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April 23 I need a vacation pt2Where was I? Oh yeah, St John (which coincidently is also half the reason for the gap between the two parts of this blog). During the first week of Easter when I wasn't working in tescos we had to joys of trying or organise a quote for a couple of big duties that are happening in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to avoid details (largely because anyone reading will probably know them anyway) but they were expecting us to charge about a sixth of what we actually did to cover our equipment costs and that was at around a 60% discount. Eventually we got a quote sorted out and sent off to the organiser, a week later we then sent him a reminder and got everything agreed. This then meant some phone calls to make sure we could actually still get what we needed after the delay and a host of e-mails (there were probably around 30 - 50 in my inbox over that week and a lot of msn conversations). I just feel sorry for those who put more into it than me but I'm sure they can console themselves with the fact that I get to do it again next year.
Thus was my holiday time largely gone but even now it continues, a history essay still to complete for this Wednesday (getting there now) and more St John stuff with a duty last Saturday (meaning I couldn't blog that day whilst Sunday was taken up with essay work) and the big duties still to come needing some last minute organising that I'll probably be a part of.
Hopefully I'll get some more time off over the summer. In other news, due to the long break over Easter I'm now thinking that every other day I will do a short blog, most often just complaining about something that's annoyed me that day, or something that annoys me in general. This will carry on until either exam time or whenever I get bored of it.
QOTD:
Cat: Something's showing up on the long-range scan which is *weird* with a capital 'we'.
And another stolen comic:
April 20 I need a vacation pt1So the Easter break is over and you've escaped my rants for a month due to me being too busy/unimaginative/boring to get round to writing anything and now I feel I need a vacation.
Onto business, as with Christmas I spent most of my Easter working in tescos to try and keep my bank balance happy, or as happy as is possible for a student. There was one interesting event from my time in tescos though (as in something that wasn't exactly the same as all the other days) in that on my final shift I was asked if I could head off to another store to lend a hand due to a staff shortage. I think they picked me due to my pure brilliance, and the fact that I was the only member of staff with a car and the other store was a 30 minute drive up the M3. Any the event had a few key aspects that made it stand out due to their trickyness:
As I said it was interesting, however tescos isn't the only cluprit for me needing to actually have a vacation, St John is also there. However, I'm too tired to actually finish this rant and I have a long duty tomorrow so want to get some sleep. Part 2 will go up either tomorrow night or Sunday.
QOTD:
Kryten: May I recommend I load myself into the reverse thrust tubes and you use my body as decoy fodder. This will of course leave me splatter across deep space and unable to complete today’s laundry for which I apologise in advance.
Rimmer: Kryten, stop your blabbering and get in the damn tube
Lister: Kryten sit down! I’m not doing my own smegging ironing
And the stolen comic -
March 20 I feel old...I had my birthday and turned 19 on Sunday, and now I'm starting to feel old. For starters I only have a year left of my teens, coupled with the fact that I'm at university, recently put a deposit down on a house for next year and I'm finding myself drinking wine more often (though to be fair these could just be symptoms of being a student and having found a fairly nice bottle of wine in tescos for £2.10).
However, there are other more worrying things I do that lead me to believe that I'm getting old, primarily reminiscing about old cartoons and tv shows (last few days I've spent a lot of time watching Red Dwarf and just a short while ago I was saying how I missed watching Timmy Mallet shows on tv) and more and more often I find myself starting sentences with 'back in my day...' even though 'my day' was at most a couple of years ago.
Finally there are the two things going on that make me really feel old. First, as I've complained about before, I'm now technically the unit leader for the St John unit at university (still in the hand over period really) inspite of having been in St John since around October and being a first year, just makes me feel old. Secondly there's the fact that for quite a while alcohol has had only a limited effect on me when I'm out drinking and the idea of getting pissed doesn't really appeal to me (probably because it'd be too expensive and I'm happy just drinking and having a chat).
There's also the slight worry that on my birthday I failed my first ever Sudoku game on msn games, though in my defence it was rated as diabolically difficult.
