Monday 29th March 2004
Song: Blink 182 - Always
Last night was fun...
On friday night, I set my alarm for 11am. I had nothing to get up for, I just didn't want to overlseep too much. It worked well, I felt. Saturday night, we did of course lose an hour. I ended up going to bed at 4:30, once that hour of my life had been rudely taken from me. I then woke up at around 2pm the following afternoon. Considering I thought 4:30am was a bit late to be getting to bed, I thought that 2pm was a nice time to get up. My day was then pleasingly short. So anyway... today I had to get up at around 7 this morning, for a 9 o'clock lecture in which we were having an exam, and I didn't wanna be too tired. So I got off the phone at 11:30, waited for the bathroom, and was in bed by midnight, near enough. I then was struggling to get to sleep, but laid there patiently, as you do... but it just wasn't happening. As 1am went by on my clock, I thought "Damnit, I need to get to sleep soon"... the 2 went by, and I thought "Bollocks, this isn't working..." I then got up, came on MSN and had a quick chat to Tor and wrote an email to Charlotte that was over 1,000 words long. Satisfied, and feeling a little happier, though I wasn't really in a bad mood to begin with. I got back in bed at around 2:45. The unsurprisingly 3am soon went by... Around 3:45 I was still awake, though nearly asleep, and I hear a noise. I instantly perk up thinking I'm just hearing things again, but no... it was familiar. It was my dad's mobile phone. I quickly jump out of bed, and the next thing I hear is my dad talking. Since I was so bored, and wondered what was going on (though had a good idea) I went into my parents room and had a quick chat with my now awake mum. Around 4am, I then go back to bed. Still not sleeping... Somewhere between 4:30 and 5, I decided to turn on my TV. I quickly found an Ice Hockey match on Channel 5, which was good as they weren't playing hockey, but they were fighting. So that was good, then I saw a goal, then it quickly went to some motorbike thing. I then got out of bed again, and put on a video (Billy Madison). This film amuses me too much, but I was hoping it'd help me sleep. Finally... it worked. Somewhere between 5 and 5:30 I fell asleep, only to be rudely awoken by my alarm clock at 7. Unsurprisingly I was sooo tired by this point. I picked it up (it's my phone) and stopped it. About 30 seconds later, I am woken up by a loud thump. I'd quickly fallen back asleep before I'd even put my phone back. It was now on the floor. I picked it up, and forced myself out of bed. I'm in a rush, so I'll keep it brief. I managed to stay awake on the train to uni, but briefly fell asleep during some other group's presentation in the afternoon, and made it home safely. I'm now off out to see someone I was very good friends with in high school and not seen in ages. Should be good. I don't wanna be too late home though... I need sleep!
Can't be bothered to re-arrange all that now... it's probably not actually all that interesting. Tonight though... was. I went to Charlotte's house, and then we walked round to old school friend's house. Me and him were really good friends in year 10, then suddenly he had a new interest... Charlotte. Though they never were a couple, they soon became good friends and I started seeing less and less of him, outside of school. Then in year 11, an interesting thing happened... I met Charlotte. Soon enough, she took a liking to me more than him (I still remember the first time she phoned me when she needed someone to talk to, and not him... the problem was that he was at my house at the time) and so the tables turned again. So 3 years later, it was interesting for the three of us to be at his house. I've generally not been in the most amazing mood lately, though it's fluctuated a lot. I generally managed to stay in a good mood all evening (presumably because I was in good company) but there were a lot of comments and things said between them that involved their group of friends that I'm not involved with. However, this guy, that has remained unnamed this far for no good reason, did often involve me in conversation and didn't completely neglet me or anything... so it's been nice. I'm gonna stop here, go get my fix of Ally McBeal, and then get to bed...
Thursday 25th March 2004
Song: Catatonia - Dead From The Waist Down
Just a warning... I've changed some of the SQL (database) backend to this site. If by any chance you get a SQL error, please tell me where it was, and what you did to get it etc... and don't panic.
