doing the timewarp

My life has regressed 20 years. I've listened to Half Man Half Biscuit non-stop for 3 days and tomorrow my friend K is coming over to help me with my chemistry. I met K at university the first time I went; unlike me he paid attention, did his homework and became Dr K and now senior academic Dr K. So I'm taking advantage of our 20 year friendship to blag some tuition, to help me catch up. I hope he can help me understand how to calculate the energies of Frenkel defects in silver halides (and also why one would even want to).

gratuitious random rant

I hate stoopid feckin hippies with their soya milk and their non-functioning tvs and their dirty messy vile white 'dreads' and/or asymetric hair-don'ts and their meals of vegan slops and their utterly self-centre self-obsessed 'hey let's not get heavy' world view which causes them to take no concern for or responsibility for the impact of their actions on others.

Thank you for listening.

experimenting

Me and my zen are experimenting with new music from my audioscrobbler recommendations. Playing with my toys beats working hurrah (and boo to my now-overdue assignment err ...). Meanwhile O has been doing lots of maths experiments in the week long Maths Circus his teachers held in class last week. He loved doing all the counting and weighing and measuring, and says maths is his favourite thing at school hurrah (his fave thing in class at school, obv playing with his friends in the playground is his main motivation for turning up every day)

happiness complete(-er)

To make things completely perfect I've now got one of those doo-dads from maplin that looks like a tape and means you can play your mp3 player on your old car stereo. Hurrah for no more having to burn mp3s to cd then tape them in order to have choons on the move.

PS BB7 starts tonight, I may be gone some time ...

in love

OK so it's not quite as small or slim or pretty as an ipod. But it's got a much bigger memory, and brains always beats looks in the end. I totally adore it. The only thing I didn't like was the earphones. It is so double plus ungood to have white headphones on a not-ipod mp3 player. Plus they didn't sit nicely in my ears, and had quite poor reviews for sound quality. But with my trusty sony earphones, the sound is beautiful (and doesn't leak much hurrah). And to make my happiness complete I got a cable so I can play it through the stereo. This bout of consumerism has made me a happy bunny. So what if I go deaf in 10 years time?

here comes the summer

Poor balcony, it has been much neglected since I stopped smoking and so no longer sit out on it every day in all weathers. However, a few days of sunshine has finally shamed me into doing something about it. We chucked out the mouldering peat free gro-bags, dried up empty pots and assorted weeds, and planted some nice new pots. It doesn't quite look like this picture yet (this is from 3 years ago) but hopefully it will be looking nice soon, and we'll even have some homegrown produce (just in time for us to go away for a few weeks and it all to get parched when the neighbours forget to water it while we're gone). I even got a hanging basket and some flowers for outside the front door. Just watch it stop being sunny now ...

coming over all cultural

last night we all went to the theatre, for what I think is O's first time seeing a real play in a real theatre (I don't know how that happened, that we've never been before, must make sure to look out for kid friendly plays to take him to in future). We went to see the fabulous Skid 180, written by our fabulous friend & neighbour. It was really impressive. The words are brilliant, the production is excellent and the on-stage bmx-ing is stunning. Go see it if you're get a chance, in Manchester or Australia. Several of our neighbours were at the show last night too, so O is now out on his bike, playing 'Skid 180' with his mates who've seen it too.

oooh I'm so 'cited

I've been thinking for a while that I must enter the century of the fruitbat and get one of these newfangled mp3 players, and almost bought an el cheapo one t'other day. Now some kind person has given me some £££ which they insist I spend upon myself and their £££ together with my existing ££ may add up to ipod £££ whoo. I'm thinking of getting a 4gb ipod nano. Anyone got one, are they as good as the hype? Or should I maybe go for a non-appley one? Even tho they look so kewl and sleek and mmmmmm

edit: I'm tempted by the Creative Zen 8 gig model now ... slightly less good looking maybe but twice as much gigs and good reviews ... decisions decisions

making your own fun

So, I was googling to see if there was anything on t'interweb yet about the bmx dirt jumps mounds track thingy the local bike punks have been building near our house¹ (they have made a fab job of it, and are also trying to teach the local scrotes some skills and some manners if they want to use it too, so no doubt the council will come round and flatten their unofficial fun boo), and inadvertantly discovered a local car park is a prime d0gg1ng location. Ewwww. But then in the process of finding the explanatory linkage, searching bbc news for d0gg1ng found the news that K9 is getting his own series hurrah although this is going to provoke several months of 'when's the K9 show on?' then several more of 'but why haven't we got jetix on our tv?'. Boo.



1) please insert correct young persons' vernacular, but you get the idea.

so how was your day?

