Excess Wind?

Sunday. Nice lazy day today, however the weather has been a bit crap, storms brewing all last night, even blew the old fridge over in the yard outside! I think the next few pictures sum up the events quite well:



The Natural History museum, london


Aberystwyth, as shown by the Ceredigion County Council webcam around lunchtime


Went for a walk around the seafront around lunchtime, quite funny to see the effects of the storm, foam everywhere, took some photos of waves crashing and stuff, watched seagulls failing with very high speed winds.

Yes, last night was good, went for a few drinks with housemates, and had quite a good time, had Schmirnoff ice black for the first time, it's not black at all.. just clear... weird.. Also made the pints with aftersock mistake again.

Also going to add a new diary feature, "What I learned this week", we'll see if i can think of creative ideas for long enough.

Leaned this week:
Landlords are bastards
Aftershock bad

Fridge Farce

Thursday. Not to busy since blog, been a fairly quiet week, group project meeting on tuesday went well, and we also assigned a meeting for thursdays, so we had one this afternoon. I really think that we can get things going well, but I think some people in the group would like their actual tasks to be more defined, so tonight I started putting the whole thing into project so I can tighten up on it.

Went to work on wednesday afternoon after not being bothered to get up for my lecture that morning, not quite sure why, but there is something _Really_ boring about AI that I can't quite explain. Got a meeting tommorrow morning (friday) with a tutor about a possible change of course, so I hope that I will be able to change to web development, I just can't stand it.

Sent the lanlord an email this morning about the fact that the new fridges that he had promised us had not arrived, and got an almost instant reply saying that they were being loaded into the van that moment, and would arrive this afternoon. I returned today after lectures to a scene of enraged housemates staring at our "new" fridge upstairs. It seems the one downstairs is almost new, however, the one they have provided upstairs seemed to be full of hay, and had quite possibly been in a barn! Not to mention the fact that is is OLDER and SMALLER than the one it was replacing! I tell you I really do hate living in private accomodation sometimes, I think I am definately going back into university accomodation next year. Maybe somewhere I can get ADSL installed instead of relying on "information services".

That reminds me the uni microwave link is down today for the first noticeable time since the start of this year, and it is quite strange to compare it to last year when I was myself using the university link. Last year when the link was down, I had access to my filestore and lecture notes, but no Internet access. however this year, when the microwave link is down, I still have internet access, but no access to my filestore or lecture notes, annoying! Thinking about it, the situation I am in this year is better, as if i am desperate I can always go up to the uni and get any files I need, and my web browsing at home is not affected by random MLL outages.

Must get some sleep, 9.15 meeting and work in the afternoon.

Hire and Fire

Monday. Went home for the weekend, had a good time, gave mum her birthday present - a tower candle holder and she really seemed to like it. Got just a tad stressed when we went shopping in town, after being told that parents wanted a "Short" shopping trip, it turned into a complete farce lasting half the day, and I really hate clothes shopping. Drive back to aber went well, managed to get someone in front and someone behind who both knew the road and wanted to get on as quickly as possible/safe, this ment that we could kind of overtake in convoy, and generally seemed to be good. Gave me a chance to brush up on some of my advanced driving too, made a real effort to stick to the "system" and I thought I might be getting on for doing it in record time... Until we came up behind this long convoy behind a motorhome - those things should be banned!

Well, it seems that the firefighters are going to strike, looks like another example of peoples stupidity in this country to me, firstly people don't seem to realise that if they don't like a job, tough, if you want, you are more than welcome to hand in your notice and leave. Also, it seems that the "replacement" service is going to be woefully inadequate, as they are going to use some ex-cold war trucks that can't do more than 50 mph. What I want to know is why the army cannot drive the shiny new trucks that are going to be shut up in the stations when the strike is on? Surely this is entirely sensible? And what is this fixation with picket lines, did I miss something about them not being born in the 70s? Sometimes the stupidity in the world really does annoy me. Oh yes, and the train drivers union are considering wether it is safe for them to run without fire cover.. So this country is going to be f*cked over again, by some beurocratic nonsense. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR JOB LEAVE.

I also have a possible solution to the strikes

1) Tell firefighters if they do not perform their job, they will lose it, along with any pension entitlements. Plain and simple. As it would be with pretty much any job that isn't run by union pricks still stuck in the 70s

- or, perhaps more radically:

2) burn down one fire chief's house per hour of strike - this should end it within, say, an hour.


