Journal: September 2006

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Stacking
Thu 28/9/06 (Link to this entry)

At lunch today James was playing with some of the little plastic cups you get at the water coolers dotted around the campus at work, and I suggested that he try taking up cup stacking. Apparently this is a competitive sport to the degree that it is possible to hold a world record in it, as evidenced by this video of a girl with... well, a girl with far too much time on her (admittedly lightning-fast) hands.

God dammit
Tue 26/9/06 (Link to this entry)

A plague upon the house of whoever it was who decided that the only way I'd be able to keep up with the Celtic game tonight is via the crap text commentary on the BBC sport site. No TV coverage (only on satellite or ITV Scotland), no radio down here (obviously), and not even online radio ('contractual reasons' apparently). Bastards. I'm off to the pub to sulk.

2 away...
Sun 24/9/06 (Link to this entry)

Charlotte, Tom and I went bowling today and I got a score of 161 in our second game. That's 2 away from my personal best. How very vexing.

After a quick visit to Frankie & Benny's (gotta love genuine Italian-style pizza), we rolled round to Tom's house where we watched The Bone Collector, which was a fairly entertaining crime/forensics thriller - a good one for the CSI fans out there.

Phew
Fri 22/9/06 (Link to this entry)

Man, am I glad it's the weekend. It's been a very busy week. It's been fairly lively at work, with plenty of interesting tickets coming up and confusing the hell out of me. We also attended a presentation about some upcoming stuff from Sun which we then had to give a presentation about to the rest of the lab staff. No details here, sorry - strictly NDA stuff :P

I've been pretty busy at home too, using most of my spare time to brush up on my Java skills as they're likely to get called into action soonish. Thankfully it's all coming back to me, although I really hope I'll be able to use Eclipse at work as the idea of programming without it is painful.

Here's to a relaxing weekend - my plans include listening to the first Old Firm match of the season, reading the book my boss lent me (Watchman, a pre-Rebus Ian Rankin book; he lent me The Flood last week and it was excellent), and doing a grand total of not much else :D

Heavy lifting
Mon 18/9/06 (Link to this entry)

It's just as well I keep myself fairly fit. Today at work we were doing a fair bit of moving servers around between our two labs (which are in different buildings). After lugging a fully-loaded SunBlade b1600 chassis from one building to another, I decided to look up how heavy it was - apparently it was over 40kg. It's amazing quite how much these things weigh, as that's only a 3U unit (fairly small as rackmount servers go).

Chris can also attest to the weight of the Cisco network switch which we moved out of our main lab, because I managed to drop it on his finger :-/

Wait... it's a York?
Sun 17/9/06 (Link to this entry)

I went to the British Longbow Society's Target Championships at Burnham yesterday with my dad (who, amusingly, gave me a lift for 20 miles, having travelled over 400 himself). I thought it was a Western round (8 dozen arrows at medium distance) but it turned out to be a York (12 dozen, mostly at long distance). This turned out to be somewhat vexing...

Considering that's at 100 yards, that's not a bad grouping... shame that it's five yards away from the target! Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable day; Archer's Lodge (home of the Royal Toxophilite Society) is a very nice shooting ground and the company was good, even if the craic was a little tame compared to the norm up North.

I was also rather taken by the cuddies grazing peacefully in the field just next to the shooting ground, who kindly ambled over whenever I pointed the camera at them (they probably thought I had food, the poor saps).

The shoot was followed up by the Society's annual AGM, which was... interesting. There's a bit of politics going on at the moment concerning the Society's rules concerning what is and isn't a longbow. After a couple of hours of argument, we seem to have gotten a sensible decision on what to do about it but it's all missing the point really. The whole thing about the BLBS is to preserve the traditional pursuit of longbow archery and the craftsmanship associated with it, and to have fun doing it. Once you start quibbling about the exact angle between the string and the nock, you're missing the whole point of the BLBS.

