Author: tola

I promised everyone I would be in Bed by 10, and I am. I brought the laptop with me so I could post this.

I’m currently living in a surreal insomnia-driven myopia caused by almost exactly 48 hours of no proper sleep. At one point I was trying a half an hour sleep, hour of work thing but it was pointless and silly. I’m in the position now I kept telling myself I wouldn’t get into after last year.

I blame myself entirely this time, no scape goat like ill health. I’m pushing deadlines further and further back to a silly point and not leaving time for what I should really be concentrating on. I’m exhausted by the monotomy of boring pointless academic exercises and grunt work which I feel perhaps illogically compelled to get out of the way before I start the “important” stuff.

I’m completely baffled as to what’s going on in #imen, and have a profound, uncomfortable feeling of not caring either. I have a suspicion that #imenv2 really isn’t going to help anyone until some critical bug fixes are released for the old version.

To those who think I’m being silly getting stressed about my A-levels – I envy you. I envy your position on the road with this all behind you, a position from which you can look back down the road and realise the mountain suddenly looks a whole lot smaller than it did and might, in fact, make a comfortable home for a mole. But I just ask you to remember that everything is relative and I have yet to reach that point, please be a little more sympathetic until I finish climbing this mole hill and discover in my own time what it really is. I have to discover it for myself.

So anyway, I clamber on this journey of self discovery or whatever it is. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and that’s what I must concentrate on.

I’m deeply saddened to hear the bad news quinophex has informed us of. All the best to him and wilduck, my thoughts are with you both.

It feels like I have no life outside DT coursework this weekend. I’ve taken some cool photos and designed a nify poster for it though. I’ve realised that what’s left is basically a huge copying up exercise. I have all the material, just need to get it all down on pretty A3 sheets. Mum has been extremely helpful finding me obscure little pieces for my model.

We’ve now had the third BBQ in a row to try and make the most of the good weather – of which I’ve seen very little. I want to sit out in the sunshine 🙁

Right, looks like I’m in for an all-nighter. It’s a good job I produce my best work when nearing a mental breakdown really.

mchicago got old. His birthday was technically yesterday now though.

Had a cool day with lauperr which almost let me forget about the amount of work I have to do.

Blah. It’s started, it’s all starting to pile on. But only two and a half months before it’s all over… :S

Turns out my DT deadline is sooner than I thought which is the biggest problem at the moment. One of the exams clashes with my Physics retake (which I’m regretting doing because I haven’t had time to look at the work). On a plus note, maths didn’t seem too bad today.

I stopped late half an hour after school to do some computing coursework and was just shutting down my computer when djkoa came through the door. With my bike. He claims that someone was trying to steal it, so obviously the best idea was to bring it up to the IT department, walking past the caretaker on the way up the stairs, to keep it safe. Oh his logic does amuse me.

After frowning at him for a while I got over the initial shock and thought it would be pretty neat to have a ride round the IT department, much to the amusement of a few girls sitting at computers in the next room.

lauperr saw me feeling glum and bought me cake to make me happy again. I did try to explain that sugary foods will not solve all my problems, but she seemed strangely content, so I let it be. I really do love her quirks.

I had to pursuade a bee to leave my room last night. I’m sure bees shouldn’t be out this time of year, but this one had come out especially to irritate me and was walking up and down my window. I left the window open and left the room for an hour. Came back, assumed it had gone and shut the window. A couple of hours later, BZZZZZZ.

Now tarantulas, snakes, scorpians, big dogs, crocodiles, mice and rats don’t bother me, but I have a thing about bees, and also daddy long legs. Daddy long legs bother me because the fall apart when you try to set them free (it’s always baffled me how they have managed to survive evolution), and bees and wasps have a deadly weapon attached to their tails AND they can fly which gives them a distinct advantage over me. Perhaps it was being stung by a wasp as a child in a playground, or perhaps I’m just a wimp, but I really don’t like bees flying around my head in enclosed spaces.

