I've spent the afternoon (since I got up at midday, the morning was inexistent) sorting out
Tongy's website. It's been progressing well, and I think the general outline is near enough complete. now all I
have to consider is the content and the management system. Hot stuff. You can check out the plans here.
I'm definitely regretting not
getting outside though. Another glorious day. I think I'm going to call it quits now and head outside for a while.
I've really got to head down to the post office to get these cheques off for the house. I don't think I've ever
been so sad over the departure of a cheque. At least usually you get something in return normally.
I haven't
eaten all day. I think I got a little carried away with things. I definitely need that break. Bye.
Dad finally arrived to pick me up at bout 9pm on Friday night.
Despite the initial plan to picked up at 7pm, the usual Higgs Family inability to run on time was ever-present. As I
hadn't eaten since brunch we made a visit to Mugies and
then got on the road.
I got back at about 1am and crashed pretty much straight away. All the stuff was left in
the car as by the time we got back the weather was shocking and I didn't fancy standing about in the rain, lugging
the World Domination Machine through the deluge.
Yesterday I woke late;
thankfully the weather was better and so I made a beeline for the car which I unloaded until you couldn't see my
bed covers, then the floor, then actually getting into the room became prohibited too. Eventually when everything
was inside an I went about reconstruction of the WDM. It's taken me
the best part of a day and a half to string it back up to the internet. Wireless networking does my nut in. Why
can't the whole process be more simple, and why does the signal go up and down, when both ends are stationary and
nothing is moving in between?
Last night I headed over to Moseley to see Gwyz. Tom was already there when I arrived, and we sat
outside with a few tinnies reminiscing and catching up. I think I'm right in saying it was the first time Gwyz had
seen Tom since we left OSH, which is
two whole years now. A bit later Gingle showed and we carried on well into the early morning sipping at the amber
nectar and discussing everything from uni life to politics. At 4.30am we decided to call it a night (day) and hit
the sack. The Mother had already explained to me that she wouldn't be picking me up in the morning, so I made plans
to head into central Birmingham with Tom the next morning, then catch the train from there.
Naturally British
Rail (or whatever they call themselves now) were running to schedule, but in this situation that was a bad thing.
They seem to be able to totally cock up the trains getting here on time, but they sure as hell shut down the whole
line spot on time it comes to scheduled maintenance. You never hear anyone saying,
"Oh, I was lucky
today - the lines were stopped for scheduled maintenance, but the workmen were a little late and they kept the
service going all morning..."
yet alone
"When I want an example of good
prioritisation I always cite the work of British Rail"
To be fair this is a little cynical, as
Sundays is a day of rest, and therefore you can't expect the trains to run on these days. After all, train
staff are all religous, or at least religiously watching BB6 at home.
The one saving grace of the day is the
brilliant weather. Once again clear skies and warm breezes make for a beautiful day. I love it when it's like this,
and so had a celebratory hamburger in the garden for lunch. I am really going to have to push my culinary expertise
up to a new level in the next few weeks, as although possible to survive on, sandwiches and jacket potatoes should
not be the staple (only) food in your diet.
This afternoon has been spent with The Mother going through all of
my stuff. The Parents insisted this occurred today for two main reasons:
- The place looks a damn mess and
if I don't do it now, it'll never get done
- I can't actually get into bed
The place isn't
looking much tidier, but a lot of my old rubbish and sentimental odds and ends are now earmarked for the loft. There
is a distinct waft of progress drifting through these walls today.
Lloyds and VisaVersa were
fairly busy last night, although it was definitely not the usual student crowd. Crawling with pikeys the place
certainly felt a bit more hostile, but this made no difference to our night which we spent in blissful drunkenness
and frivolity.
IDR were strictly enforced after food (we hadn't eaten, so it was a burger at Lloyds) and with
Mike's friend Rob, and Mikey's made from Bromley, there were
a decent number of us. Also present were:
- The
Swan
- Waddle
- Mother Nature (just 'Nature' to the crew)
- Mike
- Mike's mate
Rob
- Mikey Ado
- Ado's mate from Bromley
- Jono & Lou (late arrivals)
- Ibs & Daisy (likewise)
A
few pints later (and considerable lessons learnt in penny dropping tactics/penny evasion manoeuvres) The Swan managed
to persuade me that a shot of Wray &
Nephew would be a good idea. At the price, and the percentage volume, he was right. However, the smell and taste
leaves a lot to be desired. We knew what we were letting ourselves in for and so backed ourselves up with a full
iced pint of water (and another pint of Magner's) which went some way to clearing the awful taste. I swear you
could use that stuff to burn through metal. Did the job though.
VisaVersa was full and ended the evening well.
