The past whatever, 28 days.
Fun 28 days or so. That mainly orientated around A Level results.
I got a D in Physics (346/600 UMS), a D in Maths (339/600 UMS), and a B in ICT (476/600 UMS). I was quite annoyed with the 4 UMS I was off an A in ICT, but it doesn't matter any more, as I'm going to my first choice university. Which I'm really happy about. Like, ecstatic. =)
Still, my student loans aren't in the best standings. Though I do have a loan confirmed, it's not means tested, so I'll not be getting the grant, so I won't be able to eat. SLC say they're working through stuff sent in at the end of June, so we should have our stuff re-evaluated for the third time soon enough. Hopefully in the next three weeks.
Also applied for a Natwest Student Bank account, I mean - who hasn't? That five year railcard is just so appealing. Thought I'd messed it up by trying to open a savings account which needed me to make an initial deposit from my Natwest account, which I didn't have yet, so I cancelled it, but the forms arrived no problems this morning, so that's all filled in and I've just sent it back.
Starting university in three weeks and two days should be fun, if hectic. I've got most of the things I need now. I'd be tempted to say I've got everything I need. Can't wait though.
One problem with moving in is the mass of stuff happening in the weeks I move in. Namely, Joe Brooks has a gig on the Sunday, The Mission District has a gig on the Monday, Halo: ODST comes out on the Tuesday, Scribblenauts comes out on the Friday. Then two weeks after that, KH: 358/2 Days comes out. Television-wise, The Big Bang Theory and Heroes starts the Monday after I move in, Desperate Housewives starts the Sunday after that, and Ugly Betty starts the same Monday that KH comes out. And Mythbusters starts again in October.
However, I'll be far too busy partying or doing work to care.
Mmm, this is a nice omelette. What a strange word.
Anyway, other stuff.
In the past few weeks, I've been to Chasewater three times and had some nice sandwiches and fed some ducks with friends. Plus we took over the fort and were awesome. I've got some photos that I need to upload actually.
I've also been to Newhall Farm, Mill Farm, Jimmy Spice's, and The Village Lodge. Still can't cope with paying for poppadoms (I care not for the 14 other variations Wikipedia suggests) at that last one. Plus the meal didn't taste very nice. They did do a good keema naan bread though, I will give them that.
Regarding my iMac, ohmigah it died. My HDD started clicking far too loudly, giving me loads of "fun" new error messages. Thank fuck for AppleCare, £5 for a university student was the best thing I bought with my iMac. Got my screen replaced, HDD replaced, and my disc drive too. All within a week.
However, that week was spent on Ubuntu. I hated every minute. I could never just get into it and enjoy it, or be able to use it. It took me about half an hour to install Flash. Anyone who says Linux is the future, is plain and simple wrong, unless you're in very specific circumstances. It's just too un-user friendly.
Anyway, back to Apple products, I'm quite excited over Snow Leopard coming out this Friday. Though it means I'm down £25, it does mean I get some new sexy features and some hard drive space back. I'm probably just gonna stick Snow Leopard on top of Leopard, as it's been installed for two weeks now. I've always got my Time Machine back ups anyway.
Also bought into a 1Password upgrade. Clearly the best application on a Mac, I use it everyday, so £12.62 to keep it running sounds like a good, sexy bargain (The version 3 interface being the sexy component, of course.)
Games wise, I bought two XBLA games and one XBLIG, those being Trials HD, Shadow Complex and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1.
Trials HD is a wonderful game, I just need more people on my friends list that play it. It's great fun, and infuriating. But it's very addictive game play, really enjoyable.
Shadow Complex was a game I wasn't expecting to buy, but then really enjoyed the demo, so I bought it. Another fabulously fun game, lots of 'splosions and stuff. But anyway, just buy it. =)
Finally, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 is another fun game. But it only costs 80 MSP. Look at this gameplay. Come onnn, that's like 69p.
This week, I had some sexy free fruit and nuts from Graze.com. I got some grapes, dried pineapple, pecans, and some banana coins. Though it usually costs £3 per box, I used a promotional code (AF8PPXY) and then you get a free week, and one week 1/2 price. You do have to provide a debit/credit card details but they don't charge for a free box and you can cancel anytime. I did. And my box was yummy. =)
Today was the day I learned that Panic at the Disco had lost two of it's members. Which sucks. But Panic! at the Disco (huzzah for retuning exclamation marks) has a new single that is quite awesome. Plus, P!ATD still has the better two members. The members that left and formed a new band also have a new song, but MySpace doesn't want me to be able to hear that one. Ah well.