I don't think anything's broken, and am just about to test the final thing I can think of, but lemme know if you find something.
Oh, and also could anyone who has my maybememories.co.uk address please run a virus scanner... I've been getting quite a lot e-mails lately, of this. McAfee have made a scanner for it, available here. I urge you all to run this as soon as possible.
Thank you
Friday 19th March 2004
Song: REM - The Great Beyond
Tuesday morning was a nightmare. After all the poorly prepared presentations, we had to produce a poster for the final week. We did relatively well, despite one of our group having had a very busy time the weekend before. We were pretty much prepared and had it all ready by Tuesday morning. I can't be bothered to get into the details, but in short, everything that possibly could go wrong, went wrong. To keep it brief, as the deadline fast approached, and still nothing had materialised, myself and another from our group went to talk to the guy taking the class and try to explain and hope he'll give us a bit more time. He was suprisingly nice about this, and so we quickly ran back. About 25 minutes past the "deadline", after gimp had just crashed and the image that was in excess of 250MB that took 10 minutes to load, had just vanished off of our screen, we decided it was time to give up. We all quietly walked back to the class, knowing that no one person was to blame, and more that God hates us... or something. After having quietly accepted that we were gonna fail this, I went along with my group to sit outside our room and wait for all the others to finish. Then despite being over 30 minutes past the deadline, somhow we decided to make use of the fact that one of our group lived quite close. We then sent him and someone else home, to print it off, and run back as quick as they could. While anxiously awaiting their return, trying to fill the silence and trying to ignore the despair, the rest of us just sat around talking. I was told that these two weren't gone too long, but it felt like an eternity. I was truly convinced in my head that they'd never make it back in time for us to quietly slide in with our poster and cover up the disaster that had taken place. About 10 minutes after they'd gone, it was brought to my attention by someone else who had stayed with me, that the version of file that they had was old, with some errors on it. In a complete rush and panic I got out my phone and called them. It didn't connect so I ran (yes, ran) the whole length of the corridor and got outside so where my phone had enough signal to make the call. In the end it turns out he'd remembered and corrected it anyway. I quietly returned to my space on the floor where I'd been sitting. In the end, they eventually got back with the poster. Halleluiah! There was, I think, one group left. We selfishly went before them, but by this point I think we were all so fed up with it (this was now over an hour and a half past the deadline, and over two hours and a half since we bagan trying to get it printed). In the end, thankfully, it wasn't THAT bad. It was apparently lacking in some details which apparently had been covered in my notes that we had to hand in with the poster. And then it was all over. Stress levels had slowly come down, and it was all behind us. No more posters, no more presentations, no more bickering over what to do. We managed quite well without any formal argument taking place that morning, though it was clear that I was not the only one getting short tempered. But *sighs* we made it. :)
Yesterday, Matt was on a bit of a natural high. A product of boredom and encouragement from those around him. A few hours later, I was waiting for him in Woking's community hospital drop in clinic center place. I can't be bothered to write up what happened. It was hugely amusing though. It was entirely self inflicted and he expected no sympathy so it all worked out well. We were a surprisingly short amount of time in there though. I still remember the hours I spent there waiting for Marc with his arm. Thankfully... they had some stuff to read. I began with a Teletbubbies book. I'd got all hopeful that it was gonna be a big story about one of their adventures that they have. In the end it was near enough one story/adventure per double page. I didn't enjoy that one too much. Next up was a book containing at most, about four words. It was a picture book about a mother duck losing one of her ducklings. It was quite good, though I kind'a turned it into a Where's Wally book by excitedly pointing out where the missing duckling was (he was always on the page, but seperated from the rest of the ducklings). I was really starting to get into reading now... next up: SHE. It's not the first time I've read a woman's magazine. Though it was the first time that I've ever sat alone, in a public place, reading one. It was actually very interesting though! I read an article about lying, which was quite good, about how many people lie, why they lie, percentages of men and women that lie etc. Was quite good. Annoyingly, I can't remember what I read about next, but I did read another article. Finally, I read an article about a lady who was earning a salary of £30,000 per year, and left that to persue a career as a dominatrix. It was actually quite interesting. I doubt it'll really do much to push the sado-masochist lifestyle into many homes, but it was actually quite a good article. She went to interview each of her potential clients before agreeing to dominate them (claiming to be a good judge of character), and kept her husband around the house for her personal safety. She apparently charged £100 per hour, though I've now forgotten how many hours per week she worked. I was gonna work out how much she earned, but oh well. It also said her husband was still working full time, so they had a steady income anyway...