Swan and I stopped off for a Rainbows, and when we got back acquired a discarded full length mirror that we found lying around
at the bottom of the tower. Then I slept.
By slept, I mean had a light kip, as two hours later I found myself
wide awake in agony as my toe protested (with energy and vigour) that it was subject to the start of another
friggin' ingrowing toenail. Unawares of how to deal with such a situation, I flipped on the World Domination Machine, only to find it wasn't playing ball, and threw a wobbly which took two hours
to resolve. By 7am I had figured out I needed to soak the thing (which I could have guessed in the first place) and
was still having issues with the PC.
By 8am I had had a shower, soaked the foot and gone back to bed. There I stayed for another four hours until
brunch.
The afternoon has been spent mostly trying to resolve PC related issues and packing. I am now going
home tonight (a change in plan) and am looking forward to some decent food. This is my last blog made from the
Tower, and without sounding to emotionally unstable, it's going to be strange not coming back. I say that, but then
again I probably will never think about it ever again.
Well the floor is quiet. Chris has gone to the casino
in Notts, Dizzy and Rich made tracks earlier and the only Luis is doing the same packing in his room. He has donated
a small household worth of items to me as he cannot take the stuff back to Spain, but all is appreciated as in a
couple of months time, I'm not only going to have a room, I'm going to have a whole house to fill with
crap.
Back to the pack.
10.30am this morning and I get a call from Jono.
"Yes, I am awake."
This was a lie. I
answered the phone after a good stumble across the room, and quickly arranged to be down on his floor in twenty
minutes so we could meet and drive to our house (for next year) and meet the landlady to discuss last minute things
to do with the letting.
Jono, Swan and I headed over
to Landsdowne Road and ran a few questions past Yauli (sp?) before having one last inspection of the rooms. I was a
little worried I had been accidentally conned into paying extra for a room that was smaller than it should, be but
it turned out I was just being paranoid. Having another thorough look around has really got me excited about moving
in.
Thankfully we have been given a spare key which means we can move some of our stuff in a few days early,
which will be really useful being that I don't want to have to take everything home then bring it back up again. I
thought we had done that for the last time at Easter, but there was a chance I was to be proven wrong until
today.
Most things seem to be covered. The essentials like TV, HiFi and DVD are all being supplied by Jono, Devito says he has a George Foreman, the bathroom is
completed and the kitchen will be in a week or so. Things are looking up.
Nick and I met up yesterday
afternoon to work our way through the remainder of the StudentXtra stuff. I knocked up some business cards for him along with
other bits and pieces. That meant I was free today to help Chris with the new online Fresher Guide for the
hall.
We also caught some lunch down at Orange Tree - really nice homemade burgers; I'd heard it was good but
never managed to sample it for myself until yesterday, and am very grateful to Nick who picked up the tab on account
of the work I did. Not a bad exchange at all considering the current cash flow crisis.
My
memory-and-fans-and-things arrived this morning, which I have already installed, and am enjoying an extra 1GB of
computing power. I can't say I truly notice a difference yet, but then again I've not done anything on Photoshop
or Dreamweaver yet.
Tonight is most people's last night. Looks like drinks in town. Woo yay.
I could have sworn
I said that I wasn't going out last night under any circumstances, but just as I was winding down to a good,
healthy, early night I received a phone call from Pennell asking if I wanted to
meet up for a sly one as we'd not seen each other in a while.
I naturally couldn't turn down the offer;
despite Paul & Sam living a matter of minutes from me, we
still very rarely see each other, and as I hadn't got anything better to do I quite happily agreed. Five minutes
later and I'm in the car en route to Lloyds
where settled myself into a pint of Magners. This is my new drink. Devito introduced it to me the other night, and after trying it decided it
tasted too much like the Bulmers
Cider I fell in love with back in Ireland. It's not like Strongbow or Woodpecker, far more refined, and it comes
in a substantial bottle, served on the rocks for just two quid. Bargain booze.
We were later joined by some of
Paul & Sam's friends, and despite their every attempt to change my mind I manage to steer clear of the Place
of Misery that is Pulse.
It was good to catch
up, and it looks like I'll be doing some more of that this weekend. Gwyz
has been in touch, as has Wellsey, so it looks like we could all be meeting
up this weekend when I get home, which is nice.
In the meantime I am having little in the way of luck with the
Fresher T-Shirts. Despite my outright optimism that 'Today is the day it's over', every day for the past two
weeks something new has cropped up. Today's issue is colour spec issue. Nick phoned me up and told me the printers want to charge something
ridiculous for a double full-colour print (front and back, despite them doing the same thing last year at
silly-low-cost). This means converting the artwork to three colour. Well I say three colour, but I can't actually
do that without losing all definition in the damn artwork, so it's going to have to be five. See attached image for
a general idea of the way it's going (blue is the base t-shirt colour).
