memorable

Beach Party Gone Bad

We walked back over the dunes from Ynyslas beach. I lead the way, planning to reach the car, drop off my bags, then go back and help Kit and Paul, who were struggling with most of the remaining barbeque gear. A few minutes behind me was Claire, and a few minutes behind her, Fiona, a friend from Stirling who’s visiting us for this week. Paul and Kit were a few dunes back.

As I climbed the last rise before the car park, an alarming vision appeared before me… water. Lots and lots of water. The tide had come in further than I’d have expected, and the rear half of the car was underwater, sinking into the sand and slowly filling it from the exhaust-pipe upwards with water!

I dropped my bags and ran back to the top of the dunes. “Claire!” I shouted, “Get your keys from your bag, drop your bag, and RUN!” She looked at me quizzically for a moment, but then, noting the severity in my voice and the specificity of my instructions, did exactly that. Meanwhile I ran past her and down into the valley. I raised a hand over my head and shouted to the others: “Fiona! Kit! Paul… FLOOD!”

Fiona and I reached the car together and waded out behind it. Claire revved the engine as we tried to push it from behind, but the partially-buried front wheels (combined with our inability to get a grip against the slippy underwater shore) prevented us from gaining more than a few inches.

Some strangers came by. One commented that “we’d never get it out like that” (helpful!). “Could you three lift the front up?” I asked, gesturing to the larger-looking of the men. They did so, and Fiona and I continued to push, and slowly but surely we extracted the vehicle from it’s watery sinkhole. Not a moment too soon, either – it was an hour from high tide, so there was a lot of water still to come.

Later, at Safeway, we cleaned the saltwater off the car using the jet wash, and went and had A Midsummer Night’s Troma. All in all, a fun day.

Claire also gives an account of the proceedings. It’s disappeared from the Internet, so a copy can now be found archived here.

Go look at virtual Ynyslas dunes

Dark Side Of The Moon

Spent last night in a dark room with Paul, Kit and Claire, listening to a DTS-encoded 5.1 surround sound version of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon”. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve heard in a long while. The sound quality was unbelievable – the patterns moved and shifted around and through us. Quite stunning. I felt my heart rate change several times to match the beat

Nobody’s updated their web journal in several days except Kit. That makes my work morning a little boring.

We have a new guy working for us – Daniel – a school leaver who’ll be helping us for the summer. Alex and I are trying to get him talking, without any luck yet.

Suppose I’d better get on with some work, now.

Update (20th March 2012) – crosslinks:

Paul’s post about getting to use his DTS system
Kit’s post about the experience of listening to Dark Side of the Moon with us

Fire In The Eyes

I’ve not been able to get out of my mind the thrill of juggling with flaming torches the other night. So I’ve bought myself a set from Butterfingers, along with some other juggling goodies and a book about how to juggle with clubs.

Can’t wait until they arrive.

Fucking Flaming Brands

Last night Kit, Claire, Paul, Bryn and I acquired a huge wooden desk and other burnables and went and started an enormous fire on the beach, having just finished a most fantastic curry at Cafe All Spice. Big fire!

Later, we were joined by a man with some juggling batons and a woman with some flags and flaming things on the end of cords. I’d never juggled with clubs before, but a quick play and a little coaching later, and he had me juggling with fucking flaming brands. What a buzz!

The woman will be taking part in Equilibre at Machynlleth. Judging by how impressive she alone was with her firey-things, I’m really tempted to go. Showing 9th-16th August, 8pm.

I must buy some flame-batons. The buzz is only just wearing off.

A Brighter Day

I’m glad to report that I now feel that I have recovered from something that’s afflicted me for most of the last year.

As you may be aware, almost eleven months ago my girlfriend, Claire, and I got together. At the time, she’d recently started (in part by my orchestration) going out with De, a great and close friend of mine.

For some reason – the obvious one seems clear, but he insisted upon playing a “guessing game” and I’ve tried all the ideas I can think of – De then decided to hate me. He won’t tell me what I’ve done to hurt him so much, but insists that it’s not any of the things that I suggested it was.

For the greatest part I wanted to make it up. I wanted him back – we were great friends, we really were. And I would have done anything for him if I thought it would give me a chance of getting that back. But he’d made up his mind – he asked me not to try to contact him, and I, for my love of him, did exactly that, as far as I could. It was hard. Were it not for Claire’s support, I couldn’t have done it.

My friends assured me he’d come around.

It is now over ten and a half months later, and I’m happy – relieved – to report that the part of my heart that he held has now been released. I no longer care about him enough to want him back. It took almost a year, and at times it felt like a lifetime, but I can now be proud knowing that I did not let his hatred beat me!

I don’t care about him enough to want him back. I just want him to stop being such a bastard.

I don’t care about him enough to want him back. I don’t even care about him enough to honor his request not to contact him. He’s a wanker, and I shouldn’t have let him control me for this last year through the false hope that we could once again be friends.

