It's Saint George's Day which also means it's Dad's
birthday. I tried to phone home earlier, but apparently he's out playing golf already which isn't too much of a
surprise. It's probably the best thing he could have in the world; golf - on his birthday.
Last night was
good. It was Rosie's 21st, and I assume she got drunk fairly early on as I didn't see her later on in the night.
The theme was country - so I was wearing flat cap, tweed jacket and steel toecaps(wellies are not my usual summer
fayre), the night starting in Cognito with a pre-party and finishing in FND. Jon got himself a free drink off me for
showing his little party trick which is actually quite cool. Just a simple cigarette disappearing act, but I
didn't catch how he did it. Big Chris, Guy, Ads, Jimbo, Alex, Sammi and Dylan were all out for it (course social),
but DDS and the rest of 35 York Road made no appearance. I also bumped into Giles and Alex (both are clients). What
the former was doing in the Union on a Friday night was fairly obvious - I did wondered who was back at Echos
running their Echos though...
Currently trying to catch up with OC at the same time as trying to get motivated
to do some work. I've got a lot on this week and with electronic log books, materials reports, CAD and DP4 all
coming up, it's going to get a little hectic, hence my desire to get ahead with it all. On top of this I've got to
sort French Cricket and Pedalo shirts out.
I need to get an automatic image upload feature on this blog too as
it's starting to annoy me.
I got my mark back for my CAD animation today and was plesantly
surprised to see at nice round 73 looking back up at me from the mark sheet. Agreed, it's not a big module, but
it's nice to get a First every so often. Poor old Geo, I think he went over the top with his LEGO extravaganza,
mustering a substandard 86. Not a bad mark really, but the amount of effort he must of put in, I think he was
convinced of another 100% for a computing for designers module (genuinely not kidding).
Also today I made
headway with Dynamic Teamwear and pocketed some cash for the first time in a while. Saying this, my loan, came
through the other day, so things aren't too bad at all.
Furthermore, pleasure was passed on to me in the news
that Yauli (I think that's how you spell it), our landlady for next year, has guarenteed us double beds in every
room. I had always been convinced that it could be done; the others were sceptical, but the benefits will be wide
felt, as no one wanted a room with a single in. She also informed us the bathroom has been done now and the kitchen
is scheduled for the summer. I just hope we can move in straight away after the end of term to save me carting all
my kit back to Stourbridge, but it sounds like the work being done could interfere with my plans.
The
materials test went OK. I estimated guessed the majority of the way through - it wasn't hard. No idea how I've
done however.
Finally I've made some improvements to my portfolio of work, which can be directly linked to
the IdeasFactory Creative
Class 05/06 competition. I have so much stuff that has accumulated since I built the site last summer that it looks
a little behind the times. I will be uploading my recent work over the next few days. More work... [sigh]
If you ever have a desire to learn about
Material Selection Charts, don't follow the urge. That is my work related tip for the day.
This morning I sat
through two hours of lectures on polymer films and metal forging, which were only lightened by inappropriate
comments and ridiculous flights of fantasy. It's all about the vinyl pixies, CD elves and DVD nyphs. The next two
hours were spent making descisions about our group 'widget' - which of our 5 designs would be actually turned into
a real life injection moulded promotional product. Crazy fun. Then I was finally free to enjoy the
afternoon.
Yesterday Sankesh and I started the ball rolling in getting an order together for the Towers French
Cricket and Pedalo team subscriptions. These two clubs are the Towers alumni (one for boys, one for girls
respectively). The uptake hasn't been overwhelming so far, but we are on the promise of a large number of orders
for teamshirts, but I think it's going to need a bit of a push to get people digging deep for well before the
deadline on Sunday. Everyone always waits until the last minute for this sort of thing, or at least that's my
experience of selling things.
Swanny hasn't been seen all day. Apparently he didn't rise until three and was
vomitting even then. This isn't usual Swan form as he can generally swallow the alcohol like a fish, but apparently
last night at Pulse caused him an upset.