That's about it.
Apart from Lostprophets!
It was an awesome gig. The Dead Formats were a bit creepy. The Young Guns were okay. Lostprophets were great! Fun songs. Bloody loud though. And lots of jumping. Had to get out by 10.15 as it was really quite hot and my knee started killing me. Bit mad really, but still a great night. Plus Kids in Glass Houses and The Blackout just appeared to turn up. Quite crazy really.
And that's about it. Probably another month of blog silence ahead. =)
Another fun day.
Woke up at 4.30am today to claim facebook.com/samuel, but was too slow. Therefore, I have http://www.facebook.com/samuel.maycock instead, which isn't that bad.
I then tried to go back to sleep, which didn't happen. Which then set me up to go in to Derby for an Open Day on three or so hours of sleep. Not the best, but it's about normal for me anyway.
Had a letter inviting me to the Great Wyrley Performing Arts High School Oscar's. For my contribution to the arts. I'm not sure where that happened. But I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. Very exciting. Click on the image to the right to see the text of the letter.
Left the house late, so we arrived at Derby late, obviously.
Got on an accomodation tour for Peak Court, as it'd be nice to see where abouts my actual room will be in about three months and a week. Turns out it's very nice. Rooms were very similar to York's rooms, just a bit shorter and a bit wider. Bathroom was identical, and the kitchen was bigger, so it's all good. Not far from anywhere either, which is also nice.
As we were late, we had no chance to go talk to the course leader before the talks started, so we decided to go to the Computing talk for the third time. Thought it was great that my mom could identify Project Natal when others in the room couldn't. Talking to the course leader and some students made me feel less terrible about me probably not getting my target grades. Which is still killing me. Gonna try hard to do as well as possible next week so I can get a few more marks. Maybe even a C? That would be nice.
Went into the city centre afterwards to have a look around, which looks fun. Lots of fun shops. Went home. Now I'm home. And off to revise. So I can maybe get a C.
Farewell. =)
Things are going alright.
For once. It's quite great, I do have to say. Had a lie-in this morning, exam was good, I've gained lots of money, my record of achievement has reappeared, and I've gotten two free songs off of iTunes.
ICT went really quite well. Which is obviously the only exam where I'm going to come out thinking that, with C4 and PA10 next week. Most of the questions went really well, apart from a few.
And that database question was awful, mainly because it wasn't normalised! It annoyed me so much.
Anyway, I hope I've got a B there, which will hopefully get me an A overall, the only decent grade from my A Levels. Unless I do get a D in Physics, which is what I'm expecting. Not really a good grade, though. Especially not good enough for my university choices.
Off to Derby again for another open day to go see Peak Court and talk to the course leader.
Weird that in 93 hours I'll be done with exams. Eep, should probably start learning C4 soon.
Farewell. =)
Monday, 8th of June, 2009
I'm not sure if it was the fact that Facebook now posts notes to everyone's home pages, but I had 7 comments in 24 hours. Which were also the first comments I've had in 10 months. Good times. =)
Anyway, today, I officially started revising.
I mainly did PA04 today, and by did, I mean I read through a revision book. I also watch six episodes of Mythbusters and four episodes of American Dad!
I then bought three tickets to see Lostprophets.
I then thought about extending my Wordpress blog to use Facebook Connect to allow anyone to comment on the blog with their Facebook details. In turn, it would allow people to post comments onto their Facebook profiles, and allow me to not have to use Notes on Facebook to show posts. In the end, I had three different plugins tried out, and though each would post, they all produced either: an ugly layout, 404 error messages, terrible speeds due to having to connect to Facebook multiple times, or bad user management.
One of my favourite plugins also allowed people to comment on Facebook, then also posting the comments locally on the blog, and vice versa, which I thought was very ninja. However, it didn't connect with the wall or peoples home pages, which made me sad.
However, at the end of five hours and three plugins, I came back with nothing. Apart from a new favicon. Which, you have to admit: it's pretty sexy.