As an aside, went to the library for about the first time ever today, and decided to get a copy of Stephen Hawking - A brief history of time, so far quite a good read, really gives some good answers to some complex questions. I especially liked the line about the hunt for a universal equation for the universe, Hawking suggests that a universal equation will in fact have to account for the discovery of itself!
Anyway ... time for me to go and do some preparation for group project meeting tommorrow

Crash Machine

Bit of a quiet day today. In my last blog I didn't really explain the title, what I did mean to mention was the fact that there was no phone sinal at Gregynog for pretty much any network, so once I returned I reported this to Orange (OK, I was a bit bored and avoiding work), as it is quite a busy conference centre, and the lack of coverage is probably losing them custom.... In my case, my phone was reduced to a rather expensive alarm clock :| Anyway, this morning at 09:05 I received a call from a very helpful customer services woman who suggested that the area around gregynog has been looked at, and there should be service provision within 12 months, to be honest I was impressed. You can't say fairer than 12 months either, as the local militant treehuggers will probably complain about it being an act of terror on the landscape or something.

Earlier this evening I got a phone call from andy saying that a cash machine had crashed, so I went to go and have a look, when I first herd, I presumed it was one of the graphical ones, but to my surprise, the standard text-based natwest ones also seem to run Windows NT (!) Is this why Microsoft have so much money? we will never know.

Anyway, group project meeting in the morning, got to read some documentation. Nite.

Expensive Alarm Clock

Another week where I haven' blogged, ah well some people haven't either, so I suppose that is ok :P

Right, here goes.... Tuesday was the first meeting for our group project, and I have taken on the role of project leader, which I am told is alright by friends who have done the group project before, quite looking forward to getting into it as I enjoy a challenge.

This weekend we had a trip to Gregynog (a conference centre) with the department where we had a weekend of interview skills, teambuilding exercises (pointless things involving bamboo canes and string that take 10 times as long with a group than on your own) It was fun, and the food was OK too, apart from the manky fish pie on saturday :| Did have the upside of getting to know the names of a few more people on my course.

Also I might be getting a part time job for during term time, going in on monday to see them about it. Going home for the weekend as it is mums birthday this week, so a nice cross country drive for me on friday :)

The logical way of doing things

Not blogged for a while, it's been a bit of an uneventful 12 days, but at the same time I have been quite busy. Went to get the oil changed on the car on the saturday after previous blog, and was told that my shock absorbers were buggered, I get the feeling that they were kind of exaggerating, so I am going to investigate further, no real rush as I am just using the car to potter around at the moment.

Almost every day this week I have been woken up by roadworks outside - arrgh! What is it about builders? they start at 7.30am and then at 9am when they have successfully woken up everyone in the vicinity they decide to have a four and a half hour tea break. Great. If they wake me up in the morning I have decided that I am going to open the window and shout something about saturday being a sabbath and mutter something about the holy wrath of the JIHAD falling upon them.

Lectures have started well and truely, it's quite depressing how the workload is noticeably more than last year, however, what I do like is that things are getting a little more taxing and I won't just be sat there bored in lectures again :o) I've attempted to make a concious effort to acutally make proper notes and be a good student, this weekend I am going to acutally run through my notes and check them against the lecture slides filling in any bits I may have missed and stuff - you never know next I will acutually be revising for exams or such things!

Details of the group projects have been released, and the project will run for 2 semesters, eep, should be interesting... I've been advised by friends to completely avoid any of the "managerial" type group roles if at all cots, I can see where there coming from, but I think that might be a bit of a challenge to get a whole teams of semi-randoms (the groups are tutorial groups) to acutally do some work :)

Last friday night when pete came down, had a good night, was quite good to have another one of "those" nights ending up in the pier, and they played some good tracks, in one mix they did they played a song that I have been trying to identify for ages, and the name was given to me - Scooter - The logical song, and I have been playing it quite a lot myself this week, which has lead to it becoming another one of the flat/house songs of choice and it can be herd all over the house (the ghostbusters theme was had a similar status last year) , think I might get sick of it soon, but I have just obtained the video!

Well, got a quiet weekend coming up, but last real quiet one for a bit, got a weekend away with my course coming up, so won't have many spare weekends to clean up odd ends. Tommorrow also brings food shopping *fun*.

