I've been dizeezed! I know not how, but definately not from a LAN :-P

[I really should try and update this more often with my ramblings...]

Oh well, looks like I'm back tomorrow after a couple of days in bed... I'm still bunged up and feel a bit shitty, but that's not really an excuse for not going...

Well, that's that for another year^W9 months. As per usual, I ate and drank far too much; I'll learn one day...

...yeah right ;-)

The nights have once again got longer, the days colder and we are approaching the height of the quarter-year celebration that is Christmas. Unfortunately, the intelligence/considerateness of the general poopulation appears to have been reduced along with the length of the days.

Why is it that people feel compelled to squander considerably more money than they can afford to, even to the point of taking out loans, on expensive presents. Christmas, unfortuantly, has become so commercialised that it is now merely a brat-fest/competition for naive people who perceive material posession to be of upmost importance.

I really do not understand why people get 'stressed' at Christmas... 'I must get all of my shopping done, need to buy loads of presents' etc etc etc... People should just learn true value and make mine, and many other peoples' lives less of a misery.

Ummm... 'stuff' ...
Apologies for not having updated... combination of me being lame, lazy and just plain retarded coupled with a severe lack of time to do pretty much anything... I will endevour to fill in the gaps when I have some time...

Eeeeeep! First day in the Real World(TM)!

Fortunately everyone seems nice and I should get on OK... watch this space to see if I get sacked ;-)

As if we couldn't get enough of it :-P

I went up to Darlington over the weekend to see Kat. Partly because her dad was doing some maintainance with the bathroom, although mainly because it's great fun we decided to go camping again :-)

We didn't venture that far away this time, and just drove down the A1 a bit to Richmond. We only stopped for one night but this time, despite there being a few spots of rain about, the weather was really quite nice. We had BBQ and beer for dinner and all-in-all had a really lazy time. :-)

On the Monday morning, I had to leave Kat's early as I was going to visit my Grandma at Sutton-on-Sea. As it was sort of 'on the way back' I decided that it was better to go straight there than going home first. The journey was silly... the first 120 miles only took about twice as long as the last 20 or so because of stupid people driving far too slowly on roads where you can't overtake :-(
On the way back home, my dad's brake light switch broke meaning I had to be his signaller and follow him all the way back. Fun.

OK... maybe not quite as dramatic as the title...

However, that's it. I've now finished my employment at the Pastures Primary School. I've now got to make a start in the Real World(TM)!! :-O

Not been much happening really... not really done anything of note because of work...

All change... Let anarchy commence ;-)
Myself and a group of friends headed up to the bleak wastes of the north, erm... I mean the Lake District, for a Twofo camping trip. Myself and Cocodude had to take a day off work so we could undertake the long journey up the length of the country. SpookyKid, however had to travel all the way from Essex!

The main problem arose because we couldn't book into any of the camp sites and, it being pretty much the peak time of the summer for camping, had to get there early to ensure we could get a pitch.

My day really started off at 10:00 when I had to go and pick whyis and ZeeClone up from Leicester bus station. After about an hour, after washing ZeeClone's stuff which he managed to spill a drink all over and having something to eat, Cocodude and SpookyKid arrived. We talked for a bit, as Cocodude had a welcome break, before we all crammed our stuff in the car and set off on the long journey up to Darlington.

After having some "lunch" at Kat's we un-sardine-ified ourselves, since we now had two cars :-) and completed the last stint over the Pennines. The campsite we were originally planning on staying at was unfortunately full, however, there was another one just down the road. Despite the facilities supposedly not being quite as good, they were clean and sufficient for a weekend of camping :-)

Unfortunately for us, the weather had been forcast to be awful all weekend and just before we were intending to pitch our tents was not exception... it absolutely chucked it down! :-( After it slowed somewhat we decided to attempt to pitch our tents anyway, as the weather looked set for the night. Pitching tents in the rain is *fun*, though not quite as much fun as pitching in the dark. Sods law was then proven once again as the rain pretty much stopped after we had finished and did indeed stop later on, when we decided to go to the pub, until about 03:00 when it absolutely bucketed it down once again; this time for six hours straight.

We decided to be lazy in the morning and stayed in bed until the rain had almost completely stopped: about 09:00. Though on doing so we discovered that SpookyKid's tent had leaked really badly and pretty much all of his stuff was wet :-( This pretty much decided for us what we were doing for the day - a trip to Ambleside. Cocodude had some rain get into his tent too, despite us emptying pretty much an entire can of Fabsil onto it, so decided to split the cost of a tent between them. Both of them liked Kat's tent so much that they decided that they had to have one too. :-) We had something to eat in a cafe, went shopping for stuff for dinner and bought a load of sweets [oh noes! Kat on sugar high == badness!!] before heading back to camp.

