is it actually possible to live a life without regret? It’s such a beautifully noble goal – and no, I’m not thinking here about any particular event – but I’m left wondering, here…

Based upon my experience of life so far – and I am about a third of my way through it, statistically – the things that challenge us, emotionally, don’t ever truly go away: they’re little things, shelved away but no less behind us than they are forgotten. It’s like a little “affective store”, where the things we treasure (or fear) are cast aside. We talk about ‘dealing with’ things. I’m not sure that term does justice to the process.

Perhaps it’s just me, but doesn’t this store get full quick? Maybe I’m just emotionally short-fused. If so, I think I must conceal it well. Nobody seems to notice. Much.

For the last few years, at about this time, I’ve given myself a challenge – part of an ongoing and neverending process of self-perfection (to an ideal I’ve never concretely defined): for the last year, this goal has been Tolerance – to gain an improved understanding of others, and to be less judgemental in my thoughts and actions (I think I’ve done quite well). Perhaps this …

Happy Birthday To Me

Update (20th March 2012) – crosslink: I suspect that this post by Paul was relevant?

Well, I’m 23. Meh.

An array of cards and gifts, followed by a flurry of e-mails and phone calls to explain delayed gifts. I think I’ll try again for my birthday, next week, when the Post Office become competent again (this is the theory).

Went out to Cafe All Spice with Paul, Bryn, Kit and Claire, for much curry and wine. A great evening out. Now; Bryn and Paul are asleep on my couch, and Kit has gone home. I feel stuffed and contented. And knackered. I’m falling asleep as I write this, but if I tried to sleep I’d just feel more knackered from trying to digest my stomachfull of curry.

Hacking Around With LiveJournal

If this all works to-plan, my recent changes to Scatmania will mean that every time I make a new entry, a link is posted to a journal on LiveJournal. This will allow my friends to monitor my blog from their ‘friends lists’, in AbNibs absence.

Really Trippy Dream

[this post was lost during a server failure on 11 July 2004; it was finally (partially) recovered on 12 October 2018]

This morning I was awoken from a dream that can only be described as really really trippy. This may not be a dream diary, like Liz’s, but I’m going to share this one with you anyway:

I find myself at the checkout of a supermarket somewhat reminiscent of the Somerfield in Aberystwyth, except that this supermarket is actually standing alone in the Arctic. A blizzard beats against the tall glass windows opposite the checkouts. I’m taking part in some kind of game show which I refer to at several times during the dream as being ‘Blockbusters’, although it had almost nothing in common with the real show of the same name, and is actually perhaps a little more like ‘Supermaket Sweep’ (I would imagine, although I’ve never actually seen it). In any case: the aim of this show is to wander around the store (while your competitor or competing team do the same) collecting goods within a time limit. Slightly like ‘Blockbusters’, one team is of two people, and the …

Paul And Claire Are Almost As Guillable As Bryn

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11 July 2004; it was finally (partially) recovered on 12 October 2018]

Unable to find our corkscrew and wishing to open a bottle of wine, Paul and Claire had tried all kinds of tricks to dig out – or at least push right in – the cork, but with no success. When they weren’t looking, I used a screwdriver wrapped in a tea-towel to push the cork through. Then, with a marvellous bit of slight-of-hand, said that I’d seen somebody remove one by air pressure before, and slapped the top of the bottle, hard: then, looking almost surprised that it worked, showed them the bottle with the cork bobbing around on the surface of the wine.

Not for a moment did Paul or Claire suspect that I’d removed the cork by any other means than by striking the top of the bottle. How strong do they think I am? By my reckoning, to use something as relatively flat as a hand to produce enough air pressure to push a cork into a wine bottle would probably take sufficient force that the wine bottle itself would be likely to break.

Better than that, they then went on – I overheard – to explain my feat to Bryn when he appeared with the corkscrew he had …