Yep, it's just been confirmed, right now I am really going to bed, GLOBAL TERROR or not.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2275195.stm

Aber - your friendly alternative to sanity

I've just had about the wierdest 48 hours in quite a long time. It all started yesterday (saturday) went out for a drink with some friends, went to a couple of pubs, but people I was with were not all that interested on carrying on, gave matt a ring, and ended going up the hill with him and a few others. Got to the union, and it was really bizarre to realise that I knew so many people, ended up trying pints with blue aftershock in - had about 4, learned that things that taste nice at the time usually have implications in the morning :| I think we randomly ended up in someones house in the early hours, no idea who they were, and I also have vague memories of us sitting in our kitchen with some random girls from town.

After a fairly quiet day, just about managing to get a bit of food from the shops, the randomness continued today as Bug, si and I were stood in si's room and somehow we managed to get onto the topic of nuclear war, and things like civil defence and stuff, just as we were talking about if we would want to survive or not, there was a shaking and a clatter noise as bug fell onto a table, the house was shaking! Cor, I just experienced my first earthquake, yes, an earthquake, in good old britain too! After a couple of seconds, I realised what was happening, and simply said "earthquake", after it had finished, we just stood there and looked at each other, quite, quite bizarre. We then went outside to see what was going on, (and to get out of what we thought was a nice secure, stable building) and started having a chat with matt accrross the road about what had just happened. I then came back in the house and went into protect and survive mode, grabbed coat, torch and then logged on to #aber to see if anyone else had experienced it and others had too, all over the country.

I then went back outside, only to find bug chatting to some random guys who seemed a little "under the influence" then to my horror noticed that one of them was carrying a gun! I wasn't quite sure what to do, and this guy was pointing it everywhere so it took me a few seconds to realise that it was in fact a BB gun - phew, but I did notice the guys who were leaning out of the window over the road dissapeared back inside very quickly! I now really can see why the police have to treat every situation as if it does involve real firearms, because in lots of situations, it is very hard to tell exactly what is and what isn't real, especially in less than ideal conditions.

I must say it took a good half hour before it had any mention of the quake on the radio, or indeed BBCi or even BBC news 24, initial reports off radio five said a while ago that it was 4.8 magnitude, and epicentre somewhere near Birmingham, freaky.

There is just an uncomfirmed report now of a bomb going off near US embassy in indonesia, fucking madness unfolding on the world, and I have to remove a pile of clothes from the bed before I can sleep. Who ever said that nothing ever happens in aber eh?

Web Site

Finally got around to starting on the massive amount of stuff that I would like to add to my website, ended up just adding some photos, ones of my visits to some ROC bunkers in derbyshire, and ones of my in car mp3 player (see pictures section, surprisingly).

It's been quite a quiet week, not really done much of note apart from settling in, really glad that I came down early to give me chance to settle back into my "hectic" student lifestlye of, er, doing nothing at all really! Looking forward to lectures starting, and this year in general really, hope that I can come out of it with some decent grades as long as I acutally being assignments when I get them a lesson that I really should have learned long ago.

After going to bed at 4.30am after a random late night drive somewhere random with bug, ended up getting woken up at 9am by the plummer - who fitted a new tap washer while i was attempting to be asleep in the same room. grr!

Spent a lot of this evening looking at other civil defence related stuff on the net, and the whole day seems to have evaporated, ah well, only a few days left before registration.

Tommorrow brings hair cut and possible night out, but who knows what will or won't happen.

Moving Stuff

Well, wow, I'm finally here. After lots of box lugging and a lot of arraging my room, I'm kind of moved in - cor! Room is a bit on the small side, but big enough for the bed and two desks, so I can have a dedicated one for the laptop =) Managed to get a cheap £20 computer workstation from argos, not bad for the money really, although it is a bit wobbly, but for that money i'm not going to complain, and it means my posture is better than with a standard desk. The house network is really taking shape now, there are now two switches, and I suppose we technically have a house backbone - how 31337!

On friday spent some time cleaning the bathroom ready for kat arriving on saturday, seemed a lot better, but she scrubbed it this morning and got every last bit of dirt off the shower, I'm quite impressed how well this place is shaping up! Now I am on broadband I really don't have any excuse and I am going to finish the site off tommorrow, so I suppose I should get some sleep. Might even set up a webcam.