So... when I was away over summer I had a tiny bit of athletes' foot in between two of my toes on my right foot. I have no idea what went wrong but since I came back it decided that it had had enough of being confined to two toes and decided to spread to the whole of my foot.
I was pretty surprised about this... I've not seen such severe athletes' foot before and almost considered going to the doctor to get something prescribed. In the end I realised that I wouldn't do that, because I couldn't be bothered. But what I did do is go to Boots and ask them for some cream. What I got was a little tube of Lamisil AT 1% cream for £5. It's supposed to do the job in a week and I reckon it will do.
I've put it on about three or four times now and the difference is absolutely amazing. What previously looked all horrible and scary now just looks like a bit of a rash. In another week I'll be surprised if there is any indication there was anything wrong at all.
This was a (too-much-detail) public service announcement brought to you by Lamisil AT 1% cream!
Friday, 28 October 2005
Thursday, 27 October 2005
Lord diff
A big shout out to the amazing UNIX utility that is...
I copied a large directory (15GB) from a USB hard disk to a local hard disk and wanted to verify the integrity of the files. After asking in a Unix forum and being pointed in two directions I thought... why not use
What a great tool diff is. Not only can it compare files and show all sorts of useful output but it can also compare directories, recursively, if required.
So, my problem was solved with a quick:
The
Well done
diff.I copied a large directory (15GB) from a USB hard disk to a local hard disk and wanted to verify the integrity of the files. After asking in a Unix forum and being pointed in two directions I thought... why not use
diff?What a great tool diff is. Not only can it compare files and show all sorts of useful output but it can also compare directories, recursively, if required.
So, my problem was solved with a quick:
diff -qr /home2/photos/thailand /media/usbdisk/photos/thailandThe
-q option specifies that output is short (i.e. should not specifically show the changes, just state that differences exist) and the -r option specifies that it should recursively compare subdirectories.Well done
diff!
Wednesday, 26 October 2005
Pies
Things have been a little slow recently but today they cranked up a gear (or two!).
With a whopping turnout of just three people at the CompSoc AGM today I voted myself onto the committee as Chairman and Secretary and Vlad is now the Treasurer. Andrew Robinson (addweb) stayed on as an admin while Paul left as chairman. If that wasn't enough I was invited to another photoSoc committee meeting, which was nice.
The rest of the day was spent messing about with noisy (the main CompSoc server) as well as trying to contact the Chinese society who have outstanding fees on their CompSoc account. I also made my first visit to the library to take out a wireless networking course textbook in response to the tests tomorrow.
Lots of things to be getting on with for a good while yet. If I find a few minutes I might upload a photo of my new* SLR camera ;)
With a whopping turnout of just three people at the CompSoc AGM today I voted myself onto the committee as Chairman and Secretary and Vlad is now the Treasurer. Andrew Robinson (addweb) stayed on as an admin while Paul left as chairman. If that wasn't enough I was invited to another photoSoc committee meeting, which was nice.
The rest of the day was spent messing about with noisy (the main CompSoc server) as well as trying to contact the Chinese society who have outstanding fees on their CompSoc account. I also made my first visit to the library to take out a wireless networking course textbook in response to the tests tomorrow.
Lots of things to be getting on with for a good while yet. If I find a few minutes I might upload a photo of my new* SLR camera ;)
Friday, 21 October 2005
Gaim 2.0.0+cvs20051021
I decided I wanted to give the latest Gaim CVS version a try so I installed all of the necessary Ubuntu development packages and created myself an Ubuntu package. This is from Friday October 21 at about 2am (GMT+1). It seems to work fairly well, although bits are obviously still missing due to the nature of a CVS build.
Feel free to try the package for yourself if you want to see what's to come. You can install it under Ubuntu without much trouble by removing gaim-data and gaim (which will force ubuntu-desktop to be removed). Once you done that simply run:
followed by
Enjoy!
Feel free to try the package for yourself if you want to see what's to come. You can install it under Ubuntu without much trouble by removing gaim-data and gaim (which will force ubuntu-desktop to be removed). Once you done that simply run:
sudo dpkg -i gaim_1:1.9.9+cvs20051021-1_i386.debfollowed by
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktopEnjoy!