I’ll always remember the good times we had. This is where it ends.

[photo removed]

Friends

It is Claire’s birthday.

“Our feet are going to get wet.”

Somebody had to say it. Somebody did.

The waves roll up the beach, rustling gently against the smooth pebbles. Claire sits in front of me. Kit is to my side. The remaining embers of the fire flicker, as if trying to fight to hold onto the remains of their minimal existance against the oncoming tide. We watch the waves through the dwindling smoke.

I put my arm around Claire, holding her hand against her busom. She returns my grip. I glance across at Kit, and he looks back. For a moment, I look into his eyes… try to see what he sees… but to no avail. We turn back to the sea.

For the best part of half an hour none of us had spoken. For a half hour to come none of us will speak. Sometimes there’s no need for words. Sometimes just being together is enough.

The greatest secret you never tell is how you feel.

Goodnight;

Scatmania Launched

Well; I finally did it. I finally got myself a weblog. After weeks of peer pressure by such friends as Paul, Alec, and Kit with their shiny LiveJournals, I decided to have one of my own.

Just to remind anybody who doesn’t already know that this isn’t, technically, my first weblog. My first one ran from 1998 to 1999 – before the term ‘blog’ was coined, and before it became fashionable to ramble on about yourself online. The “Avatar Diary”, on my old, old web site, was a source of perpetual interest from all kinds of people for some time. Well; until I got a scary cyberstalker (really, it scared me, and very little does), and then I packed it in.

I suppose now I’d better get something more productive done. I’m not getting paid for this.

Sugar Cubes

Claire (with an avangel.com sticker on her forehead) with Dan

April Fools Day

April Fools Day has always been an oppertunity for me to get back at the ineffective dickheads that are the management of Penbryn Hall at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. This year was no exception. Building upon the success of my last big prank, Penbryn-Hall.co.uk, a spoof ‘official’ site which almost got me expelled from the hall, this year I worked with Kit, Bryn and Claire in order to cause yet more chaos.

We had a plan in mind already, but when Penbryn sent out the following message on the internal e-mail system, we couldn’t help but pounce on an oppertunity:

From: Eiryls Evans <eee@aber.ac.uk>
Date: 28/03/2003 13:46
To: hall-penb-4@aber.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Maintenance Checks

Dear Student

On Tuesday 1st and Wednesday 2nd April, Mark and I will be doing a maintenance inspection in student rooms.

This will involve checking for repairs and lights which are not working.
We will be starting in Block 1 at 10.30 am

If you have any problems e.g. desk lamp not working and would like a new bulb, please call at Reception.

Margaret Woodliff
Deputy Manager

A few things immediatley stand out in this e-mail. One is that the name at the bottom is not the same name as the person it appears to come from. A second is that it is not provided in Welsh, and is therefore in contravention of the University’s billingual policy…

…the third, and stupidest of the lot, is that they arranged to do room inspections on the first of April.

So, we thought… all we have to do is spread some more convincing (not difficult, considering) counter-publicity, stating that this e-mail was actually a student prank, and that there will not be any room inspections after all. We could even go so far as to state that we suspect that this e-mail may be the prelude to an attempt to gain unauthorised access to student’s study bedrooms. Mayhem in the making.

We came up with a poster that expressed pretty much this, and stuck copies up all over the hall. And it worked! People were absolutely convinced that our posters were real and the real e-mail was the hoax. In the end, the management had to spend their Sunday walking round from room-to-room knocking on student’s doors and assuring them that the e-mail was the genuine article. Oh; how I laughed.

The poster is available to download as an Adobe Acrobat file, below.

Download The Poster
Adobe Acrobat (PDF); 22KB.
The actual poster which was put up around Penbryn Hall for April Fools Day 2003.

Scatman’s World

[this page was originally posted to AvAngel.com but is archived here; the links have been adapted to improve usability]

Introduction

After playing around for some time with Corel Photo-Paint and Adobe Premiere, I decided it was time to make a cool music video that quite blatantly took the piss out of Bagpuss, a friend of mine with whom I used to share lodgings at University. I believe that when he saw it, his exact words were “I’m going to kill him.”

Well, not content with having made a fool out of him, my next project was to make a fool out of myself (what do you mean, I do that all the time anyway!)… and so my next video project was…

Scatman’s World

After my nickname among many folks in Aberystwyth, Scatman Dan (a reference, of course, to the late Scatman John), I made this music video, which made it’s big-screen premiere at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre Cinema on Saturday 4th May 2002 (after a two-week delay caused by numerous technical problems). And now, for your viewing pleasure, it’s available to download here (it’s a DixX-encoded file, so you’ll need an appropriate player). Being, as it is, filled from top to bottom with in-jokes, it’s probably not even remotely funny if you don’t know who I am.