All in all, I feel old so must complain about it.
QOTD: Rimmer: Look, maybe we can reason with it. Open communication channels, Lister. Broadcast on all known frequencies, and in all known languages, including Welsh.
And a bonus comic strip due to having just spent several weeks learning about Chi-squared again. March 14 Oh God it burns!On Monday we had the AGM for the St John LINKS society here and due to the fact that just about all of the committee was leaving (bar two, one of which couldn't run for the positions) the entire committee needed filling by newbies like myself. As a result I ended up running for the positions of Unit Leader (the student in charge) and membership secretary (the one with more paperwork that most places other than the tax office). This of course meant making speeches, not my strongest area (as I demonstrated in my first speech by threatening to kill everyone in the room, second one went better). Surprisingly enough I didn't get the membership secretary role (where I threatened to kill everyone), which left me in a state of shock as I'd finally resigned myself to the fact that it was inevitable (doesn't mean I was happy with the idea for those who got their hopes up) though I did manage to gain more votes that Buddha. However, they still got me for Unit Leader and the previous one has been very eager to had over everything (I was threatened with the Big Black Box of paper work earlier today).
In other news, I just passed my medical gasses assessment meaning that, should it be required, I can now provide my casualties with Oxygen or Entonox (laughing gas basically if you need to know what it is). However the sports duties on Wednesdays are now finished where the majority of casualties requiring gasses can be found so I won't be able to get some first hand experience before the big sports duties at the start of term, could get lucky on the duty Ents duties I've got coming up but it's doubtful. The assessment went along perfectly (more or less) for me, however, before hand I had had someone questioning me about every aspect of the course for about 5 hours. There was also a slight problem where one of the other assessee's nearly blew the room up but I don't know the details of that as I was lucky enough to be in a waiting room at the time, though the pair that went at that time took around 45 minutes compared to me and my partner taking 15 at most.
QOTD:
Dr. Ray Stantz: I think we'd better split up. March 10 Self-PresevationMost of the time I have a very song self-preservation instinct, I value my life quite highly inspite of others best attempts. However, every so often I'll do something foolish that breaks tradition.
Some good examples of this include me joining St John Ambulance LINKS at the beginning of the year. Now this may not sound like something against self-preservation, in fact it may sound radically different. What you don't consider however is how much time it takes up amoungst other things (I've had two lie-ins in the last two weeks. And neither of them on a weekend). The greatest risk to my life though comes from my seeming inability to say no for some reason (which is probably how I got into the unit in the first place seeing as I also joined the TA that day... oh the horror). The results of this recent inability to say no has lead to me first being told that I was running to be a first year rep on the committee and now that next year, once just about all the experienced members are gone, I'll be Unit Leader and Membership Secretary (assume the elections go the way they hope). Many people from college and school I've mentioned this too have cringed in fear and dread but I don't seem to be able to just firmly say no and get out of it.
Another good example of failing my primary task of self-preservation is in two of my recent creations. The original (and of course better) Cheezy Tunes video made from clips of video I took and pictures from the first Cheezy Tunes of this university year. And now just yesterday, Cheezy Tunes Mk2. I got many death threats after the first one, and several during this one (also several demands for a pint in repayment which is just as bad) but for some reason I still make it, put it onto youtube then told all those involved about it.
I now have to go hide under a rock for the rest of the term (which will also mean I can avoid the elections) and pray that I'm not found.
PS - for your viewing pleasure:
QOTD: Pain is an illusion of the senses, despair is an illusion of the mind. February 28 Bored againI hope you all enjoyed my last blog/list of complaints (those of you who survived all the way to the end that is).