Thursday, 20 October 2005
OpenOffice.org 2
OpenOffice.org version 2.0 has been released!
Congratulations to the OOo development team. For anybody that's not given it a try yet, now's a good time. OOo can import many Microsoft Office-created documents and save in native Microsoft file formats.
With any luck Office will soon support the new OpenDocument format that OOo, AbiWord and KOffice have already introduced.
Congratulations to the OOo development team. For anybody that's not given it a try yet, now's a good time. OOo can import many Microsoft Office-created documents and save in native Microsoft file formats.
With any luck Office will soon support the new OpenDocument format that OOo, AbiWord and KOffice have already introduced.
Wednesday, 19 October 2005
Exposure
I got my photoSoc exposure lecture done today. It seemed to go fairly well... we (Vlad and I) turned up, set up my camera on a tripod, attached the USB cable to the laptop and fired up the presentation.
Quite how many people understood the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and film sensitivity at the end, I don't know. What I do know is that all of the prepared questions were answered properly and nobody asked any questions, even when I asked them to ask. Let's just hope for the best.
The camera and USB cable was good -- right at the last minute I discovered that Nikon Capture could be be used to remote control my camera, so this did a really good job of providing a live way of demonstrating that adjusting the shutter speed with a fixed aperture allowed an image to be made darker or lighter and vice versa.
Otherwise, I'm fairly happy it went off so well. I didn't stumble over my words and say "like" a lot, as far as I can tell. I maybe spoke a little quickly but that's the really hard one to fix ;)
Afterwards Rog, the chairman, invited me to stay behind and sit in on the committee meeting, which was nice. It's a lot different from the way CompSoc works, really. Lots of people do lots of things... and there are girls! Who'd'a thunk?
Quite how many people understood the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and film sensitivity at the end, I don't know. What I do know is that all of the prepared questions were answered properly and nobody asked any questions, even when I asked them to ask. Let's just hope for the best.
The camera and USB cable was good -- right at the last minute I discovered that Nikon Capture could be be used to remote control my camera, so this did a really good job of providing a live way of demonstrating that adjusting the shutter speed with a fixed aperture allowed an image to be made darker or lighter and vice versa.
Otherwise, I'm fairly happy it went off so well. I didn't stumble over my words and say "like" a lot, as far as I can tell. I maybe spoke a little quickly but that's the really hard one to fix ;)
Afterwards Rog, the chairman, invited me to stay behind and sit in on the committee meeting, which was nice. It's a lot different from the way CompSoc works, really. Lots of people do lots of things... and there are girls! Who'd'a thunk?
Tuesday, 18 October 2005
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
IMDb rates FernGully: The Last Rainforest a pathetic 5.7 out of 10! What kind of world do we live in where classics such as FernGully can get such shocking ratings!?
Nicholas Cage
I'm the sort of person that doesn't really look at who stars in a film to rate it... but if it stars Nicholas Cage then I almost always want to see it. I noticed that there's a new film called The Weather Man coming out soon, which is also starring Cage.
I skimmed through some of the comments and quickly found one about the titles of the films he's been starring in... this is a fairly interesting list:
* Wicker Man (filming)
* The Weather Man
* Matchstick Men
* The Family Man
As one other person pointed out, I wonder when Nicholas Cage will star in "The Man"?
I skimmed through some of the comments and quickly found one about the titles of the films he's been starring in... this is a fairly interesting list:
* Wicker Man (filming)
* The Weather Man
* Matchstick Men
* The Family Man
As one other person pointed out, I wonder when Nicholas Cage will star in "The Man"?
Basics 2: Exposure
I spoke with some of the guys at photoSoc after the "Basics of photography" lecture last week and I'm not all set to do my interpretation of the slightly more technical basics tomorrow.
I'm basically covering the technical parts that go towards making a "correct" exposure. By that, I mean, how the shutter speed and aperture interact, and what film sensitivity means. All of these come with examples (some of photos I like from the last couple of months, but more made up just for the purpose) and benefits/drawbacks to any given thing (e.g. faster film results in more noise/a grainy image).