I caught the bee under a glass (it was this big!! |—————-|) and put it outside, then ran back in and shut the door to stop it following me. I locked the door, went into the kitchen to pour a drink to recover from the experience and heard a “BZZZ, BZZZ” and leapt out of my skin. It was my phone vibrating with a text message from laura checking I had survived the ordeal.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, I was getting very paranoid about a very large company and a huge computer and whether or not this was a good thing and what exactly they were planning on doing with it in the future… then I went to sleep.

djkoa and lauperr got told off today, because I broke the plastic knife laura was trying to stab everyone with.

Woooo! My fax2email service works!

blergh.

Yes, it’s true, the hippygeek now half owns a Skoda Favorit GLXi with his brother. This mean machine cost a mere £595, comes with sunroof and alloy wheels as standard and has a new exhaust and four new shock absorbers. Oh and a minor oil leak. After bribing the bank manager to allow me to take out £295 from a £100-a-day account the cash was handed over, the papers signed and it now sits on the drive…

Behind the hippymobile (1980 VW Camper)…

So I now have no money. Unfortunately I don’t actually have a full driving license… yet either… and it’s not taxed… or insured… and it has about a 5th of a tank of petrol. I am, however, very proud to own a Skoda. I find the stigma attached to the name mildly amusing, especially seeing as as far as I can tell it’s basically got a VW engine in it, so will probably go on forever.

Lots of hacking at PHP yesterday and I’ve finally finished my Bus Route Planner which comes to around 600 lines of code.

I ordered 500 “free” business cards and registered a domain overnight for my backup plan for next year.

Friday night was fun with lots of old friends coming back from uni and in town pubbing and “clubbing”.

Lost the pub quiz again tonight, the team that stole our table have turned out to be shockingly horrible people. I do still have my raffle ticket with the number 42 on it though, so it’s all good.

Now we get to the most important news, lauperr PASSED HER DRIVING TEST! I’m so proud of her, and I’ve also noticed quite a distinct change in her since she did, a good change. She seems a lot happier now she’s not imprisoned in her home! Hopefully the novelty of being able to give everyone lifts will wear off before the diesel money does :P, but with a bit of luck the confidence boost will stick.

Oh, a very interesting article about GMail here: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4707 – I know I know I’m sad, but I find it interesting.

Amongst the other fascinating things I’ve achieved over the Easter holiday I’ve tried to sort out my use of email addresses.

but nobody wants to hear the boring details

Had an interesting meeting with mchicago on Friday. After we finished cleaning up the bottle of home brewed Ginger Ale he managed to smash on the patio (lol) we geeked about the next stage in our world domination plans, quite exciting. Then he left and djkoa turned up to discuss capture cards and Svideo inputs for a video he’s shooting (with bouncykaz‘s broadcast quality camera, mwahaha).

I’ve just finished an extremely relaxing 4 day “pretend” holiday with lauperr. Spent half a day at my cousin Kate’s who I haven’t seen for ages and love dearly. She seems to be coping pretty well with married life and has a lovely little flat. There were 12 family members in one room and almost complete silence. It seems we are such a boring lot that we have nothing to talk about! I bought Minority Report on DVD and a Practical Driving Test CD-ROM before heading back to lauperr‘s.

I’ve now had the fun taken out of me for Sunday when lauperr and I sat at either end of the sofa with his and hers WiFi laptops talking to each other on IRC whilst watching the matrix triology back to back. Apparently that’s sad or something?

We went for a brief drink in the pub and I bought a raffle ticket with the number 42 on it, was sure I was going to win, but didn’t. Then djkoa turned up at the house and chatted for a bit.

Monday morning was cool, we went for a wander in the fields to visit the lambs, my lamb is sheep 7 which I have (in a very original manner) named Shaun. No sign of sheep 109 thank goodness! We sat on a bridge over a river and played pooh sticks, rescued the river (stream!) from a fallen log which was blocking its path and generally enjoyed the sunshine. I won’t say any more about our “holiday” because I could go on forever. Except maybe the fact I ate too much and put on about 7lbs in four days. More detailed account on lauperr‘s lj.

