I love the internet

You can Google Image someone's name, find a few pictures of them...but as you move further down the pages, you find completely random stuff. Like this.

Jam House

Just got back from The Jam House - Jools Holland's club in Birmingham, to finish celebrating my 21st with guys up here, and because I'm finally old enough to go there - just as I'm about to move far too far away from it.

I say I'm old enough, but that's actually a lie, as it's over a week till I'm 21, though the doorman very kindly let me in - I think it was the suave cravat I was wearing that tipped his decision, you can't say no to a man in a cravat.

The place itself was gorgeous, and things kicked off at about 9 with an amazingly good pianist playing and singing, with a drummer backing him. Lots of swing and blues, with some classics played a bit uptempo made this one very fun.

Being so brilliant, everyone stopped dancing when I started, making me look lovely and cool, until the pianist said "...and I hear it's Ina's 21st birthday - is she here?" - ouch. One of the girls did ask me afterwards if I was a professional dancer though, but I couldn't find any compliments to return to her, she was rather fat.

Once this guy was done, the DJ (who could only say "It's Friday night", seriously - he told us that more than ten times) put on some very bad music, which got the drunken section of the audience dancing - enough about that though.



Red Lemons were the main band, described as 'a group of highly accomplished musicians, playing soul and funk classics'. I can vouch for every word of that being completely true - they were all fabulous instrumentalists/vocalists, and I don't think I need to say anything more when I tell you that their second song was Rare Earth - Get Ready. They even played Love Shack ^^

The break inbetween Red Lemon's two sets was, for some reason, populated with cheesy disco music from 1984, which was fun, though rather annoyingly out of place.

Great venue, great fun, but only very, very loosely a 'jazz club' in my opinion. I'll still be going back though. Off to bed now, Reading tomorrow to try and find a new house, the nice one I'd booked to see got let this afternoon :(

New Protocol(s)

So, a couple of you have started emailing me your comments on certain blogposts, instead of, y'know, posting them in the comments bit. Now, I know everyone hates using that little button, and prefers to make me think that no-one reads anything and my little counter program is lying, so I've decided to make it easy.

Two of the snazzier ways this thing gets distributed are via mobile phone, and via Outlook. As such, when I get into MS, and have a bit of spare time in the office, I'm going to knock up a protocol which allows for the 'reply-to' field of an RSSyndication to point at the comments section of any blog (though, probably initially tailored to blogger and wordpress). The reply button can then simply be hit on Outlook - I'm not sure how it works on phones yet.

Any comments or ideas? :P

Xx

--

E-life - blogging about your blog.

Edit: Or maybe recursion would be a better subline for this one, as it also links to the comments section that wasn't autogenerated till it was posted...

Whoop

Hopefully found a house, can't give details yet, as apparently people will kill to find anywhere to live in Reading this time of year - this weekend is the busiest there is for Reading estate agents, seems all the interns leave things to last minute, not just Microsoft's lot.

Viewing it at 12.45pm tomorrow, whoop. In other news, off to the Jam House tonight, hopefully, though it's just occurred that despite this being for my 21st birthday, I'm not 21 yet...hope they'll let me in regardless though.

Aaaaaaaaah

I've spent the last 3 hours ringing Estate agents and looking at stuff online and I have one rather expensive property to view in Reading, and that's it. So screwed.

:(

Edit: Someone might want to pop round to Euro-Link's offices, I think I interrupted the guy I was talking to, he sounded about to hang himself from severe depression.

Ridiculous rock band names

Choice 1) Write original, insightful and humorous content myself.

Choice 2) Find it online and link you guys to it.

The 25 Most Ridiculous Band Names in Rock History

Among my favourite quotes:

Besides, it makes the band sound like the sort of after-school activity all the kids who didn't make the basketball team got stuck with. "Today, class, we're going to build Alan Parsons... from common household items!"

We asked a professor of mid-20th century circus freak literature if he'd read it, and he punched us in the stomach for making up such a stupid sounding novel.

Ambivalence

Yesterday was my birthday celebration and leaving mourning day up at Birmingham. Thanks to everyone who showed up (by which I mean 'something profane to those who didn't'), t'was very good fun.

