I've not said anything about my light boxes for a while, but I thought I'd just mention this as a sign of their effectiveness. On Monday night I was a bit distracted and forgot to switch my main light box in the lounge on for the evening and the effect was noticeable - I was nodding off whilst trying to watch TV and really struggling to stay awake past ten o'clock. Last night I remembered to put it on for the evening until nine o'clock as usual and I was fine until past eleven.
It's been a lovely day out there today. I went out for a walk in the fine Autumn sunshine at lunch time to stretch my legs and also to buy a copy of Modern Warfare 2 from the Asda in the retail park. Yes, I am weak, but it is mainly for Jamie to play multi-player with his friends. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Cold as ice
Raining and four degrees this morning, and looking like we are due for some fog as well. I don't mind the weather being cold but cold and damp is the sort of combination that sneaks into your bones and hunkers down for the long run.
Good news this morning was the return of my first T175 TMA - it was graded at 92% with some very positive comments. The marks that I dropped were for not giving sufficient detail on some of the answers, but I can learn from that going forward. Not bad for my first stab at matters academic since doing my Spanish GCSE five or six years ago, I reckon.
Last night's dvd was the excellent 'In the Loop' which is more or less the film version of 'The Thick of It'. It was stretched a wee bit thin in places, but it was nice to see the American equivalents of our Whitehall spin doctors and politicos. James Gandolfini was particularly good as an American general bringing the smiling bonhomie and restrained menace of Tony Soprano to Washington politics. Good stuff.
Good news this morning was the return of my first T175 TMA - it was graded at 92% with some very positive comments. The marks that I dropped were for not giving sufficient detail on some of the answers, but I can learn from that going forward. Not bad for my first stab at matters academic since doing my Spanish GCSE five or six years ago, I reckon.
Last night's dvd was the excellent 'In the Loop' which is more or less the film version of 'The Thick of It'. It was stretched a wee bit thin in places, but it was nice to see the American equivalents of our Whitehall spin doctors and politicos. James Gandolfini was particularly good as an American general bringing the smiling bonhomie and restrained menace of Tony Soprano to Washington politics. Good stuff.
- 09:31 Got my first T175 TMA back with 92% - woo hoo! #
Monday, November 09, 2009
Ring of Fire
A crisp, clear morning with a touch of frost on the ground after a rather disturbed night's sleep, but of that more anon.
In a shock development we actually went out last night for my friend Andrew's annual birthday curry which started off with some very nice beer in the Devonshire Cat, some middling beer in the Frog and Parrot. We then wondered down to Leopold Square which I had no idea even existed and turned out to be a very cosmopolitan little bit of Sheffield tucked away behind the City Hall, decked out in fancy lights and hosting a variety of bars and eating establishment.
The restaurant we went to was called Aagrah, which disappointingly turned out not to have a dyslexic pirate theme. The decor was very upmarket, the food was ok but quite pricy, and it seemed like the sort of restaurant designed to funnel through large numbers of people with military precision rather than being a relaxed eating experience. I don't imagine that we'll go there again - I much prefer ramshackle Indian restaurants with proper flock wallpaper and Bollywood soundtracks playing in the background.
After pigging out on the Special Biryani (which seemed to be special by dint of having big bits of lime still in it) I had some quite vivid and bizarre dreams in which I ended up walking along a street full of houses with darkened windows knowing that there were people hiding in fear inside. In the last house I knew that I somehow had to get into the attic where there was a Macbook computer that I could use to reboot the universe. As I was logging on the webcam flickered into life showing a picture in picture display of the room behind me in infra-red colours with a horribly betentacled and squamous Cthuloid creature approaching. Yikes. Fortunately at this point the alarm went off to wake me up.
Much as I like curry, I fear that curry does not like me very much, hence the title of this post. No more nights out on a school night for me in future.
Unlike most of the known universe, I'm not planning on rushing out to buy Modern Warfare 2 at midnight tonight. After all, it's just another FPS, albeit it looks like a very polished one. I suspect that the second hand market will have plenty of copies soon enough, and I don't mind waiting.
In a shock development we actually went out last night for my friend Andrew's annual birthday curry which started off with some very nice beer in the Devonshire Cat, some middling beer in the Frog and Parrot. We then wondered down to Leopold Square which I had no idea even existed and turned out to be a very cosmopolitan little bit of Sheffield tucked away behind the City Hall, decked out in fancy lights and hosting a variety of bars and eating establishment.