Despite it raining a fair bit we all had a really good time will definately go again sometime [and hopefully have some better weather!] :-)

Well... I've been at work all week, probably why there is nothing to write about

Well... I'm now officially unemployed, I went to the little meeting thingy that they make you go to and signed on. I will now be receive financial support whilst I look for a job^W^W^W^W^W sit on my backside doing nothing ...well that's what you do, isn't it??

Phew! Well that's that! The end of an era has come to a close as I said goodbye to Leamington as my home and moved all of my stuff back to Leicester. Fortunately all of my remaining stuff managed to fit in one car load :-)

I don't quite know how, but I've managed to accumulate an immense amount of crap since being at uni. It's currently all stacked up in the garage as I couldn't be bothered to sort it out today.

Well... http://bigg.kicks-ass.net now points at my Molotov webspace... Karma to Tim for sorting it quickly :-)

Well, it's time for us to get kicked out and have to say 'bye bye' to 28 Clarendon Street. It really has been a great two years and I'm so glad to have spent it with my housemates. I'm not going to be a sentimental goit but thanks guys, I'm really going to miss you all :-(

[Sidenote: ...bit late to be telling anyone who reads this but downtime for a couple of days as LittleBigG will be coming with me, funnily enough :-) This will be hosted on Molotov, the CompSoc server on http://molotov.uwcs.co.uk/~bigg so should have a load more bandwidth :-D Pics will be offline for a bit whilst I sort out some more space, please bear with me]

I failed.

Meh. Shit happens.

Eeep! Not posted for a month!

There are several reasons for this... firstly there not really being anything worthwhile saying for the majority of it, secondly for me being too lazy/forgetting/bleh and lastly for the part that I'm about to blog about, not actually having enough time :-S

Friday 16th June...
Cocodude came up from Milton Keynes for the weekend so we had a Twofo social in the evening! A bunch of us went to the Benjamin Satchwell in Leamington and stayed there for quite a while and got rather drunk.

Saturday 17th June...
Today was real anarchy. I'd promised to give my housemates a hand with setting up the stage and lighting for their production of Pirates of Penzance. This involved me getting up 'early' [had to be in Stratford by about 10:30]. After spending a couple of hours doing that, there was just enough time to grab a bacon and saussage cob from the farmer's market there before going back to Leamington.

Quickly sort stuff out... hop on bus to Pool Meadow bus station... catch X67 to Leicester... Walk from Fosse Park to home. *phew* it had to be one of the hottest days of the year, didn't it :-S I then drove all the way to Market Bosworth to go to Millie's birthday party [despite it being her birthday over a month before - a small matter of people being at uni and her not being in the country]. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for very long and drove back at about 20:00 and got my dad to give me a lift back to Leam.
After sorting a couple of things out, I headed over to the Claycroft BBQ site to catch the end of the Twofo BBQ :-) Despite me missing all of the BBQing there was still alcohol and we all stayed up pretty late just chatting.

Sunday 18th June...
More madness today, though in a somewhat smaller dose :-P As I stayed at Kat's last night I had to somehow get myself back to Leamington in the morning... I failed this miserably so Chris picked me up on the way to the setup of the outdoor performance of Pirates. As it was outdoor we had to set up all of the microphones and the sound desk. As can be imagined, there was a fair amount of hax used, along with cunning utilization of a nearby tree. Despite it threatening to rain, it didn't so all was good :-)

After finishing tech-monkeying I headed back to campus, unfortunately getting screwed over by the *lovely* Sunday trading laws, and to the CompSoc BBQ. Fortunately for me there was more than enough meat remaining to scrounge some [well... this is CompSoc after all!] :-P Much, fun and drunkeness was had.

Monday 19th June...
Ugh... I hate early mornings...

Today is the start of the BFL [woooooo!] which is the CompSoc week-long LAN at the end of term 3. Unfortunately I was doing tech so as such, I had to be up and on campus by 10:00. I had to pack up my computer, have a shower and gather a few provisions for the week. Setup went well and we were finished in good time, which is always nice :-)

Went to Varsity for something to eat in the evening as we all fancied some proper food as oppose to snackies :-P

Tuesday 20th June, Wednes.........day, Friday 23rd June...
OMG LAN!!! DotA... Generals... DotA... UT... DotA... More DotA... Lack of sleep... More UT... DOTA!!! :-D

Kat had to move out of Heronbank on Saturday, but as they insist on you vacating your room by 10:00 she decided to leave on Friday night. Mmmmm more stuff cluttering up my room :-P

Sunday 25th June...
Kat had to go back to Darlington today :-(

Yes, we couldn't be bothered to go think of a better name so, despite it making absolutely *no* sense whatsoever that's what the title is :-)

It was a good night and I caught up with some of the CompSoc people who I've not seen for quite a while.