Anyway, on Monday a friend posted the results to one of these 'Sound Track to your Life' quizs that go around myspace and stuff and have done for a long time. Seeing as Ive never really bothered with MySpace or anything I've managed to avoid them. However, I was feeling bored Monday night so quickly went through it using my itunes (as I was half way through a good play list on windows media player which I use most of the time) and got some results. But I thought they were crap so today after finishing on duty with St John and submitting some history course work I decided to try again. This is what happened:
Opening Credits: First Day At School: She Hates Me – Puddle of Mudd / If it's a fight with the person I just fell in love with them maybe, otherwise I would have expected something more. Breaking Up: Mental Breakdown: Driving: Final Battle: End Credits:
Go West – Pet Shop Boys / Bit odd. Overall not bad, a big improvement over my first attempt. Though I would like to bring back First it Giveth by Queens of the Stoneage for my Funeral Song, Search for the Hero by M People for Getting back together and Troll in the dark by Rhapsody from the End Credits from my original attempt.
QOTD: After all, they might be lying on the floor because they’re sleeping. Ask them a question (“Can you hear me?”) and give them a command (“Open your eyes”). Of course, they might be deaf, so shave them gently as well. February 25 Where'd my time go?Once again you managed to gain over a week's respite from my mutterings but I'm afraid I'm back now with a long list of things to talk/complain about.
Might as well start at the beginning although it's quite retrospective (and should really have been mentioned in my last blog). The week before last (the 14th to be specific) I was meant to be on a sports duty for St John once again however just after getting out of my Psychology lecture about 12.30 (30 minutes before it was due to start) I received a text from the duty manager to inform me that it'd been called off. This left me some what confused however as I hadn't seen any rain whilst I'd been awake so far that day and the ground around me only seemed slightly muddy. It then resulted in me thinking back to my old sporting days when I'd be out almost every Sunday (as well as Saturday training) playing football in the middle of a very exposed field. I remember one occasion especially when we carried on playing in a full blown storm, rain so heavy you could only just make out the opponents goal from my position in defence and wind strong enough to force the spectators to have to brace themselves firmly into the ground (or in some cases run off to find shelter). We even had the occasional thunder claps, only thing we were missing was lightening. However we kept playing until about 5 minutes before the end of the game when the other team (who we were beating quite badly at that time, a rare event for us) decided they'd had enough and asked the ref to call it off in the hopes of a replay (we however still got the full points for our victory). Now this was back when I was about 13 years old, and university sports are called off for a bit of mud? Some people really are just pathetic these days it seems.
Well that's one complaint down, lets move onto last week. To start off with Monday night the long threatened Duty Manager training for St John was given for me and three others. I understand fully that if I don't do this the unit's going to be in trouble next year but I was still a bit apprehensive about it. The training itself was fine, most painful part was the continuous randomly laughter from my fellow trainees which resulted in my head being face down on the desk for most of it. Since then I have then experienced being duty manager twice on duty. Firstly last Wednesday where two minutes into the womens' rugby game two of our team collided, eventually resulting in one of them requiring an ambulance off to hospital (it was the 'tank' of the girls' team colliding with one of their smallest players). Also got a suspected back injury from a regular, a guy asking for a sling and one other which I missed after take our regular back to the first aid room. This was then followed on Friday by my second experience of duty manager when nothing what so ever happened all evening (inspite of there being 5 of us Friday compared to 3 first aiders and an observe Wednesday).
Doubling back to Wednesday, after the duty I also had an opportunity to go to the cinema for the first time in a very long time to see Hot Fuzz. I had been looking forwards to seeing this movie since first seeing the trailer (and after seeing the cast list I couldn't see how it could go wrong) and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. The movie had everything, comedy, action, guns, knives, explosions, blood, a zombie like character and a brief zombie like scene. Another nice thing about the cinema trip was that quite a large group of us actually went, in the end there were about 12 of us even though we were slightly scattered due to the popularity of the film (which was to be expected) and I managed to get myself a half price ticket due to the fact that I'm now on an Orange contract for my mobile. One slight down side of it is that I can't quite work out if I want to join the police more or less having see it.