The restaurant we went to was called Aagrah, which disappointingly turned out not to have a dyslexic pirate theme. The decor was very upmarket, the food was ok but quite pricy, and it seemed like the sort of restaurant designed to funnel through large numbers of people with military precision rather than being a relaxed eating experience. I don't imagine that we'll go there again - I much prefer ramshackle Indian restaurants with proper flock wallpaper and Bollywood soundtracks playing in the background.
After pigging out on the Special Biryani (which seemed to be special by dint of having big bits of lime still in it) I had some quite vivid and bizarre dreams in which I ended up walking along a street full of houses with darkened windows knowing that there were people hiding in fear inside. In the last house I knew that I somehow had to get into the attic where there was a Macbook computer that I could use to reboot the universe. As I was logging on the webcam flickered into life showing a picture in picture display of the room behind me in infra-red colours with a horribly betentacled and squamous Cthuloid creature approaching. Yikes. Fortunately at this point the alarm went off to wake me up.
Much as I like curry, I fear that curry does not like me very much, hence the title of this post. No more nights out on a school night for me in future.
Unlike most of the known universe, I'm not planning on rushing out to buy Modern Warfare 2 at midnight tonight. After all, it's just another FPS, albeit it looks like a very polished one. I suspect that the second hand market will have plenty of copies soon enough, and I don't mind waiting.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Sunday Part 1
Actually, it's more Saturday redux.
It was remarkably quiet on the fireworks front, in the end. Just a few whooshes and bags (enough to make Doris go and hide under the sofa bed upstairs) but it was all quiet on the Western front by nine o'clock or so.
As is more or less traditional now half the evening was spent gawping in horrified fascination at the musical bedlam of X Factor. Just when you think that it can't get any dafter it does, with Jedward's Ghostbuster's theme being a particular lowlight. To be fair, it did make me laugh at the sheer chutzpa of the pair of them. After tea, it was time for some more comedy with Harry Hill's TV Burp and then The Thick of It which just gets better each week.
Today has been business as usual - turnip trading in Animal Crossing, base jumping off of skyscrapers in Liberty City, death match mayhem in Eliminate Pro and a new discovery of Super Pet Wars on iPhone. Aces.
Off out for BEER and a CURRY tonight - hurrah!
It was remarkably quiet on the fireworks front, in the end. Just a few whooshes and bags (enough to make Doris go and hide under the sofa bed upstairs) but it was all quiet on the Western front by nine o'clock or so.
As is more or less traditional now half the evening was spent gawping in horrified fascination at the musical bedlam of X Factor. Just when you think that it can't get any dafter it does, with Jedward's Ghostbuster's theme being a particular lowlight. To be fair, it did make me laugh at the sheer chutzpa of the pair of them. After tea, it was time for some more comedy with Harry Hill's TV Burp and then The Thick of It which just gets better each week.
Today has been business as usual - turnip trading in Animal Crossing, base jumping off of skyscrapers in Liberty City, death match mayhem in Eliminate Pro and a new discovery of Super Pet Wars on iPhone. Aces.
Off out for BEER and a CURRY tonight - hurrah!
- 20:11 Why is Dannii wearing a bandage tonight? #xfactor #
- 20:12 Dermot accidentally stumbles on the concept of lesbianism #xfactor #
- 20:19 Ferris Beuller did *not* write Twist and Shout - oh, FFS! #xfactor #
- 20:20 Wonder if he's been playing Beatles Rock Band? #xfactor #
- 20:24 Sounds like they need to get the Modern Warfare 2 team in to get that audience to SHUT UP! #xfactor #
- 20:26 Wonder how much Disney slipped Simon Cowels for the plugs this week #xfactor #
- 20:27 You can *not* make Stand By Me contemporary! Rubbish! #xfactor #
- 20:50 Oooh - she didn't say 'Disney' - she'll be in trouble! #xfactor #
- 20:54 She made it her song - bland and a bit dull #xfactor #
- 20:57 Oooh! Purple Rain! If he murders it, I will cry #xfactor #
- 20:58 Get rid of the backing singers *NOW*! #xfactor #
- 21:09 This could either be brilliant or an absolute shambles ... #xfactor #
- 21:12 Oh - that is quite literally the funnie st thing I have ever seen! # xfactor #
- 21:12 Was the sta-puft marshmallow man doing pelvic thrusts? Wrong! #xfactor #
- 21:14 That's actually the first proper movie song they've had on tonight, therefore Jedward WIN! #xfactor #
- 22:10 #shakespearestarwars Henry IV : A New Hope #
- 10:02 I just conquered "Twister" in geoDefense! bit.ly/X5FNx #
Sunday Links
- ZooBorns: The Everland Zoo's Adorable Fennec Fox Kits My, what big ears you have!