Once my mother had left (I'll blog that later, I love blogging almost as much as I love sidetracking), taking all of my things, so that the single case I was left with would fit nicely into Ben's car on the way to Reading, it was time to give me giant, oversized presents. I hope Ben's not reading this. I do really love sidetracking by the way, so that sentence is actually meaningful. The one about sidetracking I mean, though all of these sentences are pretty meaningful - except this one, this one's pretty pointless.

So, anyway, I got the oversized presents - which were ace, and after a bit of Mah-Jong we went to Massala Palace for dinner. Unfortunately, Terra and Amy had already eaten at KFC, and so ordered dessert whilst we all had our starters. On the plus side, there weren't many people around to hide our faces from whilst they did this - though under 18's in our house are now banned from alcohol and going out for meals, in addition to the current bans on drinking tea and loud noises.

More drinking and Cranium rounded off the evening...I'm sure it was hilarious but I simply can't remember a lot about it, so just insert your own humorous stories here, and then laugh a bit. Time to go nurse my hangover with tea...

I hate everything...

...except the following:

iZ



Following the hip trend of not being made by apple, but still using a lowercase 'i', this is now a contender for most bizarre thing I own. And I own a hell of a lot of weird stuff. I'm still not entirely sure what iZ is, but it manages to self-karaoke over stuff such as Bob Dylan and Edwin Starr when I play them through my iPod - and sounds remarkably like them. Alternatively, you can pick from 7 beats, 7 leads and 7 rhythms, and a couple of other things, to create your own tunes, by manipulating various appendages. 'Flick my horn for fun' we're told. The best combination I've found so far is:

Maximum volume.
Funk drumbeat.
Funk rhythm section.
Funk lead section.

Giant Chess



Now, that picture's totally irrelevant, but I just found it really cute that it came up for a Google image search for 'chess world domination'. As may be fairly obvious, no decent images came up, and I can't be bothered making an awful one in MS Paint with a laptop touch...mouse...thing. Why has no-one named it? Unlike the red thing. So yeah, giant garden chess, just needs a few lasers and minions and away we go. Also, the iZ needs to be added to the chessboard somehow, we were thinking he takes up three squares at a time and can fly.

Children's Scooter



I don't really think I need to say much more, other than 'hold the chocolates' - it has a max weight of 50kg on it, fortunately I'm rather slim. Can't wait to get to work, this will be my only method of transport around Microsoft Campus.

--

The more astute of you may have noticed the time I'm writing this. However, so everyone, including the less observant of you can see how unhappy I am, let me point out that it's 9am - sleeping on a sleeping bag on a mattress with no pillow is not win. Also, I got all these for a very early birthday celebration, which I'll blog about when I feel slightly less like death.

A fun year

Just got an induction pack for Microsoft - and it looks like I'm in for a fun and drink filled year. If you don't believe me, just check out this quote:

What you make out of your year really is for you to decide, the choice is incoherently yours.

Nice.

What The Lol?

Oh, my God. I'm tempted just not to turn up to work for Microsoft on July 1st, and just to spend the year volunteering on some open source alternatives instead.

I just got around to activating this copy of Vista Business on my mother's laptop. It's the copy I used to use on my desktop, before I upgraded that to Ultimate. This, naturally, caused a bit of a problem, as the key had already been activated once.

Now, with XP, you'd just have to ring up a number, and a charming lady would give you the nice 8 digit code within about 20 seconds - great. Vista apparently, has a slightly different approach.

Step 1:
Phone a (thankfully) toll free number.

Step 2:
Enter in, and I'm not kidding, a 56 digit code from your screen, into your touch-tone phone.

Step 3:
Be told, oddly enough, that there's a problem. Which, by the way, is the whole reason you're ringing.

Step 4:
Be transferred within seconds to a very helpful operator. Read out your 56 digit code to him. Yes, seriously.

Step 5:
Wait.

Step 6:
Be asked a few basic questions to confirm you have a legitimate right to the product. Comparable with the American immigration form that contains such gems as; "Are you a petrol bomb toting terrorist with an Islamic sounding name who was a member of the Commumist party in 1974, and if so - do you plan to detonate your bomb at the White House at 3.34pm on January 17th, 2008?". Who is really going to say "It's installed on 18 computers" after entering 102 digits?

