Journal: June 2007

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179 :-D
Tue 26/6/07 (Link to this entry)

Somewhat irritatingly, we seem to have found a good balance of activities for a night out everyone can enjoy. I say this is irritating because in a month's time or so, a lot of people are going to be moving away so it's a bit late in the day to have worked out the secret formula. Oh well.

After our weekly badminton session (only one graze this week, my self-control is improving), we all met up for bowling at the alley which is conveniently located about forty yards from the badminton courts. There was about ten of us there for the bowling so there was a fair amount of good craic flying about. I also managed to beat my previous record for bowling by a healthy margin, recording a rather spiffy 179.

In anticipation of the cries of derision and disbelief from certain gentlemen up north, I present photographic evidence:

As I said, it's a bit upsetting that we're only just beginning to make a habit of nights like this as it's good fun. It's all a bit scary, really - over the next couple of months or so, pretty much all of my mates around here are going to be moving away, including my housemates Jay and Maddy. Thankfully our new interns for next year are starting next week and they seem a good bunch, so things aren't all doom and gloom. Here's hoping they all like badminton and bowling!

Vindicated Mk. II
Fri 22/6/07 (Link to this entry)

Hot on the heels of the revelation that the 'b' word is in fact one of the most annoying words on the planet, I bring you another chapter in my crusade against the electronic plague that is Web 2.0. This edition is courtesy of the excellent geeky comic strip User Friendly.

For the last time: I am not joining any 'social networking' sites. Ever. I waste enough of my time in front of a computer screen as it is, dammit.

Vindicated
Thu 21/6/07 (Link to this entry)

It seems that I'm not the only person in the world who hates the 'b' word. A poll conducted by YouGov has revealed that it's officially the third most-annoying word on the internet, surpassed only by its derivative 'blogosphere' and another word which I've never even heard of, 'folksonomy'.

Indeed, three out of the top ten on the list are actually derivatives of the 'b' word, meaning that between them and the word itself, it's probably by far the most annoying word on the internet (and in fact probably the entire known universe). Although I have to admit that 'webinar' comes pretty close in my blook.

It's getting hot in here...
Sat 16/6/07 (Link to this entry)

All this hot weather we've been having recently is taking its toll on me. Down here in Surrey we seem to be avoiding the worst of the wet weather across the UK just now and instead are getting blazing sunshine most days. I'm not complaining too much as I've managed to avoid cycling to work in the rain, but the heat is giving me headaches, especially when I'm working hard (or playing hard, as I was on Tuesday - badminton singles against someone who's much better than me :-/ ).

I'm not the only one feeling the heat, either - my computer is howling away like a banshee as I write this, the CPU fan having spun up to maximum to deal with the extra heat. I'm a bit worried about it as it shouldn't be this badly affected. I hope it's not going to die on me any time soon!

This week's been a bit quieter than the last, with a fuller compliment of teammates at work and a less exhausting itenarary outside of it. One thing I have done, though, is go and see Ocean's Thirteen, which was very enjoyable - not as good as the first, but definitely a big improvement over the second. Worth seeing. Now I just need to sort out a time to go and see Pirates of the Caribbean with someone...

Ghost under the machine
Sat 9/6/07 (Link to this entry)

It would appear that our lab is haunted. We're not sure what the spirit is trying to tell us, since we didn't have a ouija board to hand, but it's clearly an attempt at communication from a non-earthly realm.

Of course, given that the machine in the video above is a McData SAN switch, this could be an exciting new high-bandwidth transmission technique using telekinetic energy as the medium. I guess we'll have to call it "IP-over-Ether" seeing as the term "ethernet" is already taken...

Outside of work I've been pretty active this week, having been to the bowling (156 - not bad, I deem) and played badminton twice. My exuberant badminton playing style has taken its toll on my body somewhat, though; I've managed to bugger up my left wrist, I have a nasty friction burn on my hip from the waistband on my shorts, and my elbows have taken a bit of a beating, as seen below.

In a perverse way, I'm kind of proud of the arm. I don't bruise easily so it's quite a feat to get such extensive coverage. My housemate Jay has suggested that I might want to play with elbowpads in future. I think he might be on to something!

Oooh, a minion
Mon 4/6/07 (Link to this entry)

For the next week, I'm no longer at the bottom of the food chain in work. We've got a teenager working with us for a week's work placement, so we interns have got a minion to aid us in our efforts to break maintain the lab. Handy, since three of the guys are off on a course this week.

That being said, it's almost a curse in disguise. Because of the highly-technical nature of our work, there isn't all that much that we can give the lad to do short of donkey work. We don't want to saddle him with crappy donkey work (see what I did there), so it's kind of like a catch 22. For the moment we're just walking him through some of the things we do day-to-day. He seems interested enough, so here's hoping he'll get some decent experience out of the week.

At home I've been busily catching up with the latest series of Doctor Who, which is so far proving to be up to standards. The Evolution of the Daleks one was particularly good. I'm still not sure about the new assistant, but that being said it took me a while to warm to Billie Piper and she turned out to be really good. The current situation in the series is making me think I really should get around to watching Torchwood too, so it looks like I won't be bored as I wait for the next episode.

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