- 私信 Maru vs the laundry box
- Kurt Russell *is* Han Solo In a parallel universe. Maybe.
- Launch of the Ares I-X Real space porn
- Night witches Russian female fighter pilots of World War II
- Google Wave A Complete Guide
- 15 Free Guides That Really Teach You USEFUL Stuff
- Animated stereoviews of old Japan
- Build your own sentry gun Take that Aliens/Zombies/Robots (depending on the apocalypse)
- The Best Zombie Story of the Year
- Eclectic Method Goes Phish 99 classic albums mashed for your listening pleasure
- All Folked Up Folk covers of classic punk songs
- Introduce Your Child to Lovecraft's Horrors with Lil Cthulhu
- Top 10 Dumbest Evil Geniuses Of All Time
- INCREDIBOX Beatbox fun
- Steak House or Gay Bar? You decide.
- Orbital *The* most addictive game on iPhone now available on the web. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
- 10:06 Listening to @CollingsA and @Herring1967 on six music and doing my OU work. #
- 12:17 Midday on #caturday and still in bed twitpic.com/olr9n #
- 13:37 M150 TMA 01 done and dusted. Will leave it for a while before proof reading and submitting it. Now for T175 while listening to @adamgilder #
- 15:55 Just watched www.warriorsofthe.net/ for my t175 course - excellent animation about Internet communication technology #
- 17:17 #realfilmsnotpornfilms Seven Brides for Seven Brothers #
- 17:17 #realfilmsnotpornfilms The Big Red One #
- 17:20 #realfilmsnotpornfilms Shaft #
Sharkey's Night
A weekend lie in until nearly eight, and then opening the curtains to a crisp, clear Autumn day put me in an excellent frame of mind for cracking on with my OU work.
I spent the morning working on my M150 TMA and I think it is pretty good. It doesn't need to be in for another two weeks so I am going to do what I did with the T175 one and leave it for a couple of days and then proof read it before submitting. After lunch I made good headway on Block 2 Part 1 of T175, working through five study sessions in four hours or so. Admittedly, a lot of the material was things that I already knew but it is useful to be able to put things in context with some sort of framework.
I did the classic student thing of listening to the radio whilst working - Collins & Herring sitting in for Adam & Joe in the morning and then Adam Gilder on Adam & Dafydd's Weekend Antics on Rhondda Radio. Good fun.
A quick walk through the piles of leaves in the woods and now time to hunker down against the cold and dark, not forgetting the explosions going on outside, and time for a bit of Animal Crossing.
I spent the morning working on my M150 TMA and I think it is pretty good. It doesn't need to be in for another two weeks so I am going to do what I did with the T175 one and leave it for a couple of days and then proof read it before submitting. After lunch I made good headway on Block 2 Part 1 of T175, working through five study sessions in four hours or so. Admittedly, a lot of the material was things that I already knew but it is useful to be able to put things in context with some sort of framework.
I did the classic student thing of listening to the radio whilst working - Collins & Herring sitting in for Adam & Joe in the morning and then Adam Gilder on Adam & Dafydd's Weekend Antics on Rhondda Radio. Good fun.
A quick walk through the piles of leaves in the woods and now time to hunker down against the cold and dark, not forgetting the explosions going on outside, and time for a bit of Animal Crossing.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Burn baby, burn
Another reasonable night's sleep and having a snooze in until seven helped as well.
The fireworks round these parts were not too bad last night and they were mostly over by ten. I suspect that things are going to a bit more lively tonight and on Saturday, with the pub down the road organising its annual health and safety ignore-a-thon. The animals, apart from Doris, don't seem to be too bothered, which is a relief.
A work at home day, mainly spent reviewing the documentation for our web app. It's starting to make sense, but I have a feeling there's a lot of work to be done on it. One minor bombshell yesterday came from one of the developers on the team who told us that he is leaving after Christmas which will leave us somewhat short handed.
Games news, Animal Crossing and Gay Tony manage both to be excellent at evoking a living, breathing world. In one I am worrying about whether Drake will pack up and move and feeling pleased about catching a goldfish and a pike for the museum, and in the other I am worrying about what that crazy loon Mori is planning to extort from my boss Tony and feeling pleased about stealing an attack helicopter off a yacht full of arms dealers. Good times.