Step 7:
Enter in the code that the operator reads out to you. Can you guess how many digits?

Step 8:
Cry.

Stupid Animals

_{Worst hunter ever}

So, I just heard a fairly loud noise from the veranda door, which contains the catflap Smudge theoretically uses to enter and exit the house. In reality, he actually jumps in through the bathroom window at the moment, which can give one rather a shock, during an early morning shower.

Smudge was very interested by this noise, and assumed his pouncing position, before walking over to investigate. I saw a large shape at the catflap, and assuming it was another cat, urged Smudge to go defend his territory, but he just stood there. A minute or so passed with nothing, so I decided to go and see just how large this cat was. This cat, with a beak.

You see, it was actually a bird at the catflap, a bird so hardcore that it just stared at me with disgust as I yelled for it to shoo and tapped the plastic a millimetre from its face. My mother then went round and waved at it, and the like, also shouting, which it promptly ignored.

This kind of insult in our own home was clearly too much, so, to give him the hint, we picked up Smudge, placed him in the veranda and closed the door. After we'd decided Smudge sitting down and licking himself wasn't going to solve anything, we let him out, to go and chase insects in the grass. Failure.

It turns out there's a yellow tag with a number on it on the bird - so we're guessing it's a racing pigeon (we're also guessing, it's going to come last). Going to leave it for a while, and then call the RSPB if it still doesn't move in the morning. At least there's an explanation for why the bird ignores us - I'm still waiting for an explanation for why my cat, who loves hunting, is ignoring the bird that is sitting in our veranda tamely.


_{Bad photography - because no-one would believe it else...}

--

Ah how I love mis-using the <acronym> tag.

Paris - Eiffel Tower

_{I bet no-one's ever taken this picture before...}

So, the Eiffel Tower, Paris's largest phallic structure (and there are many, is there something we should know about French architects?), obviously had to be visited. We didn't get there until our last night in Paris, already rather footsore from having walked about the city for three days straight, but it really was worth saving till last.

That picture above is taken from the Trocadero, which as far as I can tell was originally built as a palace of some sorts, but now serves only to be stood upon whilst people take touristy photos. There are also lots of dodgy French folk selling what they claimed were Eiffel Towers, but I was too wily to be tricked by perspective (small...far away, do you get it now Dougal?), and didn't shell out a Euro for what was clearly an inferior structure. There was also one rather optimistic enterpreneur selling ice cold beer...at 11pm, on the steps of the Trocadero. Surely no-one wants ice cold beer then? Surely.

Despite the fact that the tower was:
a) Built by the French
b) Built by the French
c) Soaking wet
Lucie forced me to climb the stairs, to avoid being branded a wuss, and thus we did so, neatly avoiding a lift cabin stuffed with overweight Americans discussing where Eiffel-land was. I wish, I wish I'd taken a photo of the screen advertising prices at the bottom of the tower, but I didn't, and I can't find the picture online. As such, you'll just have to believe me when I say that the 'stairs' option was illustrated by a very happy man apparently sprinting to the top. Hm, it's really not as funny without that picture, so just laugh now, as though it were, and we'll move on.

There's not really a lot else to say, lots of nice views of Paris, I didn't fall off, the usual. On those two subjects however, there were a couple of amusing things on the tower. Firstly, on the first floor 'stage' of the tower, where you can mill about and look at Paris, there were bizarrely some signs pointing in seemingly arbitrary directions that said 'scenic viewpoint'. Now, I'm standing 60 metres above ground, on a wire-frame structure, with an open balcony at every age, in the centre of Paris. Do they really need to direct me to a particular viewpoint? Secondly, I was very amused by the 'emergency exit' stairwells. Surely, in an emergency, you're pretty screwed regardless.


_{The Eiffel Tower is used as a lighthouse at night, to keep French drivers from mowing down too many tourists.}

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Champs-Élysées/Arc de Triomphe

The Champs-Élysées is where we generally ended up getting off the Metro to wander around central Paris, and impressively...big...though it is, it's not really that much fun, or that impressive. It's full of high-street shops and tacky restaurants, along with hot dog stands at the like, not really so great.