I'm meeting up with Chris, the darkroom manager, after my graphics lecture (which starts in an hour) to go over it, but otherwise I'm good to go. I'm hoping Vlad will soon come up with a more impressive diagram of a camera (including just light, aperture, shutter and film) so I don't get laughed at when my slide comes up.
Well, let's hope it goes well tomorrow!
I'm basically covering the technical parts that go towards making a "correct" exposure. By that, I mean, how the shutter speed and aperture interact, and what film sensitivity means. All of these come with examples (some of photos I like from the last couple of months, but more made up just for the purpose) and benefits/drawbacks to any given thing (e.g. faster film results in more noise/a grainy image).
I'm meeting up with Chris, the darkroom manager, after my graphics lecture (which starts in an hour) to go over it, but otherwise I'm good to go. I'm hoping Vlad will soon come up with a more impressive diagram of a camera (including just light, aperture, shutter and film) so I don't get laughed at when my slide comes up.
Well, let's hope it goes well tomorrow!
"Castleton"
Interesting place, Castleton.
Well, so I've heard.
So... one day you decide to go and see it for yourself. Great. But when you get off the train and the first thing that runs through your head is "hmm, doesn't look too scenic here" you know something is up.
But anyway. The three of us (Vlad, myself and Xiaoxiao) got off and made a few comments about how it wasn't quite what we were expecting. We carried on, nonetheless. After a while we made it all the way to, well, a park, by the looks of it. That was well past the pub, and a good deal further than the Castleton used car garage.
It's about this time that Vlad, dressed head-to-toe in his "walking" gear (including bright blue fleece, khaki trousers, map in fashionable plastic case, Lomo, super-sized pentaprism SLR and walking boots), decides to mention that he didn't recall seeing a railway station in Castleton on the map... or a railway line, for that matter(!)
We check the map. All is not well so I decide to make a joke about "Dr Beeching", or something.
But never mind... this is Castleton... the big sign at the railway station said so and there are plenty of shops with "Castleton" written on them (worrying they were almost all establishments selling intoxicating liquor) -- what can go wrong!?
A bit further down the road we see some "chavs" at the bus stop. And a bus goes by... with "Manchester City Centre" as the destination. Hmm.
A bit further and we stop to take some photos of a nice autumn tree, at the same time as convincing Xiaoxiao to wander to the other side of the road and ask the little old lady walking by if there is a castle... (picture this:)
* Xiaoxiao (a Chinese girl) crosses the road and walks up to the little old lady
Xiaoxiao: "Hello. Is there a castle here?"
Little Old Lady (confused): "No, I don't think so."
Xiaoxiao: "Okay, thanks." (Xiaoxiao always says "thanks" when talking to strangers, never "thank you")
* Xiaoxiao (still a Chinese girl) crosses back to Vlad and myself who are quite literally doubled up with laughter.
So. No castle. But we're definitely in Castleton. Okay. Not to worry... Vlad can see a mountain in the distance so we kept walking away from the train station before ending up at a crappy church near a big main road (signposted with "Bury" and "Manchester City Centre"). Great, thanks for that.
Back we go, after taking a few obligatory photos of the church, because there was nothing better to do.
Anyway. We got back to the train station, poked fun at the young woman sitting on one of the train station "benches" with her legs dangling a good foot off the ground, who returned the favour when I convinced Xiaoxiao to sit there and let me take a photo.
About half-way into the 15 minute return trip I happened to glance at the train tickets and spotted that the destination was "Castleton Manchester". Ahh! So that's where we went wrong!
All I can say is that the guy that told Vlad (dressed in classic "let's go to the Peak District and wander around looking silly" gear) the next train to Castleton went from Manchester Victoria must have been pissing himself when the three of us wandered out the main exit of Piccadilly station.
Ah, well. Fortunately the rest of the day worked out okay when Vlad and I wandered around the city centre taking photos... well, apart from the part where three "louts" decided that asking if my camera was waterproof and then asking if they could empty a bottle of water over us was a good idea.
On the whole... a different day. We're all clued up now, though... if 18 minutes and £1.60 for a return ticket sounds too good... well, it is!