Look at thatt. You know you love it.
In other news, whilst doing this waste of time, Apple hosted their annual WWDC keynote, which had a few good and exciting announcements.
Most of it to me, was truly useless.
However, the announcement of Snow Leopard for $29 was an amazing and epic announcement which made me happy, as I expected the price to be four times more expensive. Also, if I were an iPhone user, or a to-be iPhone user, OS 3.0 would make me pretty happy. However, the iPhone 3G S does look nice, but I can't afford it. Which sucks totally.
Now I'm watching Family Guy, and am off to bed (along with watching some more Mythbusters, American Dad! and probably listen to some Lady Gaga) so I can start learning PA07. I truly mean start. We have an awful, awful teacher.
Another good day.
Well, almost all day.
Some bits were just plain hilarious!
The start of the day, the Core 4 mock, was a waste of time. I did worse than expected. Which sort of put an expected downer on my day. Following the Core 4 mock, we went to Bloomers & Tarts for the usual Tuesday sandwich. Which was nice, as usual. I spent a couple of hours in the area catching up with even more friends, which was also nice.
Come 12.30, and I start heading home. No. 1 was 5 minutes late, which was usual. The No. 33 to Norton Canes was on time, as usual. That's where the problems began. Mainly because the bus overheated (another reason why the current UK heatwave is failing, whih can be added to congested nose and bad sleep), and broke down outisde the Spar in Heath Hayes. Which amused me. Apart from the fact the bus was oh so hot, it was being stranded two minutes away from my house. And by stranded, I mean far too hot and exhausted to walk back. The No. 32 was around soon enough though, so I was home, relaxing.
Then I did nothing for four or so hours, until the E3 conferences of the afternoon.
As expected, Nintendo's was truly awful. For me, anyway. I don't care about Motion Plus (or Motion+, or however they're branding it), Golden Sun, DSi, Wii Sports Resort, or the Wii Vitality Sensor. I mean, seriously? No, bad Nintendo. The only thing announced that did interest me would have to be Super Mario Galaxy 2, but I'm planning to trade my Wii in soon anyway due to the 10 month lull in using it, and based on E3 there's nothing new coming in the next year that interests me enough. So, the Wii should cover Lips and Microsoft Points hopefully, and more.
Sony's conference, however, was in a completely different thing. Lots more interesting things that interested me. Uncharted 2 looked visually stunning, but I can't see how standard clothes could stop a helicopter mounted machine gun's bullets. But that's nitpicking. Anyway, other things that they showed was FFXIII, which looked visually stunning, nice to see more of it, very confusing with all the terminology being thrown around, along with the mad camera panning.
Favourite bit of Sony's conference was what I thought, and probably most people watching, was Jack Tretton showing FFvXIII gameplay, but announcing FFXIV was just immense! Don't think anyone expected that, but it was a good reveal. Even if FFXIII isn't out before they announced it, which I feel is a bit weird. Anyway, best game shown for me (as I care not for God of War, Metal Gear Solid, MAG (which I fail to see the point of, big woop about the 256 simultaneous players, it doesn't seem to add anything to gameplay, apart from the fact that you need to be pretty skilled in commanding 127 other team mates), or Trico or whatever the hell was happening in that) would have to be the latest game in the custom content, sorry, Play, Create, Share genre, ModNation Racers. It looks like a fun little game, with one mad custom race track creator. The way it was so fluid in its running was just simply amazing, and I can't wait to give it a go.
Sony's new hardware is something else that's a bit interesting. The worst kept secret of E3, the PSP Go, seems like a fabulous idea, but it just seems far too overpriced to be something I'd buy. The other thing they introduced didn't have a name, but I couldn't take it seriously when they said that you could cast fire and get a red, lit up ball. To be honest, it did look good, but I honestly don't care about motion control all that much. The way it was represented was very good, but when you can draw on a virtual screen as precise to 1mm, what's the point? (I was thinking that all the way through the Wii Sports Resort stuff as well) If it's that precise, why not just draw? Ah well.