At either end stands certain death, and attempting to cross it in the middle still isn't that reliable. It took me most of the holiday to figure out French road traffic laws, but here's my guide to what you need to know.

• Only ever cross the road on what looks like a zebra crossing.


• It's not a zebra crossing.


• Unless of course, it is.


• If it is, then simply step out into the road and hope the drivers stop for you,


• Or alternatively, stand around with other tourists waiting for an expendable Frenchman to take this risk.


• All Frenchmen are expendable.


• If it's not, then wait for the pedestrian lights to turn green, before following the above steps.


• If there's a glowing, flashing, large red sign indicating that this is a pedestrian crossing, then don't cross. They didn't put that sign up for fun, this is an area where more than 10 road-crossers are killed daily.


• Don't run across 22 lanes of road with your girlfriend, she'll hit you afterwards.

The Arc de Triomphe is, you guessed it, a very large and impressive arch. Built to commemorate France's military victory in...just kidding, France has never had a military victory. It was actually built to commemorate those French soldiers who weren't so fast at running away, or so talented at making white flags, and as such, died for their country.


_{They turned the Arc's mighty wind machine on just as we took this photo}

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Thinking Of Mathematics

I recently stumbled into Thinking Of Mathematics - an essay by Google researcher T.V. Raman, who just happens to be blind.

The paper is a very interesting read, giving you specifically an insight into the mind of this highly intelligent, passionate and driven man, who never appears to have let his blindness affect his life. It's refreshing and invigorating to see someone making the best of their life, instead of attempting to excuse that most common of failings - a lack of drive and effort - with any problems that come to hand. And, blindness is a pretty big excuse to use, should the sufferer so choose.

Generally, it's also an interesting look into mathematics and blindness, and certainly worth a read, if you've got the time (it's not too long).

Paris - To and from

_{'Passerende' is French for 'Hammer'. 'Vleigtuigen' is French for 'Time'}

So (:wink:), we flew with ThomsonFly, one of the low cost airlines round about nowadays. I was just trying to remember the guy who first came up with budget airlines, 'till my mother came up with Freddie Laker, so I put that into wikipedia to check that was the right one. And this rather hilarious picture came up:



We flew from Coventry airport at some ungodly hour, which was quite an adventure in itself. For the uninitiated amongst you - Coventry is comprised of one shack, one runway and about four members of staff. After a thorough security check, in which it was established we had no bottles of water, or other such lethal devices, we walked up a shaky ramp to the plane.

Paris Orly was quite fun, with a full orchestra playing before each announcement, but not a lot else of interest there, as I can remember. Getting back we almost managed to miss our plane, as we went to the wrong terminal. Upon finding what we thought was our boarding gate closed, I first went to some random member of staff, who, once he understood my French, managed to kindly inform me he actually didn't know anything. He directed me to the Air France desk, where the attendant couldn't conceal a look of horror when I told her which airline we were flying with, I think she genuinely feared for our lives.

--

Part of the Paris series of posts.

Super Multi-tasking Phone

That video, as promised, which we were shown as part of a presentation at MS Research, Cambridge :)


Super Multitasking Phone

Final MSP Event

Well, that's it.

I am no longer a Microsoft Student Partner - and for the next two weeks I have no official ties with the company at all! Scary that it's just two weeks till I start my first professional job (albeit, as an intern).

So, the final MSP event - which was based around Microsoft Research, in Cambridge, and was possibly the best of all the events. Though, they were all pretty win, in their own way.

I'm not sure which bits of the cool stuff we heard about inside MSR I'm allowed to tell you about, as I turned up a little late, so I didn't hear anyone mention what was, and what wasn't covered by the NDA I signed at the start of the year, so I'm afraid I just won't be telling you much.

We got a very cool talk on machine learning, where the AI failed to learn from my mistakes and actually did worse at Project Gotham than me, and another on Surface Computing, which you may remember from that link.

We also got a very interesting talk about how technology in the home - and got to see some of the fun experiments Microsoft are carrying out on the people of Cambridge. There was also a great video I'll put up in a post after this we got shown, love it. Also, I now know why pornography on demand on your mobile phone isn't likely to take off, and you don't. Mwahaha.

