Back from Holiday

Just arrived home from a very relaxing holiday in France.

This week I have:

• Started to design a Slitherlink solver with my Dad
• Become a Five-Star Commander on Elite Beat Agents
• Been converted to Linux, (possibly)
• Become Audiosurf champion of "Shine Jesus Shine"
• Failed to set an Audiosurf time for John Cage's 4'33
• Decided to buy an ultra-portable PC
• Spoke a total of two words in French, one of which was "Margherita", (the French word for Margherita)
  
• Not done any Maths...

I'll be moving in on Monday - and then straight to the Library on Tuesday to catch up on missed time.

Good News Nobody

So I have had a few days to digest the news. Next year I will be a student. Does this mean I will be a grumpy fifth year, or a raving fresher?

<- Is this what I am to become?

Yesterday really was quite a great day of sport. Watched the Grand Prix at the cinema, which was an interesting experience but definitely not worth the money over plain old TV. Was a brilliant race though. An englishman dominating at the British Grand Prix in a British Car (with a German engine). 

Right, I would say something else here; my awful admission. My dark dark secret. I will never tell... Am I the biggest nerd of the house? Is the end of the world....?

P.S. Who is this "John" in Chuck's post.... "That's not my name!"

"Working from home"

I will be returning to Durham next weekend, on Saturday afternoon to be more precise. For this week though, I am working from home... which basically means I have to read a few papers and look at a couple of websites from the comfort of my own bedroom... and get paid! Hurray! I like this job. 

In the week that has passed since I left Durham I haven't really done anything particularly exciting. I took my tortoise to the pet shop to check it's sex; went to a barbeque; bought Eden's graduation present (which I am rather pleased with) and unpacked. Unpacking did seem slightly unnecessary seeing as it was only for two weeks, but unfortunately most of my clothes needed washing. 

Well, this would have been a more interesting blog if my tortoise had in fact been male and I had to face the dilemma that his name was Tallullah. Unfortunately "it's tail hangs in the middle" as the man in the pet shop said, so I'll have to work harder next week to make my life more interesting...

The house is ours!

So, we've owned the house for 24 hours now - and we're still all talking to each other... (Well I doubt that anybody other than Chuckspresence have talked to each other today as we're all miles apart from each other, but at least nobody is actively not talking to anybody else... (Well I assume that you're not, although to be fair I haven't heard anything from any of you today, so maybe you are all avoiding me?))

In other news, I managed to fix my new computer this evening, so I am now officially unpacked.

Wanted: One film with an ending please. Must have own internal coherence.

So I just saw Wanted and I have to say it wasn't what I expected. Okay that's a lie; all I really expected was Angelina Jolie to get naked at some point and that box remains thoroughly ticked. I'm still left a bit wanting though (and not just for Angelina Jolie).

Wanted is a film about a guy who is picked up out of his ordinary humdrum life and firmly plonked in the middle of an assassin war. So far, so good. But the first twenty minutes of the film are just a slightly less funny version of Office Space, and whilst the middle section contains the obligatory, and in this case reasonably entertaining, training sequence I do find it stretching the bounds of probability that one can go from loser to best assassin in the world inside six weeks.

However, the fun doesn't stop there. They bend bullets, and I don't mean in a "With the power of my mind", Uri Geller kind of way; I mean they can put spin on the trajectory of a bullet that quite frankly puts most high-class spin bowlers to shame. Monty Panesar's got nothing on Angelina Jolie who can apparently put so much spin on her bullets that whilst standing on the edge of a circular room she can shoot herself in the right temple by aiming left.

All this is small potatoes compared to the fact that they get their Assassination orders from a loom, interpreted using (as far as I can tell) some weird combination of binary and ASCII codes. From fate, to the loom, to Morgan Freeman (whom as we all know, is actually God anyway). And lets not even get into the whole "Our bullets collide in mid-air when we shoot each other!" or the "Your heart can beat at over 400 times a minute, whence your magical assassin powers!" aspects of the film.

The ending is what really ruined this for me though. I could overlook all the above if the ending was good, but my god was it pisspoor. Essentially Angelina does all the hard work and then we get some semi-philisophical whine about taking control of your own life - via the means of a mystical loom? I was certainly confused.

In short (and remember I've read more sci-fi/fantasy than you can shake a stick at), this film requires too great a level of suspension of disbelief, has weird Oedipal overtones and the ending sucks. Angelina's still fit though.

Boozy's First Entry

I too have returned to my hometown, although I appear to have only one problem in common with Armstrong and that is the ever-present packing/unpacking annoyance that is the worst thing about going to university. However as I am home for only a couple of weeks I haven't unpacked too much as i have to pack up at least four more times before next academic year.

While I have said that the above is the worst thing about university there is another strong contender and that is having to say goodbye to lots of people that won't be returning next year. Durham's going to be a very different place without a lot of the people that I've met over the past three years, and it's sad that I wasn't able to stay in Durham to see tham all graduate. Please all come back for returners and save me from the House of Maths!

There is, however, a lot to look forward to next year, but first I have an exciting summer ahead of me, mostly spent in places beginning with E...

Chapter 2: Being sent to Coventry

• I returned to Coventry this week.
• I may never see some people ever again.
• I am too sad to write in paragraphs.

Exercise 2.1:

i) How should one attempt to unpack the contents of a full (university) bedroom into another already full (home) bedroom?
ii) Upon returning home from University, how much money, (mainly in coppers), would be a surprising amount to find at the back of a bedroom cupboard that has remained undisturbed for a number of years?
iii) How many times does the earth rotate about its axis in 365 days?
iv) Boozy promised me that she'd write a blog last Saturday, four days have passed and she still hasn't, why not?
v) Why is it that every time I turn my computer on, the house Internet connection turns off, and every time that I turn my PC off, we regain Internet access... regardless of whether or not I have an Ethernet cable or wireless network card connected to my computer?

Solutions:

i) Don't bother, the problem is clearly impossible.
ii) £55.41
iii) approx. 366. Note that other sources e.g. Number Six, claim that the answer is 365. Note further, that these sources are wrong.
iv) Because she's a liar.
v) My best guess is radio interference with our router, but I've no idea what would cause this - any guesses would be welcomed.