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Friday, February 18th, 2005
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10:43 am - Urgh.
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Sorry if my first entry in ages isn't a particularly cheery one, but I am afflicted with some kind of lurgy, and I just want to go back to bed. I feel like poo and I've even got a cold sore. A fucking cold sore! I've not been lumbered with one of these for over a freakin' decade. I demand bed rest and fluids.
Trouble is, due to the way my timetable is laid out, Fridays are crazy busy days, with almost half my lectures (I shit ye not, 5 hours worth) jammed into a 9-5 day. I also need to head into town and get these thrice-cursed Tshirt designs to the printers. I'll have to do that in the 3-4 interval. The pain.
I'm looking forward to being able to stop doing things at some point soon, so I can kick back, watch last month's wrestling, and let the various viri fight it out across my aching body. I was planning to go to the live this weekend, and maybe to the Dark Place as well. Fuck that.
Proper entry when I have time, it's now off to lectures 2+3 /5.
current mood: Yucky
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| Friday, January 28th, 2005
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7:54 pm - Oh to hell with it.
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Although it pains me not to just put another entry off, I've had quite an accomplished day so far, so I might as well.
I awoke thinking of new and interesting solutions to the problem that I got bogged down in all through yesterday, so was very keen to get onto campus at 9 at the latest, so I could print off my new solution and the graphs it would produce before my tutorial at 9.15. The new solution was wrong, but hey. After the tutorial, I went straight back to the labs and carried on applying myself, narrowly resisting the temptation to scarper off home and play Half-Life 2 some more. Progress was made.
After lunch I wanted to go to one of the regular academic lectures the physics department puts on, where they invite a guest speaker in to lecture on some choice cutting-edge subject. Todays was titled: "Nanomachines - technological toys to integrated circuits". Or something. Anyway, I stuck around for it, and made some more progress on my report beforehand. I was pleased to find that the lecture was only slightly above my level, and that I was possibly the only one in the audience who wasn't just there out of some sense of duty, or because Falco had harrassed them, or because they wanted to heckle. And boy, did some of the staff heckle. I swear a couple of them turned out just to make the speaker feel like an undergrad again, and a slack undergrad at that. So much was the guy put off his stride that he didn't have time to fully talk about the funky solutions to the problem of how to stop Moore's Law breaking in a few years. Shame. I did spot the material that's being covered in my project though. (It has a purpose, hurray!)
I then went back to the lab, and made further progress on the project.
So yeah, go me. Now, I'm off to the bar.
current mood: accomplished
current music: Tori Amos - I'm not in love *
(* Was listening to Strange Little Girls earlier, and this track has stuck in the mind, although the entire album is a testament to how the woman can take something entirely inoffensive and stew it in her own brand of dark. Like I'm Not in Love, originally a fairly fluffy yet heart-tugging balad which, if memory serves, had the unspoken message 'I'm not in love, but I'm probably just in denial and we'll be happy together someday or something, yadda yadda'. When Tori sings it, the unspoken message is clearly 'I'm not in love, and one day I'll kill you and keep your body under my bed. Not in love, see?'. Marvelous.)
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| Tuesday, January 25th, 2005
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9:52 am
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Now, I would have made a new year's resolution 'Must update more' if I thought that I was ever going to keep it.
It has been an obscenely long time since the last update, but I think I'm going to be spending most of the day changing a parameter on a function I'm working on, telling Maple to work it through, and finding something else to do while it works, so I think I may be able to spare a few minutes... No, still not working.
Other than things Just Not Working, the project's going reasonably well. My partner, Chris, is unfortunately a whole load more conscientious than me, and I'm not sure whether it's because of that, or because he's just lucky, that his working Just Works and mine doesn't. Until week six I have no timetabled lectures, giving me the opportunity to devote myself to chugging equation all day long. Joy. Trouble is, it's almost half way through week 3, and we've done bugger all.
I also need to devote some thought today towards the Unknown Armies campaign I'm running on Tuesdays. I spent last night trying to acquire a bank of snapshots of interesting looking people to help visualising the npcs, as any readers of the GM's guide knows it recommends. It's harder than you might think to find photos of just people, by themselves, suitable for being made into GM props, on the internet. If anyone knows of anywhere I could get stock photos of people not doing much I would be grateful if they could let me know.