Wooooooooo my exams have finally finished! :-D

All that's left to do now is to get muchly drunk! :-P

It was my housemate, Chris's 21st birthday yesterday. His parents came up and brought a load of Champagne and a really nice cake that his grandma had baked for him.

I also did quite well on my Neural Networks exam so double celebration :-)

Huzzah! It's that day of the year again where you get to listen to a load of really awful music and listen to Terry Wogan make sarcastic comments about the political voting. We played the Eurovision Drinking Game and got rather drunk, hence I now still have a hangover.

Well my first exam was today, Computer Graphics. And before you say anything no, it was pretty much all maths and the words 'bloody' and 'awful' sum up how it went pretty well.

Oh well, I can't really do anything about it now... better get back to revising AI

I've just discovered that I can't go to the final at Twickenham as I've got an exam. Saturday exams are just plain wrong. :-(

Whoopy-do... it's that time of year again folks... The time when the genius concept that the team finishing top of the league is not crowned champions and the farce that is the 'Play Offs' begins.

Whoever conceived this idea is, to be quite honest, a complete and utter tit. A team plays brilliantly all season and finishes 20 points clear of 2nd place. The team in 4th place, 30 points behind then proceeds to fluke two wins and are crowned champions. Now let's hold on a minute here... what the fuck...

Now if anyone declares that that is even remotely fair/sensible/a good idea please tell me so I can come and shoot you through the head to put you out of your misery. It is the most ridiculous piece of tripe that sporting history has ever had the misfortune to be graced by. Can you imagine what would happen if Chavski were told that, although they came top of the league, they weren't to be crowned champions...? There would be riots!

Please, whoever is in charge of these matters, rid the game of this ludicrously shite scheme, which is purely there for revenue generating. By all means, hold a different competition at the end of the season, but for the sanity of all people who appreciate sport, crown the team that comes top of the league champions. Sale are the champions this year, Tigers last and Bath and Gloucester the years previous. I don't care what the record books say or whatever, that's how I, and a large number of other fans see it; it's just a shame that the people in charge can't see it too.

Anyhoo, hopefully someone with some influence, and some clue, will read this and sway their opinion to scrap the nonsensical farce. Until then, however, we will just have to put up with it, and being a loyal supporter, here's the game:

Leicester Tigers: 40 London Irish: 8
Attendance: 16,150 [ohh look... not full - people boycotting this farce, shame really, it was a good game...]
Irish's #16: Dave Pearson

For the first time in quite a while, Tigers fielded what was pretty much their full strength team; maybe the odd change if someone was really in form. They set off to an explosive start and Goode slotted over a penalty to giving Tigers the first blood. Irish never really got into the game and to compound their woes, their scrum half got ten minutes for stamping on Harry Ellis' head; he was very lucky as it could have easily, and probably should have, been red.

Tigers managed to make the most of their man advantage and Ellis sent Alesana Tuilagi over in the corner.

Soon after Hodgson returned to the field it was the Exiles' turn to have a man advantage as Ben Kay was binned for a dubious line-out offense. They capitalized on this by scoring in the corner, although missing the conversion.

On the half-hour, though, the Exiles' defences were breached again as Ellis tore through the centre to score a magnificient solo try, increasing his claim for the England #9 shirt ever further.

After the break Leon Lloyd, replacing Varndell, intercepted a long pass by Mike Catt and sprinted in the 70 yards to the try line to the score the first of his two tries. Geordan Murphy also scored an elegant solo try, chipping to himself from off the floor to control it, which really demonstrated his class and the finesse of a brilliant footballer. By this time the Irish flame had all but died out and Lloyd's 2nd try was really just rubbing salt in the wound.

Bar the 'play-offs' [stupid, crappy idea] today was the last game of the season. :-(

Leicester Tigers: 32 Bristol: 3
Attendance: 16,815
Bristol's #16: Ashley Rowden

As expected, Tigers didn't struggle to beat newly promoted Bristol and had the game pretty much tied up by half time. Bristol put up a good fight in the second half but were unable to increase their score to more than 3 points.

Tigers managed to secure the bonus point with a brace of tries from George Chuter, and tries from Alesana Tuilagi, Matthew Holford and, of couse, Tom Varndell ensuring they finished the season in 2nd place and sealing a home draw.

Well... It's 'officialy' the start of summer for me - had our first BBQ yesterday night and had another this evening :-P There will be much BBQage this summer :-D

RJ45 crimping tools are leet. They turn a 15 minute job into a 30 second one. That is all :-)

Leicester Tigers: 20 Wasps: 19
Attendance: 16,815
Wasps' #16: David Pearson (Spreadbury had to drop out... what a shame)

Why is it that whenever I watch a match in which Wasps are playing do I have a sudden urge to storm down to the RFU headquarters and bitch at them to get the rules changed... Maybe it's something to do with the fact that the officials always appear to be wearing yellow-and-black-tinted spectacles which prevent them from observing all of the professional fouls made...