Well, so I've heard.
So... one day you decide to go and see it for yourself. Great. But when you get off the train and the first thing that runs through your head is "hmm, doesn't look too scenic here" you know something is up.
But anyway. The three of us (Vlad, myself and Xiaoxiao) got off and made a few comments about how it wasn't quite what we were expecting. We carried on, nonetheless. After a while we made it all the way to, well, a park, by the looks of it. That was well past the pub, and a good deal further than the Castleton used car garage.
It's about this time that Vlad, dressed head-to-toe in his "walking" gear (including bright blue fleece, khaki trousers, map in fashionable plastic case, Lomo, super-sized pentaprism SLR and walking boots), decides to mention that he didn't recall seeing a railway station in Castleton on the map... or a railway line, for that matter(!)We check the map. All is not well so I decide to make a joke about "Dr Beeching", or something.
But never mind... this is Castleton... the big sign at the railway station said so and there are plenty of shops with "Castleton" written on them (worrying they were almost all establishments selling intoxicating liquor) -- what can go wrong!?
A bit further down the road we see some "chavs" at the bus stop. And a bus goes by... with "Manchester City Centre" as the destination. Hmm.
A bit further and we stop to take some photos of a nice autumn tree, at the same time as convincing Xiaoxiao to wander to the other side of the road and ask the little old lady walking by if there is a castle... (picture this:)
* Xiaoxiao (a Chinese girl) crosses the road and walks up to the little old lady
Xiaoxiao: "Hello. Is there a castle here?"
Little Old Lady (confused): "No, I don't think so."
Xiaoxiao: "Okay, thanks." (Xiaoxiao always says "thanks" when talking to strangers, never "thank you")
* Xiaoxiao (still a Chinese girl) crosses back to Vlad and myself who are quite literally doubled up with laughter.
So. No castle. But we're definitely in Castleton. Okay. Not to worry... Vlad can see a mountain in the distance so we kept walking away from the train station before ending up at a crappy church near a big main road (signposted with "Bury" and "Manchester City Centre"). Great, thanks for that.
Back we go, after taking a few obligatory photos of the church, because there was nothing better to do.
Anyway. We got back to the train station, poked fun at the young woman sitting on one of the train station "benches" with her legs dangling a good foot off the ground, who returned the favour when I convinced Xiaoxiao to sit there and let me take a photo.
About half-way into the 15 minute return trip I happened to glance at the train tickets and spotted that the destination was "Castleton Manchester". Ahh! So that's where we went wrong!
All I can say is that the guy that told Vlad (dressed in classic "let's go to the Peak District and wander around looking silly" gear) the next train to Castleton went from Manchester Victoria must have been pissing himself when the three of us wandered out the main exit of Piccadilly station.
Ah, well. Fortunately the rest of the day worked out okay when Vlad and I wandered around the city centre taking photos... well, apart from the part where three "louts" decided that asking if my camera was waterproof and then asking if they could empty a bottle of water over us was a good idea.
On the whole... a different day. We're all clued up now, though... if 18 minutes and £1.60 for a return ticket sounds too good... well, it is!
Saturday, 15 October 2005
"I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler
from Manchester way"... but this time it looks like we'll be off the the Peak District.
Just been speaking with Xiaoxiao and Vlad and we're probably going to catch the 09:09 train to Castleton tomorrow morning. The idea is to get up early and then do a little bit of walking. We'll probably follow a very similar route to the one this guy did, although we might make an extra stop at Blue John Cavern and spend a little bit of time kicking about near the old castle.
I've just posted this on the photoSoc message board so I'll be interested to see if anybody else turns up.
The best bit, though, is the price... just £2.45 for an 18-minute each-way day return, and that doesn't even include my student railcard discount!
Just been speaking with Xiaoxiao and Vlad and we're probably going to catch the 09:09 train to Castleton tomorrow morning. The idea is to get up early and then do a little bit of walking. We'll probably follow a very similar route to the one this guy did, although we might make an extra stop at Blue John Cavern and spend a little bit of time kicking about near the old castle.