Final thing to babble on about: Busted (again). First of all, I found this the other day. First time I've seen Woking and Horsell High mentioned with Matt (I also noticed he's now Matt, not Mattie). Another thing to mention, was that I got 100% on some quizilla quiz the other day, based on Busted knowledge. Though I'm not sure how proud about that I should really be. The actual point of this, was to talk about Charlie (vocals and guitar). After seeing Busted on some thing on a music channel a bit back, I learned that he was a fan of Korn and Funeral For A Friend. Not too long after that, it came apparent that he's probably the most talented member of the band (I know he can play at least drums, guitar, bass and piano) and it was him that had wanted live drums on their second album, and it does sound a lot better than their debut for it. It soon became apparent that I had more respect for Charlie as a person than I did the other two. I was always interested by Matt as I still remember him as being the guy who'd playfight with my friend, and who was then found in a girls magazine (I gotta stop reading them things) about a year later. James though, I'd never really been too impressed by. He writes silly songs, and doesn't seem to get away from Em, E, A, D and G (Though in his defence he does appear to be able to play barre chords). So anyway... I'd pretty much grown a liking to Charlie (not meant to sound too gay) and but not too fond of the other two as musicians. I had discussed this with my mum, and Mary (to name a few) a few times. More recently, I'd been reading the credits for Busted's second album, and found a song by Charlie and his brother. I then listened to it and payed more attention to it than I normally do, and realised how good it was. So anyway... this morning I go downstairs and see the newspaper's been left open, and start reading about Anastacia's breast cancer (I assumed that was how far my mum had got before having to leave it) and then I realised there was a picture of Charlie from Busted next to it. What I'd completely missed, which turned out to be the reason for the paper being on that page, was a review of Busted from Wembly. But... what's this on Charlie's t-shirt? Victory Records?! I then got all excited about Charlie being a fan of the label and e-mailed Mary, having spoken to her about it before this, and said about how I wish he'd leave busted and form a "proper" band. She had nicely replied by the time I got home and mentioned that he's apparently been seen in a Biffy Clyro t-shirt and went on to say that he apparenty does have another band. It didn't take too long (thanks to google) to find out that he does indeed have a side project going. Fightstar. I watched a couple of their videos on their site and they seem quite good. I'll probably keep my eye on them, see how they progress.
Anyway, I've said rather a lot here, so will now leave you all. :)
Sunday 14th March 2004
Song: Never Heard Of It - Where Am I?
I seem to wear my NHOI t-shirt quite a lot, but never listen to their CD. But listening to it now I'm reminded of why I bought the CD and t-shirt. :)
Last night I had a really odd dream. I had loads actually, unfortunately I can't remember most. I REALLY wish there was a way that I could record my dreams and watch them back when totally concious. Given the day I had, it wouldn't have surprised me if last night I'd dreamt about Charlotte. It also wouldn't have surprised me if I'd dreamt about a fire of some sorts as I was thinking about that whilst lying in bed trying to sleep. But no... Busted.