Poor Swan.
There was an upset tonight on The Apprentice. If this means nothing to you then you better start
watching on Wednesdays, 9pm, BBC1. This fanastic show follows the progress of several businessmen and women
competing to win over Sir Alan Smith and get a job with his renowned firm, Amstrad. Turns out Miriam couldn't make the grade, which
totally surprised me, as in my opinion Paul should have gone. I reckon there could be a little conspiracy here; that
Sir Alan is trying to end up placing his man,as it semmed a really weird choice, but that doesn't matter too much.
He's not the easiest of personalities and he needs someone he can work with. I've not made up my mind up about who
that is yet, but Paul got away with murder tonight. Maybe him?
I signed up for a 12 month deviantART subscription today. I don't know if I can
believe it. I am now =aajhiggs as
opposed to ~aajhiggs, which has been my status for about nearly four years now. I doubt I'll be contributing much
more, but the benefits ofsubscribership should be good. I was a bit dissappointed to find the search feature wasn't
a bit more comprehensive though...
Tommorow is a materials test with those bloody charts. I just want it over
and done with. In the meanwhile, I will amuse myself with rubbish like this: www.solardeathray.com.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Due to the achey wrist (which has got worse since I mentioned it
yesterday) I got it checked out earlier today. After an hour of waiting, my name was called and the nurse informed
me that I'd got tendonitis, which doesn't sound nice at all.
It was (as I had presumed) something to do with
the golf last Friday. It appears my sporting panache has been cut short by inflamed tendons which means I'm going
to be dosing up on Ibuprofen this week - 3 times a day before meals. It also means I am wearing a ridiculous wrist
brace, and the number of people who make an 'obvious' comment is ridiculous. I am constantly having to be
inventive with my answers.
Lucy's birthday party was last night, and Alistair and I attended. I wasn't
really in the mood for party stuff to begin with, but I soon came around and the night got better and better. The
theme was eighties, so we turned up as in Mr T. and Michael Knight(rider) face masks which were a cunning plan to
get around the lack of decent 80s wardrobe.
Later in Echos, DeVito managed to headbutt one of Lucy's mates, which was a bad
idea, and I think probably unjustified. I think he regretted it a bit this morning.
Oh and I think the scale
of the enormity of work I have to do is finally becoming apparent. Today I found that I had managed to screw up my
last submission by failing to include a final drawing of the product, so was not surprised, just annoyed, to find I
had a crap mark. Damn.
The last big thing I suppose which I simply can't get my ears around is the apparent
aquisition of
Macromedia by Adobe. Sorry but did I miss something?
I'm not entirely convinced this is a good thing. A
healthy progress in software (mainly technologies) was maintained by the rivallry, which will no longer exsist.
Adobe will now have an even bigger monopoly than before and now there won't be a nesscessity to out-do by producing
better or remarkable new features.
On the other hand the benefits will include greater standardisation of
technologies I hope, but I will be gutted to lose Fireworks for ImageReady if thats the plan.
Last night I wanted to update the blog, but I didn't.
The reason was the university decided to chuck me off the internet due to 'Peer-to-Peer Filesharing'. Fair enough,
except I'm not, and wasn't. Bastard automated chuck-off system. But I'm back on now so that's ok.
Aside
from this mostly stuff has been good since I got back. I had a hand-in this morning which I comfortabley made, and
this afternoon is pretty clear. I think I'm going to have to sack off paintballing next weekend due to a clash with
my Dad's birthday (which in reality is this weekend, but we're celebrating the next Friday).
And finally in
an attempt to get sympathy, my wrist is aching like mad for no apparent reason - I think I screwed it up playing
golf the other day and the sooner it sorts itself out the better. Donations for treatment will be graciously
accepted.
I got back at about 11am yesterday and Broomy sorted
me and Sean out. I was actually surprised by the number of people in the hall considering we were led to believe no
one was allowed into the tower until today.