I've just posted this on the photoSoc message board so I'll be interested to see if anybody else turns up.
The best bit, though, is the price... just £2.45 for an 18-minute each-way day return, and that doesn't even include my student railcard discount!
Friday, 14 October 2005
See-thru skirts!
I hope they hurry up and bring the new "hot thing" in Japan over to England... see-thru skirts!
The guy (and I know it was) that invented these is a genius.
The guy (and I know it was) that invented these is a genius.
Sunday, 9 October 2005
Addiction to Windows
I've been flitting between Windows XP and my regular Ubuntu Linux install for the past couple of weeks. Why? Because the best software for manipulating my digital RAW files is only available for Windows... Nikon Capture 4.
But just now I've managed to install the trial version under Ubuntu using WINE. I'm very impressed. In order to do this I had to install DCOM98 from the Microsoft website (the installer wouldn't work without it) and then copy mfc42.dll from my Windows XP system32 directory before running the Nikon installer.
But, it works. It's a little slower than Windows but I believe this is due to a severe lack of RAM -- I'm using 11% of my swap now and GNOME, Firefox and all of the other things I like to have running don't fit in well with 512MB of RAM. Now I begin to wonder why I lent the other 512MB stick to my Dad... I want it back!
But now, time to try and break Nikon Capture. I hope I can't!
But just now I've managed to install the trial version under Ubuntu using WINE. I'm very impressed. In order to do this I had to install DCOM98 from the Microsoft website (the installer wouldn't work without it) and then copy mfc42.dll from my Windows XP system32 directory before running the Nikon installer.
But, it works. It's a little slower than Windows but I believe this is due to a severe lack of RAM -- I'm using 11% of my swap now and GNOME, Firefox and all of the other things I like to have running don't fit in well with 512MB of RAM. Now I begin to wonder why I lent the other 512MB stick to my Dad... I want it back!
But now, time to try and break Nikon Capture. I hope I can't!
Saturday, 8 October 2005
Friday, 7 October 2005
BO basher
Here's something different.Here are the two anti-deodorants I've been using. On the left we have a women's Palmolive Soft & Gentle aerosol-style deodorant and on the right we have a roll-on Nivea with Whitening.
I quite like the one I pinched from Xiaoxiao when she said she didn't like the smell. It's a little odd but I've gotten used to it. As for the Nivea one... definitely one of the best I've ever owned. It actually *works* and works well. This stood up to the test in Bangkok, Thailand, which is one of the most sticky places in the world.
I recall buying it at the time from a small 7/11-type cornershop. It cost me just 81Baht and I remember worrying about how expensive that was... when I saw the price earlier on today I was shocked I could have thought such a thing. It works out at a little over £1.15!
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get used to the prices in England again.
A blast from the past
I set up a Google sitemap plugin for my website when I upgraded yesterday and in a vain attempt to see if it worked I searched Google for "lewiz" and came across my sdf-eu.org webspace. I still log in to sdf-eu.org from time to time, usually to test email settings and things like that. However, I really wasn't aware that I had any stuff in my public_html directory.
Among the contents is a very old version of the hymersyearbook website, a copy of the first few pages of what was going to be the yearbook a whole pile of junk and, the star of it all, a complete archive of my website from quite some time ago.
This is better than theWaybackMachine... check out an old version of my website!
I'll probably even go as far as importing the old journal entries into this blog... why? Because I can.
*Update*: I've now mirrored the whole site on my CompSoc account. You can also visit it at http://noisy.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/sites/lewizsite2/
Among the contents is a very old version of the hymersyearbook website, a copy of the first few pages of what was going to be the yearbook a whole pile of junk and, the star of it all, a complete archive of my website from quite some time ago.
This is better than theWaybackMachine... check out an old version of my website!
I'll probably even go as far as importing the old journal entries into this blog... why? Because I can.
*Update*: I've now mirrored the whole site on my CompSoc account. You can also visit it at http://noisy.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/sites/lewizsite2/
Photography gallery
I've added a few new photos to my "Photography" gallery over the past couple of days. There are now a whopping eight photos! Unfortunately only two of these are photos that are not already on TrekEarth.