Right what else have I got to complain about? Ah, of course, lab reports. By 4pm on Friday I had to submit my 3rd psychology lab report, again a 3000 word limit and again I only got around 2500 words doing most of them in the last two days. I just can't do lab reports early for some reason. I can sit down, surrounded by notes and books but still only get a few hundred words done a day until the pressure is really on at the last minute and it's bloody annoying, in part because it also means that I have to limit my drinking.
Finally we move onto this weekend (which in itself has three items). First up, early mornings. I disagree with the principle of early mornings enough as it is but understand that it's necessary. But after leaving tesco back home I thought I could get back to waking up at a sensible time on the weekend. However this weekend I was asked to help set up the FAW course on Saturday (after finishing on duty at 2am that morning) and I also ended up going along today (Sunday) as well in case the other person needed a hand (for reasons that I'll move onto shortly). Both these days meant that I had to be up by 8am and it just doesn't seem natural to me, luckily I have no lessons tomorrow so I can have a nice lie-in to recover.
On the subject of the FAW it has been interesting to watch other people going through it (even if I have a nasty feeling that they're going through slightly faster my my group did) and it's a good opportunity to get to know all the new members of the society and spent a bit more time with the members that have been around a while. Its also good to see them instantly adapting to work together in groups which have even mixed over the two days showing that all of them are able to work together rather than forming sub-groups. Restores some hope for next year to me. Just need to wait until after their assessment next Sunday then get them out on duty getting some experience.
And the final item of this weekend (also the reason I thought the other person minding the FAW might need some support today) is my near dramatic rescue last night. About 9pm, right in the middle of Casualty, I got a message over msn from another member of St John telling me that he'd just received a text along the lines of 'X, Y is unconcious wot should I do? Z' (letters added in to protect individuals identities) and as he wasn't getting any further response from the mobile and I live just a short distance from them he asked me to head round to check what was happening. I quickly grab my keys then head out the door rushing over to the casualties flat seeing as I knew they had been wasted from around 19.45 at least and had also been informed of a heavy intake of pain killers. On the way I called one of the casualties flat mates so he could let me into the flat and give me a hand if I needed any further help, unfortunately he was only half way back to uni after going to tescos but luckily for me the flat door was open so I was able to get in there quickly and start knocking on the casualties door. After getting no response after about 2 minutes I headed back outside (largely to get some signal on my mobile) and called the guy that had asked me to check on them. It turns out that the text had just been a wind-up and as a result I had missed about 10 minutes of Casualty for no good reason. The casualty has since been apologising lots (as well as feeling quite ill due to amount of alcohol they consumed last night) but it's not going to bring back those 10 minutes of tv time I lost.
On another note it's nearly the end of the month so I'm also up dating my main site so go have a look.
QOTD: (none, a stolen comic instead)... February 16 SU ElectionsYesterday and Wednesday were the SU elections at Essex for the Saab (basically the top 5) positions as most who read this blog will know.
Personally I really couldn't have cared less about who successfully sold their soul to become part of the SU executive committee but seeing as I'm currently under threat of taking a certain position in St John next year which may involve having to meet with several of these people a few times I thought I should do it and but some form of thought into it (however I did cure myself of the shame of having voted by having a third of a bottle of red wine with my dinner).
Unfortunately in voting RON (re-open nominations) still did fairly well for me. Beating most nominees and even coming top in the running for vice-president sports and societies (one that I am pretty much guaranteed to have to see some time next year). Though to be fair we did have people marked down a neo-feminist, communist and student respect running for the position of President (for a laugh I looked at the student respect mainfesto, first line was a history of the Iraq war so I just closed it and put them bottom of my list of preferences).
Once I'd finished all this and the bottle of wine I thought it was over and I'd be safe. However I was sadly mistaken. About 8ish at a guess there was a heavy knocking at the door to my flat. I ignored it as always as my flat mates often have friends round (who don't seem capable of calling up my flatmates and my flatmates seem incapable of hearing even though I'm the furtherest from the door). About 8.30 I then left my room for a drink only to discover two people sitting on the stairs outside my flat waiting for someone to appear. Turns out they were just lackies of one of the groups that had gotten together to run (Super Students to be specific) who of course asked me if I'd voted, who I'd voted for and to whether my flat mates had voted. Being a kind hearted soul I claimed my flat was out but would encourage them to vote if I saw them in time then promptly shut the door (noting as I did that one of the two lackies when back to sitting on the stairs staking out my flat).
