Burn baby burn
Hey y’all.
Once again, over the weekend (yes I know this will be posted on the weekend again but I’m talking about the weekend that just passed) I was playing Ultimate Frisbee at a tournament.
This time I was at Bristol for Disco’s Disco Inferno tourney. Here is a quick summary of the weekend on both the Frisbee and non-Frisbee fronts:
- Left on Saturday morning, on the way popped into McDonald’s for some breakfast and for some reason the guy there gave me an extra cappuccino.
- Arrived in Bristol, as usual, just in time to play our first game. (Warming up is for pussies right?)
- Lost 2 and drew 1 on the first day, played some hard teams like our heroes Danger! High Voltage.
- Went to the ‘Sexy Disco’ party. To be honest, not very impressed. Not very sexy, not very disco and not very cheap.
- Day 2, won all of our games and we all generally played well. Came 3rd out of 3 in the scavenger hunt as we were the only non local team to enter and non of us thought that bringing Pogz was a good idea (even though my new and huge bag could have fitted the whole game in). We came away with the bowl (17th) which made us happy as we all played really well and beat some good teams on day two.
- I was chosen as MVP for the weekend and won a cool little photo of the team. I was trying not to be too happy about it but I think most people could tell that it did mean a lot to me.
So yeah, that was Bristol. I know what you’re thinking, why post about that so late in the week, what the hell have you been doing since then? And, why haven’t you blogged this much earlier?
Here is the answer I know you are so desperate for. On Monday I was too tired from Bristol and was putting off doing my graphics coursework and both of those things took over the whole day (apart from Monday training which I obviously went to because Frisbee is awesome!). Tuesday was the hard-core graphics programming day, with slow gamma correction done, there was only convolution left to do. With a few pointers from some friends and an un-relenting need to finish it before midnight, I cracked on and actually did a decent job. Wednesday was another training day, but with a twist. We were on the beach.
That’s right, you heard me. February and beach. Surprisingly, it was fairly warm and enjoyable. Some dude even took photos of us while we played (Not sure why, but hey). Here is a tip for all the beach Frisbee players out there though: when the sand is still kinda wet and all compacted together, its like running barefoot on concrete until it all gets churned up. My feet were on fire for the next 6 hours!
Thursday, doing some more coursework, mainly Compilers. Got lots done. The deadline for assignment 2 is on Friday and I’ve done up to assignment 5 so huzzah for me!
Friday. Friday, Friday, Friday. Of course I had Uni in the day, but then somehow going out for a £3.50 meal at the Bryn-Y-Mor turned out to be a Frankie and Bennie’s with some Revolution cocktails thrown in. You thought that was odd? Leanne nearly got ploughed into the road/a tree whilst in a trolley that Fran had let go of as she had fallen over. And to top it all off, me and Matt had some chocolate eclairs.Yum.
Saturday: I decided to come back to good old Newport to see the good old family. Completely smashed Josh of FIFA 09 (6-0 incase you were wondering.). The sad thing is, I have spent most of my time home not talking to my family and catching up, but learning how to you Trac on top of Subversion for my Software Labs Group Project.
You are probably waiting for me to say something witty or clever, but all I will say is “Are you happy now Andy!?”
Glad to have you back
To be honest, I love University.
I love being at Uni, especially the course I’m doing. Computer Science.
Many people think that this is the geekiest thing that you can study, and maybe it is. But here’s a tip; it is all the better for it. I have never, in my positively infinite 20 years that i have been alive met such a great and diverse bunch of people. I think many ‘outsiders’ will just be shocked to learn that some, nay, many people who study Computer Science have at least a basic grasp of social interaction.
But what ever I just wrote above doesn’t really have anything to do with what I actually wanted to write about, which was why I love Uni. To some it may seem a bit odd that I am writing about enjoying being back at Uni even though we are now into February. It does look a tad too late for that doesn’t it? Well, the point is as soon as the official term started we just had exams. Joy.
I can’t say I am as bothered by exams as a lot of people are. I would much rather do a bunch of exams which involve me cramming the closer it gets than having some long drawn out coursework that I have to sit there, researching and drafting or coding and debugging. But now the exams are over (and also a few other less than enjoyable things that have happened recently), it is actually great to be back learning stuff that is not only interesting but will, hopefully, net me some cash after it is all said and done.
On a side note: we had a snow-day on Tuesday. Fuck you snow, your just cold and wet and you suck.
Another few side notes: New Gnome-Do == awesome, Opera web browser seems to have come a long way since I used it last and I seem to be addicted to graphic novels at the moment.
I guess to summarise, I have a house mate who said that he came to Uni mostly for the pub-life that he leads. This is fine for him. Not for me, University is one of the greatest places ever even without the drinking, just the sheer amount of knowledge and intelligence in one place for some reason just keeps me going and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m at Uni. To get smart (and maybe rich).
P.S. I know what I have written here is very waffly (If that is a word, oh wait, spell checker said it isn’t. I’m going to keep it though, it just sounds right.). You will notice, if you check the timestamp, that it is 4:05am GMT and that my friends, is why I am writing like this. All work and no sleep make Kris an un-happy bunny.
Batman and BlueJ
I can see why there is a huge hype behind Batman: The Dark Knight, the Sequel to Batman Begins. The first was good, this one looks even darker and I don’t really want to delve too much into Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker as many more-respected reviewers can probably do him better justice than I can (especially since I am yet to see the film). But, as always when I write here, I feel something is being over-looked. (more…)
SUCS is twenty
Being a Computer Science student at Swansea University, I couldn’t help but joining the Swansea University Computer Society (I love funny acronyms). I thought it would be a great way to further my knowledge, meet new people and its the only place that you can play most online games. A fiver for the year? Thank you very much.
As boasted on the SUCS homepage, the society is one of the largest and oldest societys and Swansea Uni. This year is very special for SUCS though, as they are twenty this summer (making them a few months older than me)!
If you’re interested have a look at the section on the twenty years of SUCS, and to SUCS I wish you a happy birthday and hope that there are many more to come!
EDIT: also forgot to mention, thank you to SUCS for my hosting too!
Analogue samurai in a digital world
After a frustrating day day at work (no, I’m not even going to rant about it, eventhough on other days I would just post a rant instead of this) in the bank, I had a thought; what would happen if in Britain if we did away with physical cash all together? All money just being a number on a computer? (more…)