Wasps were constantly offside, mostly because of the rather slow retreating to back on side, and killing the ball preventing any flowing play. Also the so called 'rush defence' was was more often than not 2 yards too far up. The other usual tactics were deployed to slow play, such as pulling down mauls, entering at the side and wandering the long way round the back of the rucks to get back onside.

The RFU really need to sort out some of the rules and make a considerable improvement on consistancy: mainly on the subjects of off side and advantage rule. The touch judges should have much more influence on the game, like with the linesmen in football, and marshall the offside line more. The rules should also be altered so that the back line should be a yard behind the back foot of the ruck to make this easier. Referees should also be stricter with backchat - I do not want rugby to go the same way as football. Dellagio's behaviour was disgusting and was something that should not be seen on a rugby pitch. It should be 10 yards for a first offence and a yellow card for a second [plus, of course, the 10 yards...] The advantage rule is also a farce: there needs to be strict guidelines laid out. It should be over after either a certain number of passes have been completed, a defined number of phases of play or a certain number of yards over the gain line. Also it needs to be decided whether or not kicking it is the end of the advantage or not.

Professional fouls aside, the game was quite good and Wasps did defend pretty well to deprive us of scoring any points in the second half. The difference between the teams was one Tom Varndell whose hat trick of tries within the first 35 minutes showed that his class was sorely missed in the past few games for Tigers. His first coming after only 63 seconds as he stormed down the left wing and stepped out of the attempted tackle by van Gisbergen to score. If Varndell doesn't start in the next England game, Robinson wants to be shot through the head [not that he probably doesn't deserve it already...]

Unfortunately the blistering start by Tigers didn't last and, especially after Austin Healey went off Tigers reverted to the poor quality play that we have seen for most of the season. Come on Tigers, pull your fingers out - you will not win the championship with performances like this.

This week, I actually managed to watch the new series of Grumpy Old Men [after missing the first ep last week, which was rather annoying] I don't know why, but it's really amusing watching a bunch of 50somthings moaning about stuff... I think the main reason is because it's so true!. Literally everything that is mentioned will almost certainly have annoyed yourself at some point in time.

Here's my addition! :-)
Bloody adverts on websites... I really wish that people would not include them because I, and I'm sure that many other people, never click on them at all. The only purpose that they serve to me is that I will inevitably avoid purchasing anything, at all costs, from anywhere that has garish adverts flashing about all over the web; I'd even sometimes go so far as to pay more.

TV adverts are no better either! There's nothing more infuriating than advert breaks in films as you can pretty much guess when they are going to occur, or worse, between episodes of The Simpsons; they are only 20 minutes long for crying out loud! Even the BBC, however, aren't guiltless: for the love of monkeys please would you just schedule films so they don't get interrupted by the 10 O' Clock news!

E.O.R. [End of Rant] :-P

...More karma for astropoint and Smelly_Kat for letting me crash over after missing the last bus :-)

Finally got back at about 1300 and am now officially dead I think. My arms feel as though they have been pulled out of their sockets [well... they probably have I suppose...] :-S

Well... I'm on campus whoring resnet :-P

I actually (got far too bored/gained enough motivation to/spent enough time in the gym to be able to) so decided that I would lug my desktop onto campus on the bus to download some stuff of the people on there [as mean ol' nasty ITS don't like you uploaded!!]
Much karma to astropoint and Smelly_Kat :-)

After my 2nd short bout of work, it is once more time again for me to depart 'home' to Leamington

And here's the mandatory rant about how much packing sucks:
Packing sucks.

;-)

Well, back at work again [for the second time this holiday...]. Fortunately, this time it was sunny so working outside was actually pleasant for a change - although it didn't look like it was going to be when I left for work, the car windscreen was frozen! :-)

We managed to do considerably more work than we thought we would and the old fence completely burnt down to nothing so we don't have to get rid of any wood down the tip! :-D

Well... I'm back in Leicester. I'm working next week so that means getting up early again :-(

Well, my new laptop came today [wooyay!] I decided in the end to just get an IBM X21 ThinkPad as I am a cheapskate ;-) It is now fully Windowsed and I'm about to linux it as well :-) Only real problem is that it does not have an inbuilt wireless card - meh.

