28Sep/09
I couldn't think of a title. Shame.
The past four weeks.
Fucking busy.
Okay, going back to the start of September, I got a new phone, I missed rounded corners on Facebook pictures, went to Ikea, installed Snow Leopard, had major problems with MrMaycock.com, hosted a Harry Potter party (I'm just that cool), bought tickets to see Derren Brown next year (excited!), sorted out Natwest, bought The Beatles: Rock Band, decided to buy a Forza 3 Xbox 360, and my reaction to Derren Brown sticking me to my seat was hysterical laughter.
Then I moved up to Derby. It's fun here. Lots of fun new people, fun new places, fun education. And hard education.
Last Saturday was relatively standard, apart from the whole moving myself up here, which included three games consoles, one HDTV, one iMac and a lots of other things. Played some Buzz at Mr. Adam Biddulph's, that was about it. Oh, I fell asleep around 12, which was weird. But ultimately necessary, as I do need to be awake early each day. Which is something I haven't been doing regularly since May. Other thing about that Saturday was the lack of people talking like pirates. There is always next year.
Sunday was fun, as it was the pub meetup with the CGMA and CGP course peoples. Then it was the street party, which was also quite fun. I do want to go back to Blue Note, mainly as they played Lady Gaga, La Roux and Queen in succession. I loves it. The Old Bell Hotel was obviously the place to be, plus a Vodka + Coke for £1.40 was very nom nom and I drank a few of those. =D
Monday was also fun, as I was up at Keddleston doing induction things. We had a general chat, then a CGP talk, had a fabulously fun presentation about the library then a quick university tour. Then lunch, then we built some bridges out of spaghetti and string. The team I was in won, as we were awesome and built a suspension bridge. And then we went to Add's to play Buzz (I so won one game), watched some videos off of YouTube and talked some more. =)
Tuesday was more induction fun. I thought it was funny when people turned up 50 minutes late into a one hour session. Then there was more lectures and stuff like that, not very exciting stuff. Tuesday evening was just creepy. We met Bill Jones. He's 79. That's all you need to know.
Wednesday was more induction-y things. Then it was enrolment. What a wonderful three hour long process. Two of those were just spent waiting for my course leader's signature, after that it was quite speedy. And then I got my student ID card. Which is meh. It'll do. =) Then on the evening, we wondered over to Markeaton Park, had a walk around, played with Add's Frisbee, went on the swings and the slides, and lounged around the skate park for a bit. Then we got some chips, and went back to Add's to play Buzz. =)
Thursday was not the most enjoyable days. We went walking around the Derbyshire countryside with the Computing faculty. The first hour or so was quite nice and gentle, nice views and stuff. And then we walked up a fucking long hill. And steep. I did not enjoy that at all. Then we had a few hours to lounge around in Bakewell, where everything is so expensive. We did find this nice pasta shop and I had a spaghetti carbonara which was quite nice. Fun group of people to talk to, as we talked about fun things like Fable, Modern Warfare, Halo, Salad Fingers, Charlie the Unicorn and Devo. Fun. =) And then we went to Add's to play Buzz.
Friday was quite uneventful really. Was gonna have a lie-in, but I just couldn't be bothered. So I cleaned my room, and put stuff away. There's still loads to sort out, but I've got some underbed storage and a little tower thing so I just need to find the time. I also decided against pre-ordering the Forza 3 Super Xbox 360 Elite. As I played the Forza 3 demo, and hated it. It reminded me how I now only like racing games where the aim is to crash or piss other people off. À la Burnout and Mario Kart really. I did pre-order the Modern Warfare 2 Super Elite though, as that is gonna be awesome whatever happens. Friday evening was über awesome though, as we went to Mosh, which has the best music ever. Especially the ground floor. Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, Journey, stuff like that. Fabulous.
Saturday involved me getting into The World Ends With You for the DS. As I'd never really played enough to be interested in it before, but now I'm enjoying it. It's good fun. =) Then we went over to Peter's to play some Castle Crashers and eat some Pizza and cookie blob. Very nice, fun evening in general.
Sunday was different. Parents came up to bring up stuff I forgot, bring up mail and to also buy me lunch. Which was nice and nom nommy. I've also got my Rock Band instruments which is cool, as I've missed guitaring some Beatles songs. Sunday evening was questionable, not really quite sure if I enjoyed it that much. Still, it was free, so it could've been much worse. Lots of fun Catholic prodding, but I was expecting more Simon Bird stand up. Which was a shame. Anyway, then we came back to mine to play some Rock Band, and then we went to Add's to play Buzz (I so won one game).
Today was also different. Though teaching has started, I have free Mondays. So I left here late-ish, went to Keddleston around 11.30-ish, and it was Freshers' Fair. It was quite amazing. Overall, I picked up 62-ish leaflets/flyers/brochures/vouchers, one medi:syn boy T-Shirt, one Go Hard or Go Home Walkabout T-shirt, one Size Does Matter! pink T-shirt from Varsity, one pair of I Love Vodka boxers, one bible, one keyring, three bottle openers, one Mosh condom, one light-up Vodka Kick button, one light-up Coyote Wild button, 10 teabags, one Lynx Instinct deodorant bullet, one mug, one Varsity spanking bat, seven pens including one that lights up when you hit it, two free drinks at Coyote Wild, one free shot at Varsity, three lollipops, lots of sweets, two free bowls of chips at Varsity, one I Love Vodka lanyard and poster, one Revolution voucher book, 15% off at Toni&Guy, some post-its, a temporary tattoo, four slices of pizza, one medi:syn drawstring bag, one Varsity vCard, one candyfloss stick, one Wetherspoons cheap things wristband, two cups of free popcorn and a lighter. I also picked up my NUS card, which is nice, sexy and green. I also sorted out my UDo account so I can now login to the Derby network. Mr. Darke was just on Eggheads (but he lost, which is not what we expected). And finally, my parents have just been told that I have been financially assessed and will be getting a full £2906 grant.
Oh, to see my Freshers' Fair things, go here, here and here.
That has been Freshers' fortnight for me so far. Met lots of fun new people, been lots of new fun places, and starting sleeping early. Teaching starts tomorrow, which should be interesting. Also, Vernon Kay at the shopping centre party tomorrow, which should also be interesting
However, to finish today off, I'm gonna go cook myself a Lamb Rogan Josh, and I may head over to Syn or Mosh later, or maybe just lounge around having fun.
I love Derby.
27Aug/09
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. =)