Download The Video

Warning : This file is just under 30MB in size, and will take a considerable amount of time to download, even on a fast connection. You have been warned.

Warning : Owing to explicit content, this video is not suitable for viewing by anybody under the age of 18 years, without parental consent and supervision.

Note : It is recommended that you attempt to save this file to your hard disk, rather than attempting to play it directly from the site, as this corrects a lot of potential download problems with this file. In most browsers, this can be achieved by right-clicking on the link and selecting “Save File As…” or “Save Target As…”.

[the download is no longer hosted here, but you can view the video on YouTube]

Team CompSci’s “The Matrix” (Aberystwyth University Student Skills Competition 2001)

Until 2006, Aberystwyth University (then The University of Wales, Aberystwyth) ran an interdisciplinary competition for 2nd year undergraduate students to showcase the skills offered by their degree, by producing an educational stand and a presentation. Employers from various industries were invited as judges, and prizes were offered for the best stand, best presentation, and best overall.

Prior to 2001, the presentation aspect had typically consisted of, at best, a handful of PowerPoint slides and students taking turns to list off some of the reasons that their department was best at producing versatile, highly-employable graduates. But in 2001’s competition, Team CompSci (from the Computer Science department) changed all that, by producing a mixed audiovisual and stage performance presentation, inspired by 1999’s hit movie The Matrix.

A film shows a young Neo, unskilled and unemployed, as he’s picked up by the crew of the Aberchadnezzar and “trained” (using a brain-jack interface) with the skills of an Aberystwyth CompSci graduate. The audience then saw a clip of Neo ascending the stairs to the theatre, before he would appear on stage and undergo a job interview with an “agent”. In this version, the interview segment was (hasily) re-filmed and inserted directly into the clip.

Also available on YouTube and on QTube.

Dan Arrested; Carrying Offensive Weapon

Dan gets stopped by two police officers while carrying a battle-axe through the streets of Aberystwyth. Original content on AvAngel.com appeared, as follows:

Andy’s account –

I wonder how many police officers, when asked by the guy they’ve just stopped on the street for carrying a battle-axe, will actually go to the URL he tells them. Well; here’s hoping at least one, given that that’s what just happened to me! Take a look at this picture on Dan’s Picture Page for an overview of the events. The picture is taken by Rory, with his brand-spanking new digital camera. Thanks, Rory!

Dan’s account –

“Well, what do we do with you now?” asked the police officer, after the search (which had revealed nothing more than lots of keys, a phallic-looking torch, a pack of cards, and a tampon) was complete.

“I expect that’s mainly up to you,” replied Dan, “You being the police officer, and all.”

“Well, we could take you and your axe up the hill and escort you home,” he said.

“Mm-hmm,” Dan said, “Could my friends come along for the ride?” He gestured across the street, where Rory and De were waiting, looking bored. The police officer shook his head disdainfully. “What’re the other options, then?”

“We could take you back to the police station under arrest for carrying an offensive weapon.”

“I don’t like that idea, either. What’s the third option?”

“There isn’t a third option.”

“Guess I’ll be riding with you then.” Dan turned and spoke to Rory and De. “I’ll catch you two back on campus,” he said, “You can pay for your taxi!”

As the police car pulled away, Dan had one more question for the confused officers:

“Have you ever visited AvAngel.com?”

Crosslink: the axe can be seen in photos taken at Christmas.

Cool Thing Of The Day

Cool And Interesting Thing Of The Day To Do At The University Of Wales, Aberystwyth, #48:

Discover, by sheer coincidence, that one of your more recent aquaintances down here (Claire) went to the same high school as one of your longer-running friends up North (Faye), and that they know one another! Freaky but completely true: the two parties are contactable on storm_lady0@yahoo.com and clb9@aber.ac.uk, for verification!

The ‘cool and interesting things’ were originally published to a location at which my “friends back home” could read them, during the first few months of my time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, which I started in September 1999. It proved to be particularly popular, and so now it is immortalised through the medium of my weblog.

Cool Thing Of The Day

Cool And Interesting Thing Of The Day To Do At The University Of Wales, Aberystwyth, #10:

Lose your virginity. Retain the box it came in. Keep the reciept, too – you might get a refund.

The ‘cool and interesting things’ were originally published to a location at which my “friends back home” could read them, during the first few months of my time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, which I started in September 1999. It proved to be particularly popular, and so now it is immortalised through the medium of my weblog.

Cool Thing Of The Day

Cool And Interesting Thing Of The Day To Do At The University Of Wales, Aberystwyth, #4:

Buy a ticket to see Craig Charles, Still Live On Earth, on November 20th, at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre (a.k.a. My Doorstep). Not bad.

The ‘cool and interesting things’ were originally published to a location at which my “friends back home” could read them, during the first few months of my time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, which I started in September 1999. It proved to be particularly popular, and so now it is immortalised through the medium of my weblog.

This post was later revisited as a nostalgic look back.