Thursday, 6 October 2005
GTK2 version of Unison
Wow, I'm impressed!Unison is a great file synchronisation tool that is capable of dealing with updates occurring to the same file across multiple different machines. It is similar to rsync in that it is something that gets run at a given time interval and not like, say, iFolder or Windows Offline Files.
I've been using a command line version of Unison for quite some time to keep my laptop, desktop, computer science and CompSoc accounts in some sort of synchronised state. I can be selective about what I pass between machines and I don't even need to use any single machine as a dedicated "server". Synchronisation is two-way (unlike rsync) and it's an all-round great tool.
This new interface makes it even better. Resolving conflicts is now a breeze and it looks good to boot. Good work the Unison dev team!
Wednesday, 5 October 2005
Blog upgrade
I'm just in the process of upgrading to the latest version of Drupal, which is what powers my website. I'm also checking for the latest optional modules that I've got installed and updating those too.
If anything is a little bit wonky, don't worry, I'm probably working on it :)
If anything is a little bit wonky, don't worry, I'm probably working on it :)
photoSoc
I'm almost a member of the Manchester University photography society, photoSoc. At least... I'm on the mailing list and I've got a gallery on the website. In fact, the only thing I've not done is give them any money :)
It seems that Wednesday is the meetup day and this week there was an organised trip to the Whitworth Art Gallery where there was an exhibition by Thomas Joshua Cooper titled _point of no return_.
To be honest, I was far from impressed. This guy has travelled around the world and taken photos with some "ye olde fashionede" wooden field camera. Now this I don't mind, but what I wasn't too keen on were the very samey photos of the sea/ocean. There wasn't really enough to it, the composition was a bit boring, etc. I'm not saying I could do better, I couldn't, but I could certainly come up with some more interesting and different ideas... even if half of them didn't work.
There were a handful of prints I would hang up on my wall but past that I was almost bored walking around the gallery. Oh, well, there are plenty of other photographers about and I figure I've just found one style that I can scratch off the list of styles that I like.
Anyhow. Afterwards Vlad and I headed to the park outside the gallery and took a few photos with my camera. Nothing spectacular but it was fun enough for the half-hour we were there.
It seems that Wednesday is the meetup day and this week there was an organised trip to the Whitworth Art Gallery where there was an exhibition by Thomas Joshua Cooper titled _point of no return_.
To be honest, I was far from impressed. This guy has travelled around the world and taken photos with some "ye olde fashionede" wooden field camera. Now this I don't mind, but what I wasn't too keen on were the very samey photos of the sea/ocean. There wasn't really enough to it, the composition was a bit boring, etc. I'm not saying I could do better, I couldn't, but I could certainly come up with some more interesting and different ideas... even if half of them didn't work.
There were a handful of prints I would hang up on my wall but past that I was almost bored walking around the gallery. Oh, well, there are plenty of other photographers about and I figure I've just found one style that I can scratch off the list of styles that I like.
Anyhow. Afterwards Vlad and I headed to the park outside the gallery and took a few photos with my camera. Nothing spectacular but it was fun enough for the half-hour we were there.
わたしのたんじょうび
It's official: I'm old.
Yesterday was my twenty-first birthday and, as Karen kindly pointed out, I'm only nine years away from being thirty. Great.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I got up late, buggered on the Internet, got some presents, had some food and then went to see a film at the cinema. For a change we went to Punjab, the Indian restaurant of choice in Manchester, instead of Pizza Express, although I admit my stomach was warning me earlier on in the day... I was not keen on the idea until I'd been sat down at the table for a good ten minutes. I guess my stomach figured that complaining wasn't going to do much good and it should just shut up. From then on, things went well.
I'm not quite sure who arranged for Samia, Karen and Ceyda to turn up at Punjab (although I did know they were coming; women's intuition, that); I think it was a bit of a joint collaboration between Xiaoxiao and Bladu-chan.