This is how O says his was:

"a shiny rainbow star, all colours of the rainbow"

And what makes a shiny rainbow star of a day? A 2 mile 'walk' in Grin Low Woods on a slightly damp day, in which he and his best friend climbed trees, looked for bugs, played with sticks, explored Gruffalo caves, ate jam sarnies and moaned about being cold; sleep on the way back in the car; get home and play cars with best friend for another couple of hours; have ice-cream for pudding. Hurrah for shiny rainbow days.

big boys do cry

Poor O was emotionally drained by tonight's Dr Who. He was alternately delighted to see K9, terrified of the BatPeople, devastated when K9 was destroyed, and finally choked with tears when K9 reappeared right at the end. Followed by rummaging in the toybox to find Teksta. Awwww.

disappointed

I know I shouldn't be surprised or even care about this, but I can't help being yet another person who'd burn my White Stripes records if I had any (threatening to delete my mp3s doesn't have the same ring). Bill Hicks put it best:

Do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you're a corporate whore and eh, end of story.

talking of procrastinating ...

... today I finished my first Gruaniad hard sudoku puzzle hurrah

you talking to me?

I found an interesting article while surfing instead of reconfiguring investment strategy. It all sounds very familiar:

Procrastination is not just an issue of time management or laziness. It's about feeling paralyzed and guilty as you channel surf, knowing you should be cracking the books or reconfiguring your investment strategy. ...

"The main reason people procrastinate is fear," says Neil Fiore, Ph.D.. ... "Procrastinators fear they'll fall short because they don't have the requisite talent or skills. "They get overwhelmed and they're afraid they'll look stupid." ...

Children of authoritarian parents are prone to procrastinate. Pychyl speculates that children with such parents postpone choices because their decisions are so frequently criticized--or made for them. Alternatively, the child may procrastinate as a form of rebellion. Refusing to study can be an angry--if self-defeating--message to Mom and Dad. ...

Several symptoms of depression feed procrastination. Decision-making is another problem. Because depressed people can't feel much pleasure, all options seem equally bleak, which makes getting started difficult and pointless.

I looked in vain for the second page telling you how to stop being a procrastinator :-(

hurrah for t'internet

everyone to whom I am related and most people with whom I work now think I am a World Expert on all things computerish. Little do they realise the Seekrit of My Awesome Geek Power comes down to 3 things

• RTFM
• push all the buttons just to see what happens
• if you don't know, google knows someone who does

Thus when R shamefacedly confessed to jamming the cd drive, I fixed it armed only with an unbent paper clip

More fun with paperclips:

• history of
• art with
• uses for

climb every mountain

well, for certain values of 'climb' and 'mountain', where 'mountain' = 'west pennine moor' and 'climb' = 'drive up to the top of hill and then walk along on the flat'. Took us over 2 hours to go 3 miles around Blackstone Edge but it was fun. O brought B along with him (for O, anything experience is better if he can bring a friend) and they ran about getting muddy in peat bogs and climbing up embankments and generally having fun. Next weekend we're visting the Nine Ladies (weather permitting).

Now I should be devoting myself to curly arrows but have distracted myself with the aid of wine and sing-a-long-a-Bill on the headphones. I really must remember not to listen to music I really like while working.

as if that wasn't enought ...

... woke up this morning to find some little scrotey b@st@rds had tried to break into my car and knackered up the door in the process. So that's going to cost me £200 and also cost me a morning sorting out it out (and another morning or two next week dealing with the garage, tho luckily garageman = very nice man so that's not too stressful). A morning I should've spent trying to get to grips with kinetics again. I read this stuff and I understand all the words but I don't understand what it means. We have a day school tomorrow, which is good, but I'd get so much more out of it if I had a grasp of the stuff already. Which I now have this afternoon and this evening to do. But this afternoon I have to work and this evening O has a friend sleeping over aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh I want to cry

panic stations

Today I've been to that London & back. Tomorrow I've got to get up early again and go to sunny Brummie¹ to work, so tonight I have to get ready for that, so my studying is falling behind again, so my house is a tip, so I am panicking and fretting that I won't get everything I need to do done, so I am worrying instead of working, so I am eating to quell my fears. So this is my life pattern. I know I need to change it, but it won't be today.


1. noisy but highly recommended: Bostin' Birmingham

if at first you don't succeed

A couple of years ago we decided to go on regular family walks. This decision was reversed after several miserable afternoons spent coaxing and bullying a whining whinging O for a couple of miles in the great outdoors. But today being Easter, I decided we all needed to go and find a big hill to roll our eggs down, so we headed up to Darwen Tower. O loved it and wants to walk up more big hills hurrah! Edale here we come.

R & O are going out to eat later, I'd love to go too but the books need me. So I will stay in with just kinetics and my one little easter egg (from my mum) for company. I will not be distracted by the temptation to play with my new magnetic sudoku game (easter pressie from R in lieu of choc). I love these magnetic games, much fun has been had in tents with their little tins of ludo and snakes & ladders.

PS

just like my house, my car, my life, this blog badly needs a spring clean. It may make a good assignment avoidance activity in a few weeks' time ...