Note: This does not detract from the fact that x-series ThinkPads are extremely leet :P

General system specs:
PIII 700MHz
384MB RAM
40GB Seagate hdd [stealz0red from my old laptop!] :-P

Yes, it is indeed the case that my laptop is knackered. The backlight on the panel is toast and I've got no idea how much it'll cost to repair it. This is after the hard drive in it died at the start of this academic year. *Adds HP to the list of people never to buy a computer from, ever* [although their printers are OK] :-)

I really cannot be arsed with attempting to get the damn thing fixed as, as I have already discovered, HP's customer support is shite, verging on non-existant. It will involve me sending my laptop to God only knows where for some unknown duration of time and costing some undisclosed sum of money. As this is the case, I have decided that it would be considerably easier to just buy a new damn laptop. This time, however, I shall buy one that won't go wrong... I've been looking at the IBM X31 Thinkpads - quite a number of people from CompSoc have them and I have never heard of anyone having problems with them.

I decided to move back to Leam for a week in a vain attempt to increase my productivity. I wonder if it because my brother has been talking about moving house all week :-)

I think that my laptop is also knackered... am investigating further >:-\

I've just noticed that Blood_God [Chris from CompSoc] is the top of my 'musical neighbours' on last.fm :-)



I've got no idea how many users there are in total on last.fm but it's a lot!

As you know [or may not] the clocks went back by one hour yesterday at 0100 and as per usual I didn't notice the difference in time yesterday. This morning, however, I was absolutely knackered when I got up for work, which is really not nice.

There has been some debate about whether or not the clocks should go back again as various studies [namely by RoSPA] has said that it could save lives! Bullshit. People looking what they are doing and being more aware of their surroundings will save lives... Also not putting the clocks back would mean that in the deepest, darkest days of winter it would not get light in northern England until after 1000 and in my opinion, this is just plain stupidity.

If the government does decide to implement the ludicrous notion of not put the clocks back for British Summer Time I want to know what they are going to do about my missing hour, bobdammit! I think that some sort of compensation is required for this, maybe a day off or something. :-P

Lost: my productivity. Last seen end of term 2. Small and insignificant, most likely to be found hiding in some far away place.

I don't know what it is with me at the moment, it might just be because I am still slightly ill but, I just can't seem to motivate myself to actually do anything productive. I open netbeans I do about 20mins work and then I stop... I open OpenOffice writer, write about 100 words and then give up. Hopefully I will locate my productivity soonish and DSFW.

Meanwhile I think that I will go and have a look down the back of the sofa - that's where everything that gets lost is, right?

I'm ill.

Being ill sucks, I didn't go to work today because I really felt like shit. There was some consolation to this, however - it was pissing it down and I was working outside :-)

As such, I've had an exceedingly unproductive day: stayed in bed 'til about 1000 watching SG-1 and then wandered into town with my brother to get a mothers' day card [only productive thing done all day...]. The rest of the day has been spent procrastinating playing Generals and UT2004, neither of which will have done anything to reduce my splitting headache - oh well...

I'm also completely knackered as I think that I must have only got about 2 hours sleep last night so I think that I'm about ready for bed :-(

*BigG goes back to feeling sorry for himself :-(

Hmm first day of work today... I probably shouldn't be working because I've got far too much other stuff to do but it gets me cashmonies. I'm also only working mornings, however, this still involves me getting up at 0630... :-(

Apologies to anyone who reads this for not having blogged recently... Some 'technical' issues [me deleteing stuff by accident and breaking the cardinal rule of 'backing stuff up'] caused me to lose some stuff and got behind. I intended to catch up but had too much work and stuff to do so never got round to it; I will endevour to do this at some point.

Term finished a week last Friday ago, I hung about for a bit in Leamington and eventually got round to coming back home last Thursday [16/03/2006] I still haven't finished unpacking :-P

Hmm... apart from that, nothing much else to say, apart from I'm bored as hell, mainly because CompSoc's IRC server died [along with most of campus] yesterday and hasn't been seen since. Oh yeah and Facebook is great for procrastination ;-)

/me goes to watch the rugby - last day of the Six Nations

It was the Tigers vs Stade Francais match this weekend. However, I decided to come back early because my cousin was over in England and I'd not seen her for a rather long time.

The first Friday of week 1 [06/01] myself and some of the other OPs from a hub that I'm on [astropoint, Smelly_Kat, Zeus, yoinkster and whyiseverynicktaken] went to The Benjamin Satchwell, a 'spoons pub in Leamington. I had far more pitchers of blue lagoon than were good for me and of course had the obligatory western platter :P

I successfully managed to take a chunk out of my leg whilst jumping over some railings on theway back whilst running away from Kat... I didn't realize that I'd done it until the morning :S

Hmmm, yeah, a bit late but I've had to finish moving back to uni so stuff has been a bit hectic.

It was yet another obscure day for the match, Monday... This is getting somewhat rediculous, we are on course to have played more games not on a Saturday [the most preferred day] than otherwise.