But, the pickings were pretty good this year. I've got my first Bob Dylan print (which I hope to get framed soon) and the new fangled THE BOB DYLAN SCRAPBOOK from Xiaoxiao. Vlad gave me a Grave of Fireflies DVD *and* a card with an entirely appropriate iPod joke and I got a funky t-shirt with, well, a word* written on it, from Karen, Ceyda and Samia. Oh, and the coolest toy gun, which will unfortunately be getting binned soon, thanks to Vlad losing all of the little red plastic pellets (thanks for that).
I got a few cards too, although the best one was definitely the one I got from (this is getting tiring now, from now on I will use the acronym KSC to mean Karen, Samia and Ceyda) KSC (mmm, sounds finger lickin' good!). I personally think it was the fact that Karen used her official Chinese name chop that I gave her. To be honest, looking at it now I'm wishing I got myself one, they're so cool.
Well, that's it for now. I'm surprisingly tired, considering what time I got up, but I can have another day off tomorrow thanks to my wonderful lecture timetable (no lectures on Wednesdays)!
Yesterday was my twenty-first birthday and, as Karen kindly pointed out, I'm only nine years away from being thirty. Great.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I got up late, buggered on the Internet, got some presents, had some food and then went to see a film at the cinema. For a change we went to Punjab, the Indian restaurant of choice in Manchester, instead of Pizza Express, although I admit my stomach was warning me earlier on in the day... I was not keen on the idea until I'd been sat down at the table for a good ten minutes. I guess my stomach figured that complaining wasn't going to do much good and it should just shut up. From then on, things went well.
I'm not quite sure who arranged for Samia, Karen and Ceyda to turn up at Punjab (although I did know they were coming; women's intuition, that); I think it was a bit of a joint collaboration between Xiaoxiao and Bladu-chan.
But, the pickings were pretty good this year. I've got my first Bob Dylan print (which I hope to get framed soon) and the new fangled THE BOB DYLAN SCRAPBOOK from Xiaoxiao. Vlad gave me a Grave of Fireflies DVD *and* a card with an entirely appropriate iPod joke and I got a funky t-shirt with, well, a word* written on it, from Karen, Ceyda and Samia. Oh, and the coolest toy gun, which will unfortunately be getting binned soon, thanks to Vlad losing all of the little red plastic pellets (thanks for that).
I got a few cards too, although the best one was definitely the one I got from (this is getting tiring now, from now on I will use the acronym KSC to mean Karen, Samia and Ceyda) KSC (mmm, sounds finger lickin' good!). I personally think it was the fact that Karen used her official Chinese name chop that I gave her. To be honest, looking at it now I'm wishing I got myself one, they're so cool.
Well, that's it for now. I'm surprisingly tired, considering what time I got up, but I can have another day off tomorrow thanks to my wonderful lecture timetable (no lectures on Wednesdays)!
Tuesday, 4 October 2005
One hundred today
I'm happy to say that I just received a critique for a photo I posted to TrekEarth yesterday which has boosted my rating to a round and even one hundred!
I've also got silver stars for both my critiques and my photo notes so I look pretty good on the site now :)
You can see the photo in question at http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/China/photo247194.htm -- Xiaoxiao gave it the name "Dreaming in the past".
P.S.
The user point tally doesn't get updated immediately so it will still show up as 98 for a few more hours.
I've also got silver stars for both my critiques and my photo notes so I look pretty good on the site now :)
You can see the photo in question at http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/China/photo247194.htm -- Xiaoxiao gave it the name "Dreaming in the past".
P.S.
The user point tally doesn't get updated immediately so it will still show up as 98 for a few more hours.
These boots are made for walkin'
So. I've been back about a month now. It's good in some ways... but really annoying in others. For the first time since taking my shoes off following my return flight and train to Doncaster I put them back on again, yesterday morning.It was an odd feeling really. Compared to my other shoes, which are some cheap (well, not really cheap, but comparatively), nasty trendy trainer-type things, they are a very tight fit with excellent foot support and raise me a good few inches higher off the ground.
But most of all I felt like I was about to go somewhere and do something. Climb a mountain. Spend the day on a bus. Meet some local tribespeople. Anything that now feels a little out of the ordinary but then felt totally normal. No such luck! I did go to MicroDirect to collect some bits and pieces for a CompSoc computer, but that wasn't really what I had in mind earlier on in the morning.
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