Sean and I grabbed some food at Lloyds with his Dad and then had a
scout around the town before heading over to Tongy's pad. Tongy wasn't there, but Si let us in and we ended up
watching TV for an hour or so. It was some apparently childhood legend of a film called All Dogs Go To Heaven, but I
must have been somewhere else the day that was released as I'd never heard of it. Great light entertainment for a
Saturday afternoon, however scarily Sean knew all the words the songs. Was (and still am) slightly
scared.
After that we sorted ourselves out with pizza round Broomy's. He was looking a little worse for wear
- probably due to all the marking he was doing (which is alternatively known as playing Final Fantasy with a load of
thirteen year old Yanks).
Later Ryan turned up and we decided to go for a drink, which naturally turned into a
full blown night in Echos. I noticed Matt's Bar have now either increased their range of bevoirs, or run out of red
and green drinks, as yesterday when I asked for a 'Bastard' I got a 'Bitch'. These former drink has earned
Matt's Bar a legendary status amongst us students, and a couple of them will see you well on your way. The Bitch is
a new concoction, a luminous green drink made from a cocktail of shots and a blue and yellow unbranded bottle. I
thought it was actually nicer than the Bastard, but then again, not much isn't.
We later headed to the curry
house (Mugal's - which I still maintain best in Lufbra despite fierce oposition) and proceeded to order Chicken
Kormas at 3am. Lovely, except for a barrage of abuse I was getting from the other two regarding my brief encounter
with a Finnish bird in Echos. I don't think I'm going to live it down.
Ryan turned up about 10 minutes ago
clutching a handful of Maccy D's promotional coupons so I think lunch is going to
be there, despite my intense dislike of the place. Oh the other thing is Fred has launched his website now, so go to
FredHorlock.co.uk for some
fun.
And so the preparations for going back to uni are
underway. Well, sort of. I'll do it tommorow, except I won't be having a lie in as I need to be back up there by
11am so Broomy can let me back into the
Tower before he goes of footballing. This means no lie in, which is more than annoying considering it's a
Saturday.
It's been a good day. I rose late and James called to finalise plans for our trip this summer
although he did extort a large amount of money from me (thats shorthand for a grand and a third) but that literally
is the price you pay. See what I did there?
I also swung a golf club for the first time in over a
year and a half. Surprisingly I hit the ball well. In fact I was so surprised I might even consider taking it up
again. I think I became despondant the first time around due to my frustration that I couldn't pack enough power
behind the ball, but now I'm as big as everyone else this isn't appearing to be such a problem. However, I do
realise I now have totally jinxed the situation by saying I hit the ball better than I ever have, but I'm hoping
God is looking kindly on me generally and it wasn't just a one off today. Maybe I should just wait 18 months
between each round I play.
Another brilliant thing that has occured is this, the Creative Class 05/06,
which I am going to jump on with much vigour. It's been a while since I've entered anything, but this is right up
my street and so I'm really pleased it came along as I've been tapping my fingers waiting for things to get stuck
into. Funnily enough I already have had contact with IDEASFACTORY, they asked to interview me for one of their features a few
years back. The article makes me look like a total egotistical bastard but it was still great exposure for me that
wasn't related to my academic work at the end of my A-Level year.
Then there is this. Now I would never,
ever, not in a million years consider myself intimidating, but I found out that was the impression I left upon my
sister's new boyfriend when we met for the first time. I couldn't stop grinning the whole day once I found out.
The moment I heard this I will cherish forever as I think it maybe the last time I ever hear anything similar again.
The guy seems nice enough anyway, and I am already indebted to him as he lent me a good whack of CDs the other week
before I had even met him.
Yesterday afternoon I drove (the last time before the insurance ran out) to
Worcester with mother in order to purchase new clothing. I returned with cut-offs, sandals and a few summer tops so
am extremely pleased as I began to realise my entire wardrobe previously consisted of 90% clothes I had designed or
been 'Loughborough Stash'.
Overall a good two days, and hopefully tommorow will be as well, and assuming the
rain holds off it will be. It'll be due time to catch up with the lads.