Leicester Tigers: 34 Saracens: 27
Attendance: 16,815
Sarries' #16: Roy Maybank

Tigers started off better than they have done in recent matches, though this is not really a complement... :-\ Despite this, they still conceeded a soft try early on in the half when Sarries winger Ben Johnston appeared to be able to walk through the Tigers' defences to score in the corner.

Tigers upped the pace a bit and managed to get a penalty try and a try from Darren Morris before the break. The penalty try was awarded just after what appeared to be a blatant try from Geordan Murphy was adjudged to have been held up - coincidence?

It was after here when things started to get a bit silly. Sarries winger was binned in the 33rd minute. A short while later Murphy was blatantly taken out without the ball when he was about 5 yards from the Sarries tryline chasing the ball - he would definately have scored; the referee gave him a ticking off and awarded us a penaly... a bit different from the binning and a penalty try that should have occurred!

After the break, Ben Kay got binned for a trivial professional foul and minutes later Graham Rowntree got binned for some unknown reason just when Sarries were camped on the Tigers line. Despite this, the crowd got right behind them and they managed to hold out without conceeding a try. What was more annoying about this is that Sarries had been playing 'offside defence' all afternoon and any maul that looked threatening, they pulled down.

Unlike other weeks, there was no massive surge at the end from the Tigers. They conceeded another soft try [which was mostly down to the crappy offside rules] though Tom Varndell proved that he should not have been dropped as he scored a brilliant try. Although there was time to score again for the fourth try, unfortunately it didn't come, and Sarries managed to hold out for the bonus point.

Sarries probably did deserve the bonus point but this match more than most emphasized my opinion that there needs to be a serious look at the consistancy of both the offside and advantage rules.

And so ends 2005, in the customary fashion of staying up and drinking too much. It hasn't been a bad year, though it seems to have gone far too quickly, with the end of my university life looming ever closer in the future.

Myself, Caroline, Andy and the rest of the usual suspects decended on our university house to have a party, unfortunately Chris, Beckie and Paul were not able to make it. I was quite impressed with myself, however, as I failed to suck as badly as I usually do at 'Who's in the Bag' :)

All that's left to do now is to play the 'let's see how long it is until people break their New Years resolutions' game and take the piss out of them when they do. One of the reasons why I don't make them... you inevitable end up breaking them within the first couple of weeks :S

At last, everyone can breath a sigh of relief for another year, Christmas has finally finished!

Christmas Day was pretty much the same as every year, my with Granddad coming round for Christmas dinner. Jen, my brother's fiance also came round for Christmas dinner this year.

On Boxing Day we kept up the tradition of invading my Granddad's house. The problem with this is that we have a rather large family... more than 40 people turned up and that wasn't everyone!

I came across an explanation of what a hacker is in the back of The Camel which amused me.

hacker
Someone who is brilliantly persistant in solving technical problems, whether these involve golfing, fighting orcs or programming. Hacker is a neutral term, morally speaking. Good hackers are not to be confused with evil crackers or clueless script kiddies. If you confuse them we will presume that you are either evil or clueless.

So, it's finally Christmas eve. After all the many months of advertizing, etc. that we've had to put up with it is now so close to the actual day. I must admit I really despise the length of time that is spent advertizing Christmas nowadays, it is far too long and it somewhat takes the shine off it because you are sick to death of Christmasy stuff when the day actually comes. Come on people see some sense and don't start selling selection boxes and crackers from the start of September!

Enough of me ranting about Christmas. Yesterday myself, my parents, my brother and my cousin Zoe paid a visit to my Great Auntie Pam. As usual she made far too much food, most of which was cakes and snacks [because she claims that she does not like bread] ;-)

It was a real rush, however, as we had to pick my brother up straight from work and almost immediately after we had left, I departed for the city centre for a night out in Leicester.

Almost everyone was out, including Dan Turnpenney, who I though was still going to be in America over Christmas! It was really nice seeing everyone again, we took over a small part of Soar Point for most of the night before going on to Revolution. I went home after that, however as I really could not be arsed to go clubbing... :-S

Oh yeah, I'm ill, another reason why I hate Christmas: I always get ill :-(

Huzzah! No more work for this hols!

When we arrived this morning I noticed that someone had climbed over the new perimeter fence for the school, getting mud all over the fittings in the process [which I was muchly displeased about]. So the first task of the day was blacking the top of the fence; let's see you try that again! >:-) This, however, took up an hour of our rapidly diminishing time which annoyed us somewhat.

We managed to get everything finished to a satisfactory degree and I managed to get the hall floor polished as well. As it is the shortest day of the year it was very dark on leaving. It is rather depressing that when you leave for and arrive back from work it is dark :-\

Last night myself, Jonny and Satch went to Soar Point in town, it's a student bar/pub so we could get cheap beer :D Fortunately I didn't get too drunk so did not have a hangover this morning. More people were supposed to be coming out but they all either couldn't make it or decided against the idea as they also had work the following morning. However, we have planned a night out on Friday; it'll be good seeing everyone again :-)

Today is my last day of work, hopefully we should get everything that we started done and be able to leave on time.