The earliest part of the dream I can remember was getting out of the car. There was me, with Matt, and James from Busted. I don't know where Charlie was, but he wasn't with us. I also don't know who else was with us, but oh well. We were parked and getting out of the car in the Waitrose car park in Goldsworth Park which is about 2 mins from where I live. Then James, Matt and I start walking over to the doctor's place there. On the walk over there, I start talking to Matt, asking if he remembered someone that I'd been friends with at school, that I knew he was friends with too. He said he didnt remember him. Then something happened just outside the door, but I can't remember what it was. Next thing I know, we're inside, and sitting in the waiting room. I actually have no idea why we were there or who needed to see the doctor, but anyway. I'm still talking to Matt, and named someone else and asked if he could remember them, and I think he just about remembered them. Next thing I remember, I'm talking to James about guitar playing. Asking if he can play B (wouldn't suprise me if he can't, in real life, actually) and then went on to ask how he does it. I learnt that he apparently uses his index finger and ring finger. Then I think it was all over. I either woke up or it just ended. I have no memory of anymore after that. So I'll never know which of James and Matt needed to go to my doctor, nor why I was with them. I also don't know why Charlie wasn't there with us. But oh well, I won't hold that against him. He's the coolest one out of Busted, heh.
Hope you all enjoyed that insight into my subconcious. I'm sure I dreamt loads more, just can't remember them. I have such cool dreams...
I've just found out that GtkWidgets hold a pointer to their parent so hopefully my programming problem I mentioned last time should be solved, so I wanna do that today. I've also still gotta finish writing about my socia-technical business solution thing for uni. I'm also quite hungry still (I finished eating immediately before starting to write this).
Saturday 13th March 2004
Song: Blink 182 - Obvious
Well well, I thought I'd update this ol' thing.
It appears that I've regained my life preserving skills. Not suggesting I'm playing God, just a nice boost to the ol' ego, and a huge contribtor to general mood. Hence this update taking place.
I've been in a very weird mood over the last few weeks. The general low morale of living here returned with the toothbrushes, but thankfully so did my ride to Pirbright. Oh, not too long ago in Pirbright (in this lil' villiage pub) there was a dog... this dog has since been referred to as horse, or pony... it's fucking huge. I'd estimate that it was above my waist when standing (I'm about 5'9 for those who don't know). Despite it's size, and the fact I've never been hugely fond of dogs (I didn't like it when the sniffed me, when I was a kid) I wasn't very intimidated by this dog. It didn't bark at all, and sat quietly on the floor. A few days later, when we were there (my frequency there is starting to make me compare myself to Andrea and Clare in O'Neill's, heheh) this dog came back. Again we were overwhelmed by it's size, and without a camera. Anyway, at one point I was walking over to Marc, who happened to be the other side of the dog to me. I calmly past by this horse, and it looked up and barked at me. I nearly shit myself, though thankfully I was near the toilet. It was so scary though! This gigantic thing had been so silent on both occasions of me seeing it, but my walking past it (I didn't step on it's tail or anything, just incase you're wondering) made it look up and bark.
Two nights ago, I had a fun night out in London. Matt and I were going to see The Lonelyband. After a big fuss being made over money, and almost not going (we'd both spent too much time and money in Pirbright lately) we eventually decided to go. We were very confused though... the band's site advertised them being on at 9:30, though it also said doors were at 7:30, and we were pretty sure they weren't headlining. I was stuck between the thought that there's either a band on before them that's not advertised, or the door's just open way too early to let people in to have drinks etc. We got to Woking station around 7:30, got a fast train to Waterloo (stopping at just Surbiton and Clapham Junction) at around 7:45... by around 8:45 we had got to Waterloo. We'd spent around 30 mins somewhere in London not moving, due to a broken down train. Due to general boredom and anxiety about what time they were playing, we weren't pleased. By around 9pm, we were on the underground, on our way. We were still hopeful that the advertised time of 9:30 was right, and that the tube wouldn't take too long. Somewhere between Camden and Archway (where we were going) the tube decided it was gonna stop too, except this time the driver didn't know why. It got closer and closer to 9:30 and we were still not there. Finally, at around 9:35 we got off the train, and ran out of the station (I did a lot of running that night). We then couldn't figure out how to cross the road as the tube station came out on a huge junction somewhere in North London. In the end, the traffic lights stopped the traffic so we ran across the road, and jumped a railing (which Matt managed with a lot more grace and style than I). So we finally got there, not more than 8 minutes late... we then get into the bar, and see no door for the stage. Flashbacks of Barfly occur, so we ask at the bar. Turns out we'd walked past it, so back outside, and round the building to this door and we excitedly entered. We'd finally made it there (thank fuck), lady at the door with a bit of paper asks who we're here to see. She had a grid on this bit of paper with a tally count thing, presumably to see which band was more popular ot whatever. So anyway, I say "The Lonelyband" and she replies with something like "oh, well they've just finished...". We were not impressed. After spending two hours to get there, being only a few minutes late... and it turns out they weren't on at the time they advertised. I think this lady sensed our dissapointment and offered to let us in free, if we wanted to hang around and see the other bands. However, I decided to leave... I wasn't hugely motivated to go out at all before leaving, and after the hassle it took to get there I'd kind'a had enough. We threw around some ideas of going to a pub, pool hall and kebab place, but in the end we came straight home. It was a really shitty evening...