Finally 9 o'clock came when the polls closed and they were appearently announcing the results in the SU bar so I knew I was free from pestering (at least for a few weeks). On the subject of results though I heard that some how they managed to mess it up so by about 11.30 they still hadn't announced any results. How they messed up is completely beyond me seeing as all the voting was done on-line so the computers would have been able to give a result less than a second after the polls close. But then again its the SU and I need to learn to expect the stupid and idiotic.
As it happens I still haven't heard all the results. Just heard about two people from others who had there from others still. SU hasn't even bothered e-mailing round (which they did all of yesterday with a running count down. Another entertaining thing as I got the 1 hour warning 10 minutes after the polls closed.
QOTD: Max Stone - A leader needs funny catch phrases, like 'take it to the max' and 'monkey banana raffle'. February 08 What have I done now?!?Further busyness for me this week.
Following on my my rant about technology I just thought I'd update everyone that the AED did behave during my assessment and I ofcourse passed (the only known way to fail being to kill an inanimate doll) so should it ever become necessary I can now use a defibrillator on people.
In other news we had a semi-social at St John's by going to Cheezy Tunes on Tuesday(a legendary evening for the old timers and a damn good night even now it turns out). This time I remembered my camera and the next day I found 100 photos and videos (the blackmail material is good). Currently all of those photos can be accessed through the photo albums page on my main site and two are being used for a caption competition on our unit forums.
My final act was to then collect all the videos together on windows movie maker, stick in a couple of pictures to pad it out and cover it with some music and the result is below. In the words of one person featured it is "hilarious! Yet cringeworthy".
Enjoy...
Good news is that I'm not currently planning to take my camera to the full social next Tuesday. But my mind may change.
QOTD: Farnsworth: Doomsday device? Ah, now the ball's in Farnsworth's court! (platform rises from floor containing many doomsday devices) Farnsworth: I suppose I could part with one and still be feared. February 05 TechnologyWell I didn't get round to blogging anything last week (which I'm sure you're all greatful for) due to being busy with St John stuff. Three duties (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and there were about six injuries between all of them (three Wednesday and three Friday). Seeing as I'm not on duty at all this week I suspect that they'll be hundreds of injuries, or if only a few they'll actually be interesting treatable ones.
Anyway, today I went on the St John AED (Automated External Defibrillation) course and took on what could have potentially been the most troublesome piece of technology I have yet to meet. As I've explained in a previous blog me and technology (specifically computers but I try to spread my hate) have a deep, hate-hate relationship, often resulting in swearing and the occasional kick to get them to do my biding. Now the reason for my suspicion of problems is that unlike most other computers, this one talks back. It even has the audacity to try and give you instructions on what to do and when to do it. Personally I expected to find myself sitting there arguing with it for half an hour and giving it a quick kick whenever the trainer turned his back, however today it behaved. Accepted the pads as attached first time around, agreed that the inanimate dummy needed shocking and generally behaved itself. I'm sure that Wednesday went I get assessed it'll start singing a different tune just to mock me.
It was asked of me why I was going to take this course seeing as I feared technology. However I do not fear technology, I just hate it (with a few exceptions: The Borg, futuristic killer robots, robot/zombie hybrids [so basically the Borg again] and small robotic chickens that jump at you and bite you in the shins).