*Departs for work*

It was the last day of term today at school so all of the kids were doing absolutely nothing productive and were watching films and playing with various games that they had brought in. 'Santa' paid a visit to the school as well - the kids always swear blind that it is my dad who is dressed up as Santa, but he made sure that he did tactically placed work so he could prove otherwise :-P

This afternoon I helped out, along my friend Jonathan, with a carol concert at the Emily Fortey special school in Hinckley; the headmaster of which is Jonathan's dad. We only just made it on time for the concert because I was paying Lady Luck back for this morning, when we didn't have to stop at any traffic lights, by having to stop at all of them :-( Despite me being horrendously out of practise, and having to transpose all of the pieces as they were written in Concert Pitch, we managed to make it sound reasonable and all of the kids [and their parents] appeared to enjoy themselves.

I had Christmas Dinner yesterday with some of the kids from the Pastures Primary School, it was good fun and I find all of the children rather amusing [in a good way!] :-)

Rar! I've just got back from the Lancaster Arms in Desford - finally one of my mates has got back from uni! [although this is because he has just got back from the Carribean ergo he is a goit.] We met up with Boo [Nicholas Rouse, one of my old school mates] as he works there. We also saw Baggy and Ed, who I haven't seen since at least last New Year!

Nearly everyone else at uni is coming back this weekend... Damn you Warwick and Cambridge for having stupidly short terms!! Hopefully we will have some fun next week :-P

It's incredible how quickly you get back into the swing of things when you get back home from uni. I've only been back at work for two days [and this morning so far] and I'm already back to the old routine, despite me having to get up at 0630 each day! Anyhoo, back to cursing the keyboard I am using and back to printing out the "Don't bother attempting to climb over this fence 'cuz you'll get black shit all over you" signs :-P

Leicester Tigers: 30 Neath-Swansea Ospreys: 12
Attendance: 16,815
Ospreys' #16: Joel Jutge

Talk about a game of two halves! Tigers started off the game appallingly, and the Ospreys unsurprisingly were the first to cross the line. Tigers replied with two Andy Goode penalties, but despite most of the ground willing the referee to signal half time to avoid any further damage, the Ospreys crossed again taking the score to 6-12 at half time.

Cue half time sprinkling of pixie dust by Pat Howard...(?)

After the break it looked as though Tigers had replaced the entire team. They were relentless with their attack and powered over four tries in the 24 unanswered points scored. Harry Ellis scored a brilliant solo try, showing his class which should give the England selectors a real headache. Tigers grabbed the fourth try required for the bonus point in the dying minutes of the match; by this time the Ospreys must have been wondering where this green, red and white steamroller had exploded from and it was their turn to wish for the referee to signal the end of the match.

Another superb second half comeback to what is easily the best game of the season. The Ospreys must have been laughing in the changing rooms at half time thinking how easily they were going to win; I'm sorry to disappoint you lads, even the Celtic Champions don't come to Welford Road and win! ;-)

The BBC match report is here

We had a 'Christmas' get together with my auntie and my grandma this evening as my grandma is having an eye operation and will not be able to come to Leicester closer to Christmas itself. It was good fun seeing some of my relatives again after being at university for over 10 weeks. Also it was my cousin's 9th birthday yesterday so he was showing us all of the things that he got; he was especially pleased with his fishing rod and his penknife [I think mainly because I have one!] :-P

The problem with moving back from uni isn't the packing as much as the unpacking... I think that there is some subconscious thought in my head that gives me an aversion to doing it because I know that I'm just going to have to pack it again when I go back. Well that or I'm just too lazy to do it ;-)

I've been back for about a day now and have been completely unproductive, well apart from cleaning my computer and going to buy a printer with my dad. I think that I'll leave my unpacking until tomorrow as it's too late now!...

So, the end of term has come and gone and now it is time for me to go back to Leicester for the Christmas holidays where I will undoubtably be slaving away working in an attempt to recoup some of my expenditure from the last 12 weeks or so. It is amazing how much stuff that I have; every time I make a journey, either back or forth to uni, I seem to take more. We are going to have a really fun time attempting to fit all of this lot into the car tonight!

Right! Back to packing, it won't get done by itself [unfortunately!]

On a side note, I found this again in my bookmarks and have wasted about half an hour this morning :-)

Democracy? What would that be?