Uni should start to get a little less hectic now, as there's no more group presentations. The other lot of group work is still going on, but I can cope with that one better. Though that module is still a complete mess.
Spent quite a while earlier playing guitar. Hadn't touched it all week and was a bit rusty the other day when I tried it so thought it was in need of a song or two. I seem to be getting quicker at the F chord shape, which is nice. Still too scared to attempt B.
Gonna end this now, got some uni work to do which I'll probably put off for another day. Also got to figure out a programming problem that I have, with no one to help. Could take some time to fix that. If anyone sees this that is proficient with C++ or C then lemme know please. Tempted at this point to just use a void pointer and typecast it, mmm *strokes chin* don't think that'll work either. Damnit.
Wednesday 10th March 2004
Song: The Used - Box Full Of Sharp Objects
Added a new thing on the left there... "Songs I've listened to", I mainly did it 'cause it was so easy to do. It's basically a list of all the songs I've entered in this blog. Inclusive of the one's no longer shown on this page. Unfortunately it only holds the records from since I've used the MySQL database for this. Which was when I added the ability to leave comments, for those who don't know. :)
Here's an interesting article for anyone who's bored, and lives in fear of the command line. Be it DOS, Linux, or any other... they're not as scary as they seem. :)
I'm still not really in an update-ish kind'a mood...
Saturday 6th March 2004
Song: System Of A Down - ATWA
Calling all Get Up Kids fans... 12th April, I wanna go. Someone come with me!
It's come to my attention lately that the amount of money in my bank is inversely proportionate to the amount of time I spend out of the house. I need more money. Anyone out there care to employ me? I can make websites do exciting things, and I can play guitar badly. I did one week's work experience in a posh building in Walton On Thames where I got to play with laptops and idle on Yahoo Messenger waiting for someone to talk to. I can write programs for DOS that don't look like they do much, but use pointers and dynamic memory allocation. I can almost juggle with three balls. I can't drive, but am happy to use public transport, and have a few years experience with UNIX systems. If anyone wants to offer me a job, please leave a message in the guestbook. Thank you.
I do need to get a job though... I'd quite like an interesting job, rather than sitting happily on a till at Sainsbury's smiling and welcoming customers. The trouble is, I don't think I'm likely to find a remotely interesting job available to me. Tempted to try asking around in shops that get around 2 customers per day. Might be boring, but at least there wouldn't be too many annoying members of public. Music shop would be nice for the discount. I've agreed to involve myself in the redesign of National Door Company's site. So hopefully I'll get a bit of money from that (it's £7/hour), but that wont really last long. Could also offer to take some web development work off my brother's hands, but it's all static HTML pages which bore the hell out of me and never look how I think they should. They're also quite badly underpaid. Working behind a bar has been mentioned a few times recently, albeit in jest. At least I'd have no desire to drink on the job...
To conclude: I think I'll just try to convince my parents that if they give me lots of money, then I'd do a lot better at uni, and get a better job, and end up living a much better life.
Thursday 11th March 2004
Prick your finger it is done
The moon has now eclipsed the sun
The angel has spread it's wings
The time has come for better things