I was late, by the way, because apparently lightning hit the railway tracks near Cardiff - so all trains out were cancelled. As such I racked up quite the travel expenses (~£100) for MS to pay, getting a National Express coach to London Victoria, tube to Kings Cross, train to Cambridge and taxi to MSR. So, I left home (Cardiff) at 6.30am, but didn't arrive till 1pm, just in time to miss lunch. Emma, however, heroically saved me a plate of goodies, though she then voided her claims to credit by putting Brie on it. I managed to get a very crowded train home at least.

Anyhow, the real fun started once we'd left MSR, and moved onto La Grazia for a very nice three course meal. There was a moment of panic when the waitress informed us we didn't have a bar tab, but this was soon rectified and we were all happily drinking, inbetween, during, before and after every course. We then moved onto a very chic bar called La Raza, where they were playing 'urban jazz beats' - which is pretty much what it sounds like, including lots of original versions of melodies and beats you'd recognize from modern hip-hop songs that sampled them, and even some of Herbie Hancock's early fusion - Nice.

Cocktails here were expensive, though wonderfully made and stuffed with alcohol, so we were a little tipsy when we left to find somewhere a bit cheaper, where everyone else wasn't better dressed and drinking champagne. Matt (Duffin) paid a tramp £2 to direct us to the nearest open bar, but the advice proved to be dud, and we discovered that Cambridge doesn't even have any nightlife directly after exams and results, it really must be pretty boring living there.

As such, we piled back into Emma's room - I'm not very confident I can give you any more details, as I'd rather like to keep my job, but watch this space for the one picture I suppose I can share.


_{Emma entertains 9 men in her double room, gets looked at rather funnily when checking out.}

Today we went punting on the river in teams, with a set of questions to answer each. This was brilliant fun, though with all our dubious methodolgies and wild punting, I'm not sure we'll be welcome there again. I say again because I doubt they'll let us back in that hotel either. I will however point out that the last sentence probably sounds slightly worse than it is intended to.

Although my team came last, possibly because we cheated, stole paddles from other teams, two of our members walked the last half of the river home, and the two other (Will Perry and I) arrived back in someone else's boat. Will rather more wetly than me, having fallen in the river near the end, after many near misses. It also didn't help that we used our clipboard to paddle with and lost our answers sheet.

A BBQ and some strawberries and cream later, along with a mystery £150 bar tab that no-one could explain (though, no complaints) and it was time to say goodbye. I'll miss being an MSP, and I'll likely only see Amin and Emma again, though I hope to bump into some of the others, possibly in the halls of Microsoft. I'll try and keep in touch via the portal though, they're good guys, thanks to all for a very, very enjoyable year :)

Paris - Americans

Like chlamydia,

Any post that starts with 'Like chlamydia' is bound to be good isn't it?

Like chlamydia, Americans are unfortunately to be found all over Europe nowadays, and Paris is no exception. To Americans I mean, but - I'm sure it also has more than its fair share of STDs too. Maybe that explains the smell?

So anyway, Americans in Paris. Americans who may or may not be harbouring dangerous venereal diseases.

Wait, I'm not implying I think they (the Americans, or the French for that matter, though they probably do) might have certain embarrassing and painful ailments, and I'm certainly not implying they picked them up in a Parisienne backstreet, I was just making the analogy that Americans are all over Paris, like I presume chlamydia is. In fact, I have no grounding at all to presume it's all over Paris, let alone all over the Americans. And certainly no proof it's dwelling in the Americans in Paris.

Speaking of Americans in Paris, we saw some, which was amusing enough on its own, but we also heard quite a few of them. There was one point, walking through some of the dodgier parts after getting off at a fairly random Metro station, when we were actually hoping to hear an American voice signifying that we were in a tourist-friendly zone, and not about to get stabbed.

Here's a selection of some of my favourite eavesdropped quotes from fellow tourists of an American background (I don't think these guys had chlamydia, though it's possible. If they did have it, then they probably didn't pick it up in Paris, though that's also possible):

At a gift shop;
"What's the French for souvenir?"

Best Ever;
"I still can't believe the F word isn't actually French."

The Venus de Milo;
"Come on Brad, this one doesn't even have any arms."

In the Louvre, in front of Egyptian papyrus comprising part of a philosophical work on life and death;
"Hey, cool! They had cartoons back then!"