Since my last post reubs and I have been to look at two cars for sale. I really need a car for next year. The first was one of those cute little Fiats with the funny name that seem to have an interior made of cardboard. They wanted £1000 and it was worth a maximum of £800. Then there was a white metro which was OK but it was worth about £400 and had no tax and they would only go down to £625. Pah. I want a landrover or my own VW camper with a split screen, but I can’t afford them either 😛

I realised today that I have a very short amount of time in which to choose between Nottingham and Warwick University for Computer Science and convince my firm and insurance offers to let me defer my entry. I’m going to try and visit Warwick again this week. I ended up talking to a girl in the Warwick compsoc IRC channel who is in her third year at Nottingham University (!) and went to my school (!!) Had an interesting conversation about her fascinating relationship. She is a bisexual with a bisexual Bisexual F2M Transexual boyfriend. (!!!) Figure that one out. She asked about Mr C (if he’s reading) and also Mr Underhill’s boring GS lessons. (We did also talk about universities!)

I found out that Ella (efields) has an lj and it has me wondering what other old friends might have a blog. All hail the goddess! *bows*

I’ve apparently been added to the soon-to-be-made-public Planet ALUG site for users’ web logs, so now all of ALUG get to listen my aimless ramble as well as my lj buddies 😛

That long enough for you wonchop? Oh, Wonchop just released a hilarious new Flash animation and luckily djkoa and Ruthy saw the funny side…

mwahaha, Friday was fun.

djkoa and I set up our own cinema at school with the intention of watching Matrix Revolutions with a small group of friends on the day of its release… without anyone finding out. The cinema was set up the night before and consisted of a brand new 3Kw sound system, a PC with a DVD drive and Audigy sound card, a mixer, a VGA projector and a 9 foot projection screen. All were borrowed with semi-permission and worked wonderfully together. A pin sharp, large image on the screen and crystal clarity sound with floor shaking bass.

The most cunning part was the location. Where in the school can be made dark enough for the projection during daylight yet would not be discovered for two whole days? The last place anyone would think of looking of course, the *main hall* *on the stage!* Anyone walking into the hall would see nothing but the green curtains and hear a soundtrack coming from somewhere, would think they were going mad and would walk right past.

The Deputy Head found us testing it out at lunchtime so we told him we were testing out the sound system (which was true) and watching djkoa‘s home video, (which was also true at the time). The most interesting part was convincing the caretakers not to go back stage while they were locking up, we stopped until 7pm.

Sixth Form had the afternoon off so we watched the film then while lessons were going on everywhere else in the school. One amusing moment was when the head of physics got curious, took a peek, saw us, saw the projection and walked off again. I can only assume that he assumed there must be a teacher present, or he was just being cool about it.

Anyway, amazing film. Afterwards, just to put the icing on the cake we had a personal disco and Dr H walked through the hall completely bemused at me, djkoa and lauperr dancing to Saturday Night on the stage.

Afterwards was chippy and pubbing with djkoa, lauperr and onelessmoment which was a lot of fun. Had a discussion with some people about vw campers! I watched the Revolutions DVD extras with lauperr this morning, bought 4 DVDs (due to mum’s evil impulsive buying influence (they were a damned good offer and I’ve wanted them all for ages)), joined blockbuster properly and got quotes for car insurance, ha!

Done some cool stuff with DT recently. Designed part of my model in Pro-Desktop, had the Boxford 3D router cut it out in Pine, then vacuum formed over the top of it to get a plastic piece.

So, two weeks, two pieces of coursework. I see purpose.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/36691.html

If only it wasn’t April 1st…

from userfriendly.org

Cross posting? I don’t care.

The weather today was amazing, I’d forgotten what sunshine looked like and now I can’t wait for the summer.