QOTD: Professor Farnsworth: This mission is incredibly dangerous. Someone's sure to be killed. Fry, Leela, Bender—
January 29 Main Site UpdateOne month down into the new year, and two weeks down into the new term. Unfortunately there's not much to say about it, had a statistics test, been to a few lectures, done a St John duty, helped out at refreshers fair. Not a lot else. On the subject of St John though, tomorrow I do my first Ents duty (probably the first of many unfortunately) for the Hundred Reasons gig. Should be interesting at least, even if it does mean I'll miss going to the bar after the normal meeting (but I'm sure something can be done about that). Anyway, its the end of the month so that means I'm updating my main site again http://gazza.xnapster.com, this month with a few new ideas but all the changes will be listed on the front page for anyone interested. And just to warn you I've discovered that you can find that site via google if you type in the right search (a muffin to anyone to actually bothers to find it and tells me). Well that's it for now, hopefully for the next monthly update I'll have something more interesting to say otherwise I blog every so often now anyway. And a final warning, I'll probably be adding stuff to my myspace site shortly (due to certain pesterings) meaning that the internet will be full of yet more crap from me. QOTD: 1+1 it could manage (2) and 2+2 (4) or tan 74 (3.4874145), but anything above 4 it represented as 'A Suffusion of Yellow"
January 24 They stole our ice packs :-(Just finish my first St John duty of the term and now I'm nackered.
Didn't start off to badly (with three of us sitting in the bar of an hour waiting for the duty manager who was delayed). Personally I feel more duties should start like that, though there wasn't alcohol involved which I'm not sure if it should be included or not just yet.
After a promising start we then proceeded to the sports field, just after half time for the rugby and two football games that were being played. As per usual we just ignored the wimps playing football (note, this is not a dig at football as I enjoy playing the game a lot myself, however the players are much more wimpish compared to rugby players who would attempt to play on inspite of decapitation whereas football players often screen from a slight bruise).
Anyway, due to the lateness of our arrive a fair amount of injuries had already happened meaning as soon as we turned up people started flocking towards our bright colours like bees to flowers or something of that nature. Within roughly thirty minutes we'd had about four casualties come up to us with various knee injuries generally all asking for ice packs (plus one who asked for deep heat but left when we told he we didn't have any) and someone who seemed to have a cut just above his eye but I didn't see to him. This was a bit hectic in my opinion (try picturing the harlem globe trotter manouver where three of them just run in and out of three of the opposition passing the ball [1.10 in]) as we only had one fully experienced person on duty, then me an a fellow first year with several duties experience and our observer who was only allowed to do paper work (freeing me from it for a change). Luckily most of them pushed off quickly after we'd given them their ice park and just made sure there wasn't a greater problem with the exception of one who we decide had broken a metatarsal (we eventually sent off to hospital after helping them walk to our first aid room and wait for a friend to pick him up).
After this we got another two injuries. Yet another asking for an ice pack and thus robbing us of our last one, who was eventually diagnosed as having a dislocated knee, though I missed this as I was called off to check on our friend with the broken foot and treat a new patient the sports centre had sent us. Thankfully this guy came with his own ice pack (or at least ice wrapped in paper). I was told he had a broken thumb so just sat down with him whilst I did some observation on the mobility and circulation of the thumb and gave him a paracetamol, then tied up his thumb before telling him he should go off to hospital or at the very least the campus health centre.
Luckily for us during the period after the match whilst we were treating to dislocated knee (and waiting for his ambulance) as well as the broken foot and thumb we had two off duty members turn up (for reason I can't remember) so we quickly put them to use carrying stuff and helping treat/watch over the observer (who had largely been left with the broken foot guy on his own with me just popping over to ask questions every so often). After that we had a quick check of the PRF's and set off for home allowing me to stagger back into my room and collapse in my chair here feeling a tad tired (and dreading the prospect of the lab report I had to get back to) and thinking over what I'd learnt today:
1) buy a thermos flask, although my sports bottle of tea did better than expected by the time I actually got to the fields it was only luke warm,
2) get more ice packs or talk more people out of taking them (threatening them with paper work sees to work well for others),
3) try relaxing in the bar for an hour before duties more often,
4) grab more gloves and don't hand yours over when someone else runs out,
5) take more pens as only the most experienced seem to take then as well as me,
6) have observers come along more often to avoid doing to paper work entirely by myself,
QOTD: Assume every female between 6 and 106 is pregnant until proven otherwise. (from Murphy's Laws of Emergancy Medical Transport) January 19 A new hopeA long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
Sorry, was caught up in a sci-fi mood. Anyway there is a new hope if the news is true. 50p a pint from 5 - 9 tonight in the SU bar. It brings a tear to the eye I'm so happy.