Entrée + Plats de jour - €30;
"Hey Brad, you can get food and entry here for 30 bucks."

At another gift shop;
"Yo Brad, will these like, French magnets work back home y'think?"

In a restaurant (disturbingly);
"I've been watching girls pee for like, an hour now"

They weren't actually all called Brad, but I can't remember which one was...

--

Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Obelisk/Concorde/Tuilerie

Right at the end of the end of the Champs-Élysées stands the Obelisk, transported from Egypt, and extremely impressive looking. And, like many, many other French monuments, it's rather large, and phallic. I'll leave you to ponder that one.


_{Part 1 of: 'Me standing in front of large stuff'}

Surrounding the obelisk are two fountains from the same period, which (and not a lot of people know this) depict an ancient Egyptian game, played with fish, which worked much like Guitar Hero does today.


_{Star Power!}

Past this is the Place De La Concorde - the largest open space in Paris. It's not actually that impressive - it really does live up to its definition of 'an open space', with all the lack of drainage, lack of amusement and lack of interest that implies. Still though, if you're into large open spaces, and are for some reason unable to venture outside of metropoli, then this is certainly for you.

The Tuilerie gardens lie past that magnificent patch of ground, which are actually really cool. The hedges are great fun to play in, if you're bored, and it's a really nice relaxed place, which somehow manages to avoid the swarms of tourists milling about down the road, waiting to get into the Louvre.

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

After Sex High Five

Warning: Tasteless.

Now, I'm all in favour of high-fives, I think they're great. I've even taking to naming the different types of high-five as they're exchanged, in the style of the legendary Todd (secret five, air five, etc).

There is however, something that in my opinion is very underused, and that is the 'after sex high five'. I recently found a Facebook group devoted to exactly this ultimately romantic and 90's gesture, which I initially thought was great. It even gave clear and concise instructions:

Simply say "hi five" and hold your hand up. Your partner will get the hint to slap it. If they dont, use your hand, which is up in the air already, to give your partner a swift slap to the face. This should knock some sense into them.

However, upon browsing the pictures section, I became rapidly, greatly concerned about some of the groups members. I've reported them all to various government agencies and now have photos of them on my wall, so I can run from them in the street should I ever encounter them. Here's a couple of examples of their post-coital high fives:





And just in case Clush is reading:

Paris - Metro

Our hotel was a little out of the way, in a town called Clichy in the suburbs of Paris. Still though, thanks to the wonderful Parisienne metro service (for all their faults, they are pretty good at building stuff), nowhere in the city was more than 15 minutes away from us.

We got a 3 day unlimited travel pass each, for around €35 each, which was amazing value and highly recommended if you visit, unless you get a hotel right in the centre. The metro is pretty much like the London Underground, though it occasionally goes above ground, and is a lot cleaner and nicer smelling, in my experiences anyway. On the downside, it's got a hell of a lot more French people in it than the Tube though...

Vying with #1 recommendation for the trip to Paris, from all sources, were 'Visit the Eiffel Tower' and 'Watch out for pickpockets on the Metro'. Admittedly there were a few dodgy characters around, and our 1996 guidebook (which had such wonderful lines as 'The towers at Notre Dame are due to open in 1997, so phone for details') went missing at one point - but I wouldn't be overly worried about this. So long as you keep a hold on your bag, you should pretty much be ok - all the French people were pretty lax about holding onto stuff.

There were a few Oliver Twist style beggars, who'd tell a tale and then go round to collect on the strength of it - and also some buskers who'd play a tune instead of talking, but this just lent the place a bit of character.


_{The Louvre metro station}

Some of the stations are themed, which is really cool - the Louvre's main metro station is obviously awesome - I can't remember the other one I really liked, but it had massive mosaics all over the ceiling. The trains are also a bit themed too; If they have buttons to open the doors, nice seats and announcements, you're going to a nice part of the city; If they have rusty handles to open the doors, ripped posters and oddly stained seats, then the street you get out on is going to have water pouring down each side of it because there's no drainage.

The problem with that street was that we knew it was near somewhere touristy, but weren't exactly happy about getting the guidebook (aka, crosshairs) out to find out how to get there. Doing so on the steps of a bank seemed the best comprimise, fortunately it was a short walk till we heard the sweet tones of a retarded American.