I'm slightly concerned that some of my players are getting bored, already. Many of them were in Owen's game last term, and I think they were expecting to have been shot at by cows and had their house turned to jam by now. Maybe I'll just kill one of them, or something suitably harsh and arbitrary.
Can't think of anything else interesting or pressing to say at the moment. I may post again later if I feel the need to rant about things.
current mood: working
current music: Kitty - Presidents of the United States of America
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| Tuesday, December 14th, 2004
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11:43 am - Define - holiday:
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A time when you work really really hard on things that you don't get payed for.
In my case, of course, substitute 'payed for' with 'marked on'. Now that term's over, I can actually see how much stuff I've been saying to myself that I can get done over the holidays. This includes:
* Writing and prep for the UA game I plan to run next term
* Writing up what I have of OtherSide, and thrashing out a magic system
* Prodding lurps administration stuff, including t-shirts (suggestions for designs and slogans welcome: deadline start of next term) and the nationals, which I still don't know how we're going to manage.
* Corresponding with Newcastle to see if they want to give me some equations to crunch for three years, and what these equations might be about
* Writing up my report - of course this means I must at some point understand the point of what I've been doing for the past ten weeks
* Giving Craig his elves back
* Stopping the old gas suppliers threatening to send the boys round
* Actually kicking back for a while. Chance'd be a fine thing.
There was something else as well... something obvious I'm overlooking... Oh yes: christmas.
This year more so then ever, the festive season has crept up on me, and as soon as I've had the chance to pick up some christmas cards, everybody's dissappeared. I appologise to everybody no longer in Lancs who may have expected a card, but I extend my usual seasonal wishes to all, so delete/circle as appropriate:
Happy Hanukkah! / Eid Mubarak! / Blessed Yule! / Tohji-taisai! / Kwanza! / Merry Christmas! / Happy Generic Celebration of Goodwill! / Joy-filled Festival Of Spending And Receiving Nominaly Called Christmas! / Happy Mithralia!
...and a happy new year.
As a result of my entire lack of organisation, I've not picked up a single present for anyone yet. I'm off to Preston on thursday to catch the market, so I guess I'll have the chance to get stuff then.
On an unrelated note, went to see Blade Trinity the other day. It was pretty dire, and I usually tend to cut films of it's ilk a lot of slack for style over content. ( Personal opinions here )
I better be off now. I'm going to a playtest of Aki's new steampunk system, and I need to find something to wear.
current mood: bouncy
current music: Launchcast joy
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| Sunday, November 28th, 2004
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11:24 pm
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I feel an update is in order.
I wrote some stuff the other day, but for some reason didn't post it. I'll try and pull some back now, but I'm getting tired.
So, I've come home for a while to lend some moral support and to generally be available while my mum goes into hospital for a major op. She's in tonight, so I guess we just have to wait now. I've managed to wrangle a bit of time off with my department, and they seemed pretty okay with it, without me having to smack down any heavy details.
In other matters, I've been very well fed and watered, and have enjoyed a bit of a change of pace, although I've still got plenty of work to do. I'd like to say that by this I do not mean to say that I don't get well fed and watered when in lancs, it's just my parents seem to be determined to make sure I'm never going hungry, at all, ever.
Oh, and while I've been away, it appears my brother has turned into some kind of drum and bass fiend, and he seems to take great pleasure in telling me about glowsticks and his mates car/soundsystem. *shudder* I still can't bring myself to dislike the obnoxious spoiled brat though...
Also, lancswise, it appears that two oft unhappy people are now very happy. This is a Good Thing.
I've got to go now. My eyelids are getting gluey and I've long sinced lost the ability to string thoughts together.
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| Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
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7:51 am - It Happened, Version II
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Stock up on tinned food and bottled water folks; the world's going under...
It looks like there will be four more years of Bush, and I'm just not sure the world economy, the environment, the people of America, the people of Iraq, the people of the world, can take it.
I lay awake this morning planning the now scrapped Version I of this entry, in which I would talk about the almost palpable feeling of a groundswell in the usually apethetic youth of America, about how it turns out that democracy does its job, and about moving forward from the last few years.