I don't think it'll be as successful as the Wii's motion controls, or Project Natal. The reasons being that the Wii relies upon the motion controls, and Project Natal doesn't need two lit up wands to operate. Also, they'll probably be optional with few games needing them, so you know. They made for a good tech demo, anyway. I think Project Natal will be more successful as it does more, in my opinion. I see the facial recognition, voice recognition and full body motion tracking with nothing more than one USB peripheral just mad, and with lots of interesting possibilites. I mean, Milo, for god sake, the creepy boy that reacts to your emotion. It's weird, but amazing, and if that's where games are going, I really need to pass my A Levels. Here's hoping.
Anyway, in general, I felt Microsoft had the best press conference this year. The stage was sexy and exciting, they had Steven Spielberg, Hideo Kojima, and the Beatles on stage, and they showed more games that I was interested in (Halo: ODST, Halo: Reach, Modern Warfare 2, The Beatles Rock Band, Crackdown 2, Left 4 Dead 2, FFXIII) and announced lots more exciting functions to add to the dashboard (Last.fm, Facebook, Twitter, Sky, and of course, Project Natal). They also didn't blart out lots of statistics, marketing crap or NPD data like Sony and Nintendo did, which made for an enjoyable two hours of games and experiences.
Sony had an alright stage with an alright conference (I don't care how big the screen is, to be honest, I just want games and no showreels), and showed a few games I was interested in (ModNation Racers, FFXIII, FFXIV, Uncharted 2), and their unnamed motion tech was pretty awesome, though I see it a bit useless. But what do I know? Oh, they had Hideo Kojima too.
Nintendo was just one big pile of awful. Apparently, "Everyone's Game" which is a load of crap. Weird screens and no Zelda made me a bit disappointed. And they didn't have Kojima either. Or Ravi Drums. Ah well, maybe next year? Hah.
That's been a basic representation of my day, really. And with the rest of this week off school (study leave seems so much more interesting with me not actually going into school, I do have to say), I should get some revision done. Well, I need to get some revision done. I want to be helping to create mad games.
However, The Sims 3. That is all.
Exam deux.
PA02 this afternoon. And my only exam in the hall.
It went okay, I reckon I made two/three marks of stupid mistakes, and about five marks of lack of understanding.
Anything there will be an improvement of what I got last year, so I'm overall happy with how that went.
Hope that carries through to M1 tomorrow.
Got nothing else to say, really.
Ah well.
140th day of the year.
God, I do love Wolfram|Alpha. It tells you so many different random things. Very awesome.
Anyway.
Today at school was similar to any normal Wednesday, did little for most of the day. In total, I did look at about two PA02 papers, offset heavily by the amount of time exploring photos on Facebook and MySpace from the past and current times. Also, the party in Maths didn't induce productivity either, but it did induce chocolatey goodness.
Hmm, Eminem Spotify fabulousness.
Yes.
And oh my how could they not pick-up My Name is Earl? I want to know where that storyline goes. You know, with the thing?
Talking about American TV failures, everything I like to watch, apart form Mythbusters is currently on hiatus. Which means no new American TV for a few months. Hmm. I'm sure The Carphone Warehouse would be happier due to my reduced bandwidth usage though. But they don't seem to care, it's all cool.
Just had a bit of a Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise game for the first time in a few months, still is fun but my garden confuses me, so I may start another, after my exams of course.
Rediscovered an old favourite They Might Be Giants song, The House at the Top of the Tree. Fail though, as I can't seem to see it on Spotify, and can't buy it, or download it either. Which annoys me. Oh well.
Oh my 16 days until The Sims 3!!!
I don't know where I'm going with this post any more.
Damn you Adam Biddulph, you're making me want to become active on DeviantArt again. I haven't been active there since like 178 weeks ago. I'm still a beta tester though, which means that I have an equals sign, not a tilde, which obviously makes me cooler. I also have a DeviantArt hat, which makes me cool, and a DeviantArt print, which makes me cool.
Cool all around.
Might find that hat if I get bored later.
I shouldn't, as I need to be revising for the exam I have tomorrow.
Anyway, talking about samisanetgeek, awh, I miss Neopets. Well, the old Neopets layout. Still, I remember winning the userlookup award well. As do the Neopets archives.
Those were the good old days. I sort of miss them.
Oh god, I forgot about the first Halo 2 walkthrough available on the internet. Haha, that was fun to do.
Actually, that seems to be about it.