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Introduction

So, to avoid...hm, I've really got to stop starting blog posts with 'so', but it just seems so natural to do it. I mean, you guys don't even see all the posts I want to start with 'so', because sometimes I think about it after typing and go back and delete it. This time I decided just to ramble on a bit.

Anyhow, to avoid one massive, 10,000 word post which nobody would ever read, because you're all idiots, I've decided to tell you about Paris in nice little bite-size chunks. For those of you reading this in a while's time, via the archives, I'll explain that I took Lu to Paris for the weekend, before rushing off to Reading to start work at Microsoft.

We visited all the touristy places, laughed at a lot of foreigners, drooled over a lot of food and took a full range of photos, from us, to stuff - with everything inbetween (such as, us standing in front of stuff, us sitting in front of stuff, us near stuff, us with stuff...).

To access all of the posts about Paris, simply click the link I'll handily put at the bottom of each one, or click 'Paris' in the labels section at the bottom of the blog. Hope you enjoy reading :)

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

By the way...

I'm back from Paris, in case the latest blog wasn't enough of a giveaway. I'll post up some stuff about it later, though I'll try not to go into mind-numbing detail, I know some of you are rather easily daunted by the pages of text I sometimes spew.

Thanks for all of the kind emails, texts and missed calls you all gave me whilst I was away, telling me how much you missed me, and how your life was boredom without any updates here. And by all, I mean, one text from Danny.

I hate you guys too. :(

The Belgian Conspiracy

Through the lovely Geostats feature of my counter, it's recently come to my attention that one, or possibly more than one, of my readers happens to be from 'Belgium'. Upon mentioning this to a few friends, I noticed that they barely batted an eyelid, and indeed seemed to think this a perfectly reasonable claim to make.

I have in fact, discovered that people I know, whose opinion I even respected up till now, think that Belgium is a real country, with real people. Clearly they need to be set straight, and as such, for those of who with similar delusions, I'd like to point you to this respected scientific article:

Belgium Doesn't Exist

A couple of choice quotes from the above:

"Public school teachers would point out that if it weren't for Belgium, there would be a blank spot between France and Netherlands on our maps, forgetting that the data for our maps came from the CIA-controlled spy-satellites."

"[Tourists] are waylaid at the common borders of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg and taken to NWO branch facilities where they have false memories of vast sprout fields and chocolate factory tours implanted."

The site also links to a page dedicated to uncovering the sinister, 'Belgian', communist plot to plant the seed of communism in our brains with The Smurfs.

Nope

I'm not in Paris yet, though many of you seem to think I should be. I'm there from 15th to 18th, but thanks for noticing, I have forgotten to meet people before, but never quite as badly as this would have been.

Currently I have a hotel and flights sorted...and nothing else. I really need to get Euros, pack, etc. Oh well, back to Guitar Hero ;)

I love Albanians

The Mystery of President Bush's Watch

Now that takes balls. I wonder if it's on eBay yet?

Faith in humanity

I was walking down Erdington high street today when a woman changed direction, walked up to me, and say "Excuse me" <pause> "Your trousers are lovely" and then walked off again.

Little things like that really make me happy - even if they happen to someone other than me - someone going out of their way just to be nice to a stranger for no gain to themselves. It almost makes me renounce my cold heart and stop hating everyone. Except the French, obviously.

Back when I worked at HSBC (the joy), I used to always try to do this every lunchtime. I'd go out onto Queen Street, and at some point I'd talk to a stranger, generally someone who looked stressed or unhappy, and try and brighten up their day a bit.

Try it, you meet some interesting people, and just one smile makes up for five people being distant or outright rude.

Paying respects

Tragic Death In Dalton Tower.

Details on this one are scarce, so I'm afraid that's the best I've got to link you to, but an Aston student recently died after dropping from the 20th floor of Dalton tower - only a couple of flights of stairs from my old room. I say 'dropping' because no-one's said whether or not it's suicide, accident or foul play yet. The general consensus seems to be the first of those choices - though all mention of that word has since been removed from anything official (you can still see it in cached Google pages if you want).

I am however, rather curious about exactly what went on last night on the streets