Guess I, like pundits on either side of the Atlantic, was wrong. Everything looks like it turned out pretty much the same as in 2000, with the only difference being that it looks like Ohio, not Florida, which will provide the fight right the way up to the end. I fear this will have done irreparable damage to the spirits of all those who queued for hours in the rain, thinking that they may not make a difference but knowing they should try. But that, I feel, will be the least of the country's problems.
Come on people of Ohio, show me I'm speaking too soon, otherwise it's Four More Years.
Four More Years.
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Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors
current mood: Full of the futility of impotent hope
current music: Eminem - Mosh
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| Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
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8:11 pm - John Peel and The Dude List
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I'll add my two-cents to the slew of obits that have followed John Peel OBE's shock death of a heart attack recently. It was like losing a freakin' relative.
John Peel has the honour of being on my Dudes List - which has only a select few folks, some I know, some not, some living, some, alas, not. There is no set standard to qualify for dude status, just the indefinable quality that leads people to say, in this case "John Peel's a dude".
The guy, I think it's fair to say, did more to shape the musical landscape of this country than any number of two-bit bands or snooty magazines ever could. This was mainly by helping spread the word of bands and artists, now globaly recognised, back when they were little accoustic outfits producing offbeat (ie. sometimes ear-bleeding, sometimes golden, always genuinely different) sounds that most major labels wouldn't touch with a twenty foot pole. He was also instrumental in the musical education of all who would listen: I think my first Captain Beefheart experience was curtesy of Mr Peel, and the first time I heard The Smiths and thought "Ah yes, this is The Smiths - this is really good" was hearing What Difference Does It Make from their fantastic Peel Sessions album, and I'd imagine many people have similar experiences.
Sadly, I know he won't be replacable, in any way. I tuned in to Home Truths on Saturday and was surprised to find that it was not being presented by Mr Peels gentle, quirky and familial tones. I later learned that he was away on holiday. Fair enough, but for all his effort to inject the same feel (and inflections) the stand-in just wasn't Peel. And that would be the easy slot to fill. There is no way the bbc will succede (although I sincerely hope they try) to replace a man who could take the mic after several minutes of thrashing, neuron-arresting grindcore and say, in the tones of an uncle reading a bedtime story to his favourite nephews, something like: "That was The Sister Fisting Crack Monkeys with Til She Bleeds. If you liked that I can heartly recommend their second album, which is a lot more lyrical than their first offering, and I feel all the more listenable for it. Now here's some early Stones..."
Rest In Peace John Peel. He was a legend, a favourite uncle, and foremostly, A Dude.
current mood: blank
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| Friday, October 22nd, 2004
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3:11 pm - If something's worth doing...
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...it's worth doing right up to the line, going at it with all guns blazing, every second stretched to it's most useful. This is a handy excuse whenever I leave things to the last minute, which is often. It's also the philosophy I will have to keep in mind over the course of the next week, as I realised yesterday that three things that I wanted to do, which I'm now committed to past the point of no return, actually need to be completed on consecutive days. Days that are very fast approaching.
To start off, there is my halloween costume (technically, I still have a bunch of physics to do first, but I always have a bunch of physics to do first). I fear my plans may be a wee bit elaborate, but it should all be worth the effort. Well, gotta give the new Pulsarians a worthy challenge...
Second, I am running the first playtest of Otherside the day after. For that, I need to pre-gen some characters and make sure there's enough rules and background there to make them playable. And write the adventure, which won't have to be too long, and I have a fair idea of what I'll be doing.
The day after that are the Halloween 1-shots, of which I said that I'd run. If necessary, I can drop out of this the easiest of the three committments, but of those, it's also the one that I can pull together in the least. Hmm...
I'm probably going to fall in a crumpled heap on Sunday evening.
Things have been helped by the fact that my seminar has been cancelled today, so I don't have much more theoretical equation crunching to do for next Tuesday*. A major write up of bits of system will start tonight, I feel.