Well according to Warwick Student's Union, people vote in referrenda and then get their vote ignored by they people at the top if it doesn't suit them. What I am talking about, for those who don't know, is the smoking ban for the entire Union. Despite a large number of students voting - over 3000, the proposed motion being passed by a 57% majority and there being a clause in the Union constitution that states "Any decision that is made by a referrendum can only be overturned by a referrendum" they are deciding to not pay any attention to it anyway.

This vote has been one of the most controversial for quite a while, made more so by the way that the Union officers who were leading the 'against' campaign were making dubious comparisons with other universities [Leeds University specifically, which is not a campus university like Warwick] who had lost money when they trialled a smoking ban and that some events would disappear and funding would have to be cut; all of these are purely speculative yet were presented as fact.

So, it looks like democracy is dead at Warwick Student's Union, the next step needs to be renaming it to "The Warwick Union that Students May Use", so much for it being run by the students. However, I very much feel that this is not the end of this matter by any means; I have heard of rumours of launching a vote of no confidance.

[A cynical person might say it's because all of the people at the top smoke, but hey, I'm not in a position to comment on that]

For the first time in a very long time, I decided to go to Top B, the union cheese night with my housemates. It was disappointing un-cheesy however, very few of the classic Top B songs were played, the main reason why people used to go; it seemed rather empty for a last week of term. However, despite this, I had a good time and got hidiously drunk [mainly due to not having had anything to eat] resulting in me having an awful hangover this morning :-(

It's nearing the end of the autumn term and this can only mean one thing: Christmas partays!!! Yesterday night was the Compsoc Christmas party, which was held at the Virgins and Castle in Kenilworth. The meal was very nice and there was good beer [Everards Tiger]; much karma for Chloe, the social exec, for sorting it out :-)

After eating, drinking and general merrymaking, we went back to Sadiq's house and watched Spaceballs. I had to leave early to catch the last bus back to Leamington, however, the bus didn't turn up when it said that it would so I ended up walking back to Leamington [which I was not very pleased with!]. The bus did eventually pass me, 40 minutes after it was scheduled to, just as I was entering Leamington; much negative karma for public transport for sucking >:-(

Friday night kickoffs really do suck... I really don't know who thought that it would be a good idea to introduce them but whoever it was obviously does not live in the Real World(TM). It is a bloody nightmare having to get back from Leamington to Leicester in time for the kickoff; also my dad doesn't finish work until 1800 so we were really late getting there ergo getting a crappy spot on the terrace. Unfortunately I cannot even blame Sky for this instance as it was not even on the TV. C'mon executive type people, play the games on Saturday with a 1500 start like everyone wants you to!
Anyway, enough ranting!

Leicester Tigers: 35 London Irish: 3
Attendance: 16,815
London Irish's #16: Roy Maybank

This really was a thrashing. London Irish started off quite well and had us worried for the first 10 minutes or so. After that, however, Tigers dominated the game and after Mike Catt went off after half time, London Irish looked as though they were there merely to make up the numbers. There was an awsome cheer from the crowd as Seru Rabeni came on for his first 1st XV appearance since having an operation; I felt quite sorry for Leon Lloyd, whom he replaced, as he was having a really good game. Tigers had to wait until late in the game to secure the bonus point, but it came as was inevitable. With this win we moved ahead of London Irish in the table and back up to 3rd place.

The BBC match report is here [Though I really wonder when the two "disallowed" tries happened... I don't remember any!]

Phew. Well, this weekend just gone was the second bi-termly Compsoc LAN. Much fun and little sleep was had by all. :-P Fortunately for me, as I am on the tech team, this LAN went much more smoothly than the previous one where we had a nightmare with power issues for the first day. In fact, apart from the setup/takedown, the only thing that I had to do was to open up 5 ports so people could play Battlefield 2 :-)

Bleach? Why the hell is the title 'Bleach' ??

If you watch anime and you have never watched Bleach, do so now! It is brilliant. You know that it is a great series when you resort to downloading the RAW version, without knowing *any* Japanese [apart from the odd word/phrase picked up from watching far too much anime!]... However, you know that you are addicted to a series when you watch the aforementioned RAW version through *twice* in a row, not understanding it any better the second time, just because it is that good! *ahem*

I am now waiting in excitement for Dattebayo to get their subbed version out. :D

Well, I've finally kinda got round to doing a blog. Unfortunately, until I can get MySQL playing nice, this is going to be one great big, filthy html hack. I will also work on styling somewhat as it currently leaves a lot to be desired. Oh well, everyone has to start somewhere :-)
Oh yeah, it doesn't work properly in IE yet, for this I apologise and as a developer I should make it so... however, sucks to be you - go use a decent browser!

p.s. I hope that everyone respected the two minutes silence today, and will do so on Sunday also!

Under Construction:

Mainly due to the fact that I'm too lame to write a web page...
PuTTY.exe v0.57 ssh client for windows
pscp.exe v0.58 scp client for windows