According to Wolfram, the sun has just set, and the waning crescent moon is coming otut, which seems about right. On a completely unrelated note, time to watch The Apprentice. Woop woop. =)
Oh, if you didn't hear: Maths and Alcohol don't mix, so don't drink and derive.
Aha.
Yeahh.
Ah well.
Might try to revise some PA02, too.
Yes.
Tuesday.
That was the official day of the week for May the 19th, 2009.
I didn't do much. Mainly went to revise at school, or watch Mythbusters, or listen to some classic Eurovision songs, or calculate what I really want to buy from Lips DLC (costing me 2760 Microsoft Points, gah, so many good songs, I mean check out this Spotify playlist), and having a nap.
Oh, doing some revision at home too, as I do have some exams on Thursday and Friday.
Ah well, all over in 28 days.
That's becoming really soon. And I don't know most of the C4 content I need to know. Fails.
However, for Sam's week of most under-worn Ties, today I wore my Union Jack tie. Tomorrow should be something fabulous.
The weekend. Also, exam one.
I may revisit one word titles at some point. I did think it was fun.
Okay, set the time to 6pm Saturday. I've just finished baking my cake, and I'm bringing my iMac downstairs. This produced problems in the form of 10.5.7, the latest Leopard update, failing to pick up my wireless network, and when it did find it, fail to mount my FireWire drive and not load any menu bar items. This messed up my plans heavily, so the iMac went back upstairs.
Now it's 8pm-ish, and most people are here, but my network is failing me on my netbook. Due to Eurovision starting, I had to stop, but these problems are fixed quickly later on.
A few minutes into Eurovision, and we're all laughing at Dima Bilan running through polystyrene, getting his coat stuck and lip-syncing terribly. Overall Eurovision was a bit mad, a bit strange (especially whatever was happening in the interval, that was especially mad), and very awesome (we came fifth, if you didn't hear). Overall, Eurovision was fabulous.
Apart from my Crucial RAM dying on me. I knew I wasn't going mad, about that it wasn't as good as the RAM I got from Dell. Ah well, at least I know now. Waiting for them to email me back now.
Say around midnight-ish, and I'm singing It's Raining Men, as performed by Geri Halliwell, covered by Adam Bennett and myself, on Lips, the video of which will probably be on the internet soon enough. I love Lips now, it's quite fabulous, I could spend 1600 Microsoft Points on songs if I had all of Lips and 1600 Microsoft Points. Ah well.
Make it 7am, and Lips is disappearing due to James Gittings and Adam Bennett going away, so I went to sleep and Matty, Foo and Mat played Peggle for four or so hours.
Then I don't think I did anything else on Sunday.
Today though, and I'm calling this Sam's week of most under-worn Ties. The Thinkgeek 8-bit Pixel Tie was todays.
Had the morning off doing some general revision, looked at some questions for PHAP, the Physics practical exam. Turns out looking at those was absolutely no help whatsoever, as the exam was nothing like anything. Question 1 went a bit iffy, could pick up most of the marks though. Probably not, I didn't know what I was meant to be talking about really, so I made it up. Question 2 was a bit stranger, could get most of the marks but the those on the last part, as I completely failed to answer two of the questions.  I'll never really know though, as it's joined with PA07, which might be a good thing.
That's basically it. Am now off to play Banjo Tooie, revise some Physics and Maths, and sleep.
Now.
I was right!
Nothing much else to say really, though this week is a bit of a season finale week of some of the last American TV shows, with Lost, The Big Bang Theory, My Name is Earl (joining Scrubs (what a lovely ending - I did nearly cry), Heroes, Better off Ted and Samantha Who?) ending for a while.
Should be okay for a while, I do have a whole season of Desperate Housewives and half a season of Ugly Betty to carry me through until Big Brother UK and US start. Might keep me a bit interested during revision, which I have officially started with my ICT timed exam now finished. Yayy.
And with good grades on the second M1 mock I did, I'm feeling not so bad about the exams I have next week.
Well, the practical should be no problem at all, M1's going alright, but the lack of me seeing a PA02 paper in a year may limit my progress there. Doubt I can do any worse on 25/90 UMS, though.
To be honest though, you never know. Ah well, time for some Free Realms, The Apprentice, and I may watch Semi-Final One again.
If you didn't see it, IT WAS AMAZING I'VE MISSED EUROVISION SO MUCH YAY.
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