But something has really rubbed me up
the wrong way this morning. As I peeled open the curtains this morning to a glorious day I peered out over my
department building to notice a crane lifting a big steel box onto the room. An air conditioning unit. Placed
directly above the electronics lab. This is annoying. Less than three weeks ago I was sweating my ass off in that
place (there are no windows, only skylights) under immense pressure to finish the project. Now, after I decide to
jack the whole module in, they decide to fit the bloody A/C! It's not like
anyone is even there in the summer! Six weeks earlier I'd be pleased, but no, they waited until we'd all gone
through purgatory, hell and back before they did anything. Grrr.
I think I'm going to have a Mullerice to
calm myself down.
Despite my best efforts to avoid spending
any more money before I go home on Saturday, I went out last night. The final Monday night out at Echos this year.
It was a good Towers
gathering considering there are but a handful of people left here - Devito left yesterday, and that means it's just me, Mike and Swanny plus extras.
We've also spent some time with Slimy Tom and Little Steve, playing drinking games up in the common room before we
headed out. It's been a while since we've done that and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy them; it's all down to
that damn Playstation and ProEvo.
I've started
to panic about the amount of money I have/need. We've got the first payment on the house coming up on the 1st July;
a cool �845, which clearly is a blow to the the bank balance. That is especially true when you consider that I'm
not going to be living there for most of the time I've paid for, but there's not much getting around
that.
Today I've mostly been confined to my quarters trying to sort out a multitude of little things. I'm
trying to crack this photo gallery design in Flash (Actionscripting. Urgh.) and also fiddling around with the
freshers shirts (which I recall thinking I'd knocked on the head). DDS and Benji also made an
appearance before they disappeared off home, and I followed DDS into town for some food, making the final visit to
the 35 York Road Abode before his brother Joe showed up to take him back to Derbyshire.
The Mullerices
are still piled high, however I am making a considerable dent in the supply. I chomp my way through them while
trying to burn CDs, talk to friends, entertain visitors and worry about rice pudding overload. All this is being
done to the backdrop of the James Blunt album, Back to
Bedlam which I'm really appreciating right now. Also cycling through my playlist is a bit of Chemical Brothers,
Jack Johnson, Donavan Frankenreiter, Gorrilaz and Ben Harper's cover of Strawberry Fields. All that and the Foos of
course, I couldn't do summer without it.
After only 4 hours sleep last night I'm feeling a little on the
tired side. An early night maybe?
Once again I find myself drifting through a day with little in
the way to show of progress, albeit enjoyable. Most people appear to have departed the tower now, and I am actually
unsure who is and who isn't still left inhabiting the penthouse apartments.
I
knocked fresher t-shirts on the head,did some more 'spring' cleaning, watched the last couple of episodes of
Lost for a second, then third time around (Mike, Swan and Devito still hadn't completed the set) and eventually headed out for Sunday night
drinks in the town.
It was the first time I'd seen Broomy in a few days, and it was nice to go down to Lloyds then VV for a few quiet ones with him, Lorretta and the
rest of the remaining crew. This was especially good since Ryan is off tomorrow and that just leaves us lot until
Friday; the 'dregs' of the Tower as Mike puts it.
The night ended with us perched in a tree whispering
'The Others are coming! The Others are coming!' at passing Towers folk. Although the humour may not be
immediately apparent to all, this Lost inspired mockery was tipsily amusing, although it looks like it has
caused further drunken clothing damage, namely to my shirt.
I have managed to spend a considerable amount of
dollar in the past day. My card has been on overdrive with eighty quid worth of computer upgrade (memory and fans),
frenchcricket.co.uk (my own little project) not to mention the eating/drinking costs.
Thankfully the
eating cost is being subsidised by the ample amount of Mullerice I now possess and which I am wading through, however
I am likely to detest the stuff by the end of the week. Brunch is still keeping me full in the morning, but fry-ups
are not my favourite meal and that also will begin to wear on me. Dinner was more of an adventure; the remainder of
the food left from the BBQ yesterday done on the George Foreman
which turned out pretty successfully. By that I mean none of us have gone down with food poisoning yet. Fingers
crossed.
Other bits of information about the day include:
- Devito burning us all with recently
extinguished matches
- The sweltering humidity
- A considerable selection of new music
- Abuse
from Giles in VV (will have to demand
compensation)
- Contacting Tongy about getting the
ball rolling with his website
Apart from all this, the day has been like every other Sunday. Oh yeh, I
forgot Father's day. i'm going to have to ring home and apologise tomorrow.