* This morning I got onto campus and, after popping briefly onto lubbs, I went to library to start crunching an equation. At 1, I was still crunching the equation. As of half 2, after a brief lunch, I remained crunching the equation. I fear it may be unsolvable, or at least unsolvable by mortal mind - leading to severely damaged sanity if the solution is found. At last count, this ratio, the Transmission Coefficent, had 18 distinct components. This ration must be squared to get an observable value, as any physicist wll tell you, which will lead to me having to hand crank two-hundred and twenty four individual components. Bollocks to that.
current mood: thirsty
current music: Girlfriend in a Coma - The Smiths
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| Sunday, October 17th, 2004
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11:53 am
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A proper entry will follow at some point, but for the time being:
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante's Inferno Test
Piss.
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| Tuesday, October 12th, 2004
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8:49 pm
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Almost feeling accomplished tonight - I've finished my report, to all intents and purposes, for a start. I had thought I might read some alternative texts and see if I can add some more interest to what I have already, but that's so not going to happen. Lurps is sorting itself out, or thereabouts. There was even a system (almost) for getting the notpurple cards, even though I'm still chasing the discount booklet, which they said they'd do, damn their eyes. Must remember to get the registration business sorted, and dig out the Stormhaven files, as the beast just won't bloody die. Lessee, Stormhaven this week, Far Shores the next, then maybe after that I'll try a playtest of my new system, provisional called Otherside (It's Jonno, the one-man exec!). I'm thinking about designing prewritten characters for the time being, and giving each one a bit of background. The effect of this will be manifold: It will encourage player interaction and things, it will introduce the world background in a natural way, and it will save me having to design a character gen system or write more than a few career classes for a while. Hmm - I better be off to the bar now, to see if any of the first years can be fussed with this whole socialising and drinking thing.
Just realise that this wasn't so much of an entry as it was a stream of conciousness exercise... Sorry to anyone expecting a chain of thought...
Fnord.
PS. Just for the record, discussion of Pulsar business is forbidden in lurps time, not that it often is anyway. S'there.
current mood: blank
current music: DA's iTunes mix
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| Saturday, October 2nd, 2004
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7:54 pm - Some numbers:
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Hours spent in great hall: 7.75
Signed up LURPS members: 37
Approximate ratio new/returning members: 2:1
Fliers printed fewer then PPinto would have liked: 2,500
Times I explained roleplaying from 1st principals without mentioning D+D, or even dice: 5
Of those times, over a language barrier: 3 (2 chinese, one somewhere like Hungary)
Quite pleased with how it all went, and I think that my hard work spent with promotion helped no end. We're expecting quite a few more, both non-student types who apparently need to give us money for cards, and returning student members who've been slack (I know for a fact that we still need to re-sign 2 exec members). Pulsar got more then us (shakes fist ;) ), as did Anime. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating - I await the tasters, and more significantly the first meeting of term, with interest.
current mood: relaxed
current music: Mark Lamarr's Alternative Sixties
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| Monday, September 27th, 2004
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9:40 pm - Now there's a cunning plan...
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When a fence sets up a street-corner stand to try and flog some merchandise (think the scene at the begining of Lock Stock), a wingman, pretending to be a passer-by, will lurk amongst the crowd. When the fence has the momentum of his banter wound up, the wingman chimes in with something like "A genuine Rolex for a tenner? That's a givaway! I'll take one!". This breaks the ice a little, and the punters come forward.
Anyway, I was thinking a similar thing could work for freshers' fair. We could have a helper posing as a wide-eyed fresher, and if there was a bunch of people at the stand umming and aahing they could come forward with a leading question, or an afirmation about our activities. Eg:
Exec: "Come on, join. It doesn't matter if you've not roleplayed before, you'll pick it up."
Fresher: "I don't know, I mean I've done Games Workshop before but..."
Exec: "Well, we do sometimes do wargaming and things."
Plant: "Wow, you do wargames as well?"
Exec: "That's right. Also board games and CCGs."
Plant: "And that's all for how much?"
Exec: "Just £2, for the entire year"
Plant: "That's me sold."
Exec: "Glad to hear it, my colleague here will take your details. So what about you?"
Fresher: "All right then. Sign me up."
...or something like that.