The fireworks round these parts were not too bad last night and they were mostly over by ten. I suspect that things are going to a bit more lively tonight and on Saturday, with the pub down the road organising its annual health and safety ignore-a-thon. The animals, apart from Doris, don't seem to be too bothered, which is a relief.
A work at home day, mainly spent reviewing the documentation for our web app. It's starting to make sense, but I have a feeling there's a lot of work to be done on it. One minor bombshell yesterday came from one of the developers on the team who told us that he is leaving after Christmas which will leave us somewhat short handed.
Games news, Animal Crossing and Gay Tony manage both to be excellent at evoking a living, breathing world. In one I am worrying about whether Drake will pack up and move and feeling pleased about catching a goldfish and a pike for the museum, and in the other I am worrying about what that crazy loon Mori is planning to extort from my boss Tony and feeling pleased about stealing an attack helicopter off a yacht full of arms dealers. Good times.
- 18:51 Check this video out -- Nathan Jay - The Pet Shop Boys Blocked Me On Twitter. bit.ly/1MthZ #
- 11:13 RT @kakapojayne: The BBC interviewed the stars of Sesame Street and the outtakes are better than the interview... tinyurl.com/yd4wwgz #
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Slow Ride
A better night's sleep last night - hopefully Monday and Tuesday this week will turn out to be just a blip on the graph. It certainly helps when the sun is shining though, even if it is that time of year when it shines directly into my eyes as I head up the link road towards the motorway.
One to one session with the boss to review my objectives from my last appraisal, and he still seems happy with what I am doing, so I must be doing something right. I am gradually taking on more responsibilities for different parts of the system and writing specs/mentoring the other developers rather than necessarily coding things myself. A slight change of emphasis, but I still have the opportunity to do some hands on stuff with the web development and reporting tasks.
One useful trick that somebody showed me today was to bite the end off of a chocolate covered biscuit bar and then one of the other corners, and then suck coffee through it. The effect is like eating a pre-dunked biscuit with a semi solid chocolate coating, if you can imagine that. Yum. It was a generic digestive, although I think that a Penguin style biscuit would work too. Apparently the Tim-Tam is the New Zealander's weapon of choice for this purpose. Anybody else heard of this or willing to give it a go?
In games news, I can report that multiplayer Rock Band on iPhone is excellent fun. It's quite nifty hearing the same song coming out of two different handheld machines at the same time and the gameplay is perfectly suited to a quick blast like this. We couldn't work out how to play Eliminate via local Bluetooth though, but my record is still good with me actually winning a match with nine kills compared to the second place player with three. It's worth a download, if only to see the technical achievement of a multi-player FPS deathmatch on a phone.
A slog through the traffic home, but at least I now have gingerbread syrup to go in my frothy coffee - hurrah!
One to one session with the boss to review my objectives from my last appraisal, and he still seems happy with what I am doing, so I must be doing something right. I am gradually taking on more responsibilities for different parts of the system and writing specs/mentoring the other developers rather than necessarily coding things myself. A slight change of emphasis, but I still have the opportunity to do some hands on stuff with the web development and reporting tasks.
One useful trick that somebody showed me today was to bite the end off of a chocolate covered biscuit bar and then one of the other corners, and then suck coffee through it. The effect is like eating a pre-dunked biscuit with a semi solid chocolate coating, if you can imagine that. Yum. It was a generic digestive, although I think that a Penguin style biscuit would work too. Apparently the Tim-Tam is the New Zealander's weapon of choice for this purpose. Anybody else heard of this or willing to give it a go?
In games news, I can report that multiplayer Rock Band on iPhone is excellent fun. It's quite nifty hearing the same song coming out of two different handheld machines at the same time and the gameplay is perfectly suited to a quick blast like this. We couldn't work out how to play Eliminate via local Bluetooth though, but my record is still good with me actually winning a match with nine kills compared to the second place player with three. It's worth a download, if only to see the technical achievement of a multi-player FPS deathmatch on a phone.
A slog through the traffic home, but at least I now have gingerbread syrup to go in my frothy coffee - hurrah!
- 21:36 I just won a match of Eliminate on iPhone with 9 kills - w00t! #
- 06:55 RT @geoDefense: Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords is a geoDefense fan. Neat. ow.ly/zliE #
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