I just pity those people on duty for St john tonight (and anyone that's working but I don't know of anyone specific there) and fear the time when I'm doing a Friday duty.
QOTD: "We are outnumbered, there is only one thing to do. We must attack!" - Admiral Andrew Cunningham January 17 I think I broke my brain... So last night (Monday) was the first St John meeting after the Christmas break and as I expected of myself my memory was limited leading me to mainly following others lead (going to have to correct that by next week). Did learn one very useful thing though, when dealing with a drunk patient and they ask why your fingers are blue (due to the colour of the gloves), don't give them the answer of magic. Just makes things worse.
On the other hand last night did prove why it's good to be back with the trip to the bar after the meeting and several discussions about things such as the different between hugs and kisses (in this case chocolate ones but when we were first offered them that wasn't specified) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And it probably helped me prepare for my bloody statisitics test the next morning as well.
Now onto the title of this blog. I spend a fair amount of my time, wasting it by watching cartoons and other tv programmes over the internet and today I've been watching a lot of Sealab 2021, a spoof redub of some old hippy cartoon (think captain planet but under water) shown on cartoon network late at night. Now the show can be quite weird at the best of times and is generally very funny because of it. But when I watched the episode titled Bizzaro and now (once again) I fear that I have destroyed my sanity and will have to begin rebuilding it.
QOTD: Hesh: "Aah! Lemon juice! It burns with the power of lemons!"
January 14 The ReturnSo I returned to uni last night, got every thing unpacked and organised and not a lot else. Now onto the fun stuff. Two solid days of revision followed by 4 days of finishing off my second lab report (which seems to be getting worse everytime I look at it). Surprisingly enough I've found myself feeling very bored for much of the day but feel that I've done fairly well in ignoring distractions, only watched one episode of Stargate Atlantis and haven't played any computer games yet (though I may do soon, I feel a growing need to confront the evil demonic girl and her electric monkeys in F.E.A.R).
Just a quick follow up from my previous blog. The battle with the laptop resulted in microsoft word and such like being installed (or alternative versions in the case of excel at least) but the digital tv is a job to be left to either my Dad or my Brother. Or possibly me in around two and a half months. One thing I did forget I realised was to set-up the windows messenger on it for the account I created my Dad so for now he'll have to continue sharing my Mum's.
Oh and just to clarify, the title of my previously blog was less to do with the tasks I was being set and more to do with the fact that I found one of the songs from the original Command and Conquer game (Target aka The Mechanical Man by Frank Klepacki, a song I always liked to hear though I can't remember why any more) January 12 I'm the mechanical manSo my grand blog here and link to my main site to try and get more viewers idea probably hasn't worked out due to the lack of blogging. But anyway it's still Christmas holidays and I'm ill.
So onto the source of this blogs title. Before I went off to uni I'd become to goto guy for fixing (or more like jury-rigging) most electronic devices in the house, primarily the complicated digit box/tv/dvd/video machine/game cube set up which involve many scart cables, a scart box and needing to remember to flick certain switches to go from one to another. Whilst this may not sound like the greatest task ever, seeing as my relationship with technology is very much a hate-hate one involving much kicking, swearing and the occasional praying/sweet talking (such as offering to leave it alone for a while once it's completed the task I've set it) the problem grows. Added to the fact that I seemed to have to rebuild the system every two weeks because someones moved something or we've had a power cut or something.
