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.

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.

It was good to catch up again last night. Unfortunately it wasn't as larger crowd as I had hoped, a few people couldn't make it, but it was still a really good time reminissing over the old days. For a large portion of the time we discussed the OSH legend that was 'Placid Neurotik' - the original band from our year which I think must have surfaced around year 11. Needless to say, with such a stunning name (courtesy of Tom), it didn't survive very long. Just thinking back - I think I helped them out with getting their site up and running - I'd forgotten about that.

Then the talk turned to the gig that never was at the end of the GCSE year (where the school crashed our party and cancelled it before it even started). Then it of course led on to Peat Bog Man. This was a more stable foundation that actually had some mild success in the ska genre. In fact, they have had more success after they disbanded than when they were together, as they have just had one of their tracks featured in the soundtrack of an Indie film called Soulsearcher which I think is a pretty cool achievement. They didn't get paid for it and it's never going to be a blockbuster (check out the trailer), but I'm hoping to get hold of a copy just to experience it.

Today I began on my next project (which is a bit wrong considering I have sooo much on at the moment). Basically my uncle needs a site for his disability/mobility company, Dolphin Lifts, so I've spent the past few hours playing around sorting that out while simulataneously making prompted changes to the Dynamic Teamwear website prototype.

Aside from the usual web chaos I have taken a multitude of calls today ranging from sorting out when and how I'm going to get back to uni (which definitely is going to be Saturday now) through to where I'm staying this weekend and how to solve problems with iTunes. Apparently people have this misconception that I am a cheap call centre - and when I come to think of it, I pretty much am. At least there are always a hell of a lot of people out there who owe me drinks. Keeps my costs down.

James sent me another itinary today. I'm glas he is doing most of the organising this year, not as he thinks because I've always done it in the past, but actually, because I don't have any time. The plan now looks like we are flying into San Franscisco late August, spending a few days there, then jumping on a tour of the western seaboard for a week. This is a new concept for us as previously we have arranged everything for our trips, but the benefits here are that we can try some of that thing everyone else talks about… erm… relaxing… that's it.

Once the tour is done we've deceided to chop San Diego as although it's a ridiculously cheap flight (GBP 14!) we need to lose some days. So we will carry on via Chicago (We don't know if we are stopping there yet) then heading on up to Toronto. I'm detecting James is a little unhappy with the extra GBP 80 we are spending here, but I've been a bit firm here as I really would like to see the Canadians again (the family) including Joel who is the new arrival since I last travelled there.

Then on from Toronto to D.C. and N.Y.C. and finally home. Originally we were going to be doing one of our internals on September 11th, which I was a bit uncomfortable about. It's not the fear of something happening, but more just it feels wrong to do that. I don't know.

So the summer is coming together nicely, unlike my work now - I really am going to have to put some graft in, but I've got to go to the pub now, so it'll have to be tommorow...