In other news, Hibs gave the Rangers a cuffing today. This potentially makes next week's Old Firm derby at Parkhead very interesting, especially since Bardsley got himself sent off and won't be able to play in that game.

Sigh
Fri 15/9/06 (Link to this entry)

Ok, this week has just been crud. I've not been feeling too good, I'm not sleeping well, I missed the Celtic game (which sounded like a stoater, even though we lost), I accidentally deleted half my files in work (n00b) and to cap it all off my cheap-ass bike's falling apart.

The latest thing to go wrong with the bloody thing is the pedals, which are disintegrating. I have to be very careful to apply pressure on the other side of the pedal from that crack, otherwise it'll just open up more. There's a similar one developing on the other side too but I'm more concerned on that side by the crank, which is wearing away and making horrible creaking noises. Throw in the worn brakes and the lack of a fifth gear, and I think I'm going to need a new bike sooner rather than later :-/

Thank f%&@ it's the weekend...

Bad joke time
Tue 12/9/06 (Link to this entry)

I got a text from Gus today. Just in case I'd been missing his particular brand of 'humour', he decided to share a joke with me. To my surprise it wasn't that bad.

A girl walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. The barman gives her one.

OK, so maybe it is that bad...

Rice cooker = win
Sat 9/9/06 (Link to this entry)

Rice cookers with integrated steamer trays are good. You put in rice, you put in water, you fill the steamer tray with veg, you turn it on and leave it for twenty minutes or so. Then you come back, grate some cheese, then mix it all together and you've got risotto (of sorts).

Quick and simple - the way cooking should be :D

Arrrrrrrrrrr
Fri 8/9/06 (Link to this entry)

Thursday night was a day for swashbuckling and carousing. The guys from Blackwater hosted a pirate party for all the interns at Sun - fancy dress compulsory. I settled for the somewhat lame option of wearing my kilt and gillie shirt and claiming to be a Scottish pirate (although I also had the idea of sticking a carrot on my shoulder and calling myself a dyslexic pirate).

An inordinate amount of silliness and alcohol ensued, especially due to the drinking games where rules were literally being made up as we went along. I've made a small gallery of photos from the night which is available here.

Wha's lik' us?
Wed 6/9/06 (Link to this entry)

As I write this, Scotland sit proudly atop their Euro 2008 qualifying group due to a gutsy 2-1 away win in Lithuania. Fair play also to Northern Ireland, who beat Spain 3-2 tonight.

Better enjoy this while we can, seeing as we're still to play Italy, France and the Ukraine - world cup champions, runners-up and quarter-finalists respectively :-/

Oh dear
Tue 5/9/06 (Link to this entry)

grannied adj.
Sports related: pool: beaten by eight balls, having potted no balls when one's opponent pots the black ball to win the game

fucking owned adj.
Grannied by a girl, esp. in public places. See also denied

|:-(

My shiny thing
Sat 2/9/06 (Link to this entry)

My new mp3 player arrived today at the unspeakable hour of ten o'clock (seriously now, who's up at that time on a Saturday?). Obligatory picture below; the screen looks a bit washed out in the photo, but it's actually fairly vibrant in real life.

Initial impressions: very good. I've got around 75 albums on there, which means a total play time of around three days. The interface is pretty easy to use and the sound quality is very good, even despite my cheap-ass earbuds. It's small and light but it feels fairly sturdy, and the battery life seems ok from what I can tell. All in all, seems like a good buy so far :)

In other news, I'm currently listening to the Scotland game against the Faroe Islands. The Scots are finding themselves in the unusual position of being 5-0 up at half time. I keep pinching myself but it seems to really be happening!

25 of a kind
Fri 1/9/06 (Link to this entry)

It's that time of the month when I have to give a big dollop of money to Craig. This month it's a bit extra as I'm paying for an extra 12 days (this means I'm paying rent at the same time as everyone else, which makes life easier), which means it's a cool half grand being handed over today.

25 of a kind... now that's a good hand!

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