My other main task was to try and keep the family computer going (which was formerly mine before our old one died and I got a new one). This computer had suffered more formattings than I can remember as well as other unconventional techniques of getting it to keep going whilst under my possesion, as well as blowing it's power supply (but that wasn't my fault, as far as I remember). Anyway, lets get to the point with all that back ground out of the way (hopefully you're still reading). Just before I departed for uni one of my Dad's laptops (BT give him hundreds it seems) died. Turns out the hard drive had gone kaput or something so my Dad got a new one and got a friend with an actual knowledge of computers to give him some disks and stuff to get everything working again. But lo-and-behold I've now been handed the laptop and tasked to get it operational again in three days (two of which are now gone). My first action was to collect all the installation disks I could, I planned to include some old operation systems (windows 98 to be specific) but I couldn't find it which lead to me giving up and watching X3: The Last Stand instead. However, halfway though the movie another idea came to be, something that I'd done too many times to my old pc but was worth a try, I used the XP upgrade disk to do a system repair (simple but effective it turned out) and thus I managed to get the laptop to actually boot up. I then went back to my movie and put it out of my mind for the night.
Today I moved onto my next two tasks with the laptop, getting microsoft office (word, powerpoint, etc) installed and as well as a digital tv thingy. This proved to be more difficult than anticipanted and I'm currently at a stalemate with one day left on the clock. The microsoft office disk appears to be damaged meaning that I can not install anything for it, and whilst the digital tv thing installed perfectly, it won't work until the sound drivers for the laptop are installed which I don't have, meaning that tomorrow I'll have to configure the laptop to access our home network so I can find those drivers on the internet.
I hate technology at times, and yet they always assign me to the tills in my tescos express? Well I've bored you enough now, I'll be back at uni Saturday and after that I'll hopefully start leading a more interesting life and be able to blog more, again please visit my main site (where you'll find this same blog along with many other things such as videos and more pictures) January 06 ExplanationSo I got bored once again and started a new site (I think this is about my 4th now, with only one other still going). As you can see I've just started by adding some random bits and pieces to bulk out the site and a couple of blogs from my primary site
http://gazza.xnapster.com (which everyone should visit and sign the guest book at... please
 )Hopefully in a day or two I'll have this thing sorted and then if I ever feel like I have something to say or am just bored I'll blog it here. Sorry. Here we go again...So I missed the Christmas up-date but as everyone knows it's a busy time. Well it's now 2007, unfortunately I didn't get off to the best start babysitting until 11 then being stuck at home by myself watching Jools Holland's Hootanany on BBC2 (wasn't as good as I remember it being the last time I watched it a few years ago) followed by working 9 - 6 at my tescos the next day when we were about the only shop open in a 30 mile radius. But enough of the bad times, Christmas was good and I'm sure there will be plenty of good things to come in 2007, my new years resolution of conquring the psychology department in a violent coup may even come true. In other news my fame is speading, in a small and unnoticable way. If any of you happen to type Machellen or General Machellen into google or the myspace web search then you'll find the two videos I've posted on youtube. Scary isn't it. It all over...And so with my first psychology exam over and my history course work handed in, as far as I'm concerned this term is over. On another note had the St John LINKS Christmas party last night, good meal off in Yates with reasonably priced drinks. Good company of course and I even got myself a snooker table through secret santa (I just got my person a bar of chocolate). Looking forwards to getting back for Christmas, even if it does mean I'll have to be back in tescos, but that is redemed by the fact that they will help replenish the booze fund (which could well just suffer further damage due to Thursday nights in Fleet plus the A-level presentation evening on Monday) End of the first termComing to the end of the first term here and thus far I've continued to survive (did an experiment in the psychology department which required them to monitor my pluse and it seemed to be there). I would say that it's been a good start but right now I'm looking at my first history essay (why did I choose this?) and my first exam, both for next Wednesday. On the other hand I'm now a member of the committee for the St John unit on campus and have done a couple of duties and treated a couple of injuries and I'm also slowly increasing my friend base. Just a final point of warning, I'm looking into starting up my webcomic again, just need to find the time to practice my drawing skills or hire an artist then I've got a fair few story lines planned out. |
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