Had a busy day today. Spent most of it hammering out posters, and trying to make the fliers look like they're made of things other than Slap and Dash. I also got to pick up a couple of expensive pieces of plastic. I confess to having a moment of false optimism this morning concerning the Purple Card - I went down to the hall complex and, as I had to stand in a line to get in, I thought "Wow. There're loads of people wanting this thing. This might actually work out after all". Alas no. I realised when I got in the door that the queue was in fact for first year registration. I went upstairs, and saw the mightly Purple Card queue of, ooh, all of three people, one of whom was in the wrong place.
I must say I have warmed to the idea, however (other than the non-student business, but I've heard that that's being pursued). The thing gave me a fiver off my buspass, and it buys me a free pint at the Water Witch (considering the witch's prices, that's fairly generous). A free pint sways my favour to any cause. Yes ladies and gentleman I'm that easy.
Peace, out.
current mood: accomplished
current music: American Idiot - Green Day
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| Saturday, September 25th, 2004
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4:15 pm - And now for some blatant abuse of the facilities
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Apologies to anyone who may sniff at the use of a Blurty for the purposes of a public service announcement, but I'm in a really Get the Word Out mood. So here we go:
( A Rallying Call )
So there you go. Responses on a postcard to the usual address.
current mood: busy
current music: One step closer - Linkin Park
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| Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
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2:37 pm - Stupid connection! Stupid Rooter!
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I'm most dissatisfied with the moody piece of tehnology that's known as the Rooter. Alright, It's providing bandwidth most of the time, but it has a tendancy to just get tired and stop. Hell, Railway Street's Windows ME server fell over less times than this. The upshot of this is that, after waiting for ages for the "Update Succesfull" page to display, leaving the machine, coming back and finding a Page Not Found screen, I assume it's gone wrong, and repost. Which is a mistake, as it turns out the entry's already gone through. To avoid messy message duplication, I am forced to update twice in one day. What is the world coming to...
;)
current music: Nena - 99 Red Balloons
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12:27 pm - Tada!
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Apologies for the lack of updates, especially to Mish. The problem is that I've spent the last month or so plodding away at things that have to be done, interspersed with doing things that I can do with minimum of application, ie. non-thinky computer games. Updating falls down in between the two.
A lot has gone down in the last few months, but it's all so far back as to be uninteresting, so a brief synopsis of current activity is possibly more appropriate:
- Design LURPS fliers/posters/freshers' week schedual/blah blah blah. With any luck when the others get back I won't just be running this as a one-man show. I'm just living in fear at the moment that I've left a bunch of stuff too late, and it's all going to bite me in the ass very soon. I have to remind myself that doing what's needed is enough, and anything else is a bonus.
- Write a bigass report on Techniques in Analytic Geometry, which is every bit as fun as it sounds. To be fair, some of it's quite interesting, if you're into that sort of thing. I really should have contacted Falco! about it at some point, but hey, he's busy, I'm busy, neither of us has got around to calling a meeting...
- Not spending any money. It's been another long, expensive summer, and my bank account aches. I knew at the start of the holiday that it would probably not be an ideal summer to work in, because I knew I had a bunch of accademic work to do, and as of the start of it, I didn't know when I'd be moving house. That looks fairly feeble as an excuse not to work now that I look at it, but I stand by it, and it takes me one step closer to realising my dream of living my whole life without doing a day's 'proper' work.
I'm bored and hungry now, I think I'll go have lunch.
(ps. I think I'm in the minority by doing this, but I tend to fill in the "Current Music:" box as whatever is playing in my head at that moment, as opposed to whatever I happen to be listening too. It probably gives a better impression of my state of mind, or something. Anyway, this is all well and good, but whenever I finish an entry and look down at that box, my mind goes entirely silent, which it very rarely does outside of Blurty entries. Bugger, it's done it again.)
current mood: anxious
current music: ... er. (mental tumbleweed)
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| Wednesday, July 14th, 2004
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11:01 am - The Monstrous Horde
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Something out there doesn't want me to update this thing; the usually stable Firefox decided to freeze up immediately after loading up the Update page. I persevere, however, as I must force myself to do half-constructive real-world things (as opposed to playing Morrowind and earning Neopoints). Blurty updating isn't perhaps the most constructive use of my time, but I'm interpersing my sentences with clearing out a bunch of junk.
Like Dark_Ambition, I am something of a squirrel, and the sort of person who would go to a charity shop and buy things not because they were useful, pretty, or fun, but because they looked like they might come in at some point in the future. Case in point: I have just found the old gear derailier from my bike, which got extremely bent some time back and got replaced by a shiny new one. I have kept it, however, and it has been living in a large junk box for over a year. Why? I don't even know! It must be thrown away! On the other hand, it looks really funky and tech and must be able to be used for something... No. No. Enough of this - in the bin it goes.
*klumpch*
There's scales here that are cheap, broken and unfixable, as they are glued not screwed together. I don't even think that anyone claims that they're their's. Oh well.
*thkack*
Here's a set of old pc speakers, long broken. On the one hand, throwing them away would be an admition that I'll never get them working, which I'm sure is an afront to my masculinity, or some such. On t'other hand, throwing them away means that I don't have to cart some useless broken and obsolete tech across town. Twice.
*kraklk*
But it still does not help. Even when I remove all the tat, there remain a thousand items that, while not essential for my everyday life, do actually come in handy - like bits of brewing kit, or a stanley knife that's just the right size for this, that, or the other. I need a toolbox or something, which I'm sure as time goes on will just get bigger, until I end up like my dad, who's 'toolbox' is the garage, filled with such 'tools' as cd players, bike frames, 6*5' sheets of chipboard, and the odd crossbow (I shit ye not).
current music: Now We Are Free, Gladiator - Hanz Zimmer
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| Friday, July 9th, 2004
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10:10 am - Falls across line, flat on face...
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*breathes out deeply*
Well, I made it. There were many times when I thought I wouldn't, but I've made the required 2.1 average with no fails. Booyah!
The sense of relief is bigger than I can feel all at once, but it means that The Plan is still very much go, so I can go on to worry about other immediate concerns, such as getting all my crap across town to the new house. Oh, and worrying about getting the house. That too. We're still waiting on some references, apparently, and the letting agency we're with is being a bit picky, in my humble opinion. Matters aren't helped by the fact that the guy in charge is a bit of a cock, who doesn't exactly talk to me like an adult who is paying him his godamn wage. "We need the reference form back", to rhyme with "You need to start handing more homework in". Mustn't kill him until we've got the keys...
Also, I think I will make it known that I need a job, but I'm not even sure about that, as I have a boatload of work to be doing for the Major Project next year. I'l probably get back to the bookwork, then see how my time pans out. Money is always good, though.
The lack of concern for things I can't do anything about means that I can once again update with my usual (poor) frequency - apologies to anyone who actually has to check the page itself (eg. Mish).
Right, time to go lay the smackdown on the letting agents again.
current mood: relieved
current music: Launchcast's seemingly random choices (my prefs my arse)
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| Wednesday, May 26th, 2004
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2:21 pm - It would be funny if I wasn't such a dumbass.
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PHYS320 is a module that pretends to be a third year course - hence the name. However, it is in fact an exam done in one's final year which, as I am on a 4-year course, is not today. It would be nice if I had realised this a few months ago. Realising a few weeks ago would have been okay, realising a few days ago would have freed up a day, and realising a few hours ago would have made me feel a little silly. Realising a few minutes before I would have had to sit down, however, is just taking the piss. Damn I feel stupid. I suppose it explains why there were very few 3rd years at the revision sessions, along with someone who I thought was a fourth year...
Well, I suppose it is funny. And it sure beats thinking incorrectly that I didn't have an exam, and it does clear the afternoon for probably wrestling and civII joy.
current mood: Forehead slappingly dumb
current music: The Battle, Gladiator - Hans Zimmer
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| Friday, May 21st, 2004
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9:30 am - Hope is important.
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That's the title of a rather good Idlewild album. It's also something I realised a long time ago. It may seem a fairly trite observation, but it's observed more and more of late. Looking at this now, it's turned into something of an essay. I beg the gentle reader to bear with me.
Recently I've been getting the feeling that I'm the only person in my circle of friends who is actually happy and content with their place in the world and others' relationships to them. They try to clutch at little rays of hope for the future, but these rays are very insubstantial and only lead to disapointment. I also know why I'm happy - I have My Plan. Since I was about 16, when contemporaries were out drinking girls and meeting beer, a plan for the future was settling down in my head, involving Physics degrees, industrial research and the twilight of my years spent in doddery professorship. Since then, my mindset has been fairly constantly upbeat and positive, as there is always The Plan, and I have been happy working towards it. The only time it fell down was late 2000 to late 2001 - my year in Oxford. Before too long there, I realised on some level, probably unconcious, that I wasn't going to do well. A combination of having to get used to being at university and the in-at-the-deep-end level of work (it really was freakin' monstrous - I don't think I would be confortable doing some of the 1st year exam questions now) lead to me loosing sight of The Plan, and with it, my main source of hope for the future and thus my happiness. So what did I do? I desperately put out feelers in a search for tiny shards of hope: many nights at the pub; puppydog unrequited devotion to women who couldn't care less; the weekly parties. The latter refers to the 'bops' which happened in the college most weeks. These weren't meant as anything more than a midly entertaining diversion, most conducted for the first years, but for the man without hope, they became goldmines of potential. Anything Could Happen, though nothing really could, so it never did, leading to disapointment. But for a short while before each social outing I felt happy, because I had hope. Also, Christmas presents are often better when they're wrapped under the tree, because they are little unobserved bundles of hope for fun in the future. I digress. When the inevitable happened, I left Ox and came to Lancs, and after a couple of weeks I had my mojo back - I could do the work, and The Plan was back on track and hope had returned. It was great; instead of looking for diversions that could potentialy bring enjoyment, I just enjoyed life. When I was in Ox I could think of many reasons why life there sucked - incestuous social grouping, the flagelating work ethic, et alii. These things had truth, but they didn't mean life sucked. My life sucked, as I had lost hope.
Before anyone says "Well, you're okay because you at least have a girlfriend", I say to them that having a significant other does not turn an unhappy life into a happy one (but they do a damn good job at making a happy life even more gratifying) unless this features heavily in The Plan (ask Darth Calumon). The aquisition of an SO is something you can invest a lot of hope in, but it is often the built up then shot down sort, which hurts more than it makes you happy.
So in conclusion, if y'all will permit me to give my two cents, if you want to be happy don't place your hope in people, in institutions, or in anything that you build up to be more than it is. Figure what you want to do with your life and place your hope in that. All else, harsh though it sounds, will lead to dissapointment.
Jfox.
"If you're not on your way to becoming a vetinarian in six months, you will be dead." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
current mood: Serious
current music: Low Light - Idlewild
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| Sunday, May 16th, 2004
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10:34 pm - Hello... *tap tap* This thing on..?
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I appear to have been having a deal of time off latelty. Guess I've just been trying to make a clean break for myself, which has included not checking weblogs for days, and not updating for weeks. It may have done me good or something, I dunno. Anyway, here's a cross-section of my activities since last update:
* Revising - alternating between feeling like I don't know anything and feeling like I must know everything. It allowed me to get a couple of topics down to fine art if nothing else.
* Doing exams - Some went Good, others Alright, others Dismally. It averages out to be a mediocre Alright. By the sounds of it most peoples exams were like that.
* Getting back in the saddle - I managed to give my bike the overall it needed the other day, which mostly consisted of tinkering with the gear callibration, and squirting WD40 at all others problems until they went away. However, on a cycle by a very roundabout route to campus the back wheel decided it hated me, and kept going squiffy so that the tyre stuck against the frame. I had to push the bugger back from past Galgate, as I had neglected to pack my wrench of wheel removal.
* Painting orcses - having had to drag the Lurps Library Blood Bowl set around with me like some kind of millstone or albatross I've decided to give the teams (well, the orcs needed it most) a touch up with a lick of paint or two.
* Chainmail and The West Wing - I've decided that I really need to make some headway on the chainmail, so, in the time-honoured larper tradition I've been sitting myself down in front of a series with great potential to eat up days (West Wing, in this case) and engaging in light repetitive work until time looses all meaning.
There's probably other stuff as well, but it's late and I'm tired, and typing accurately became an issue a long time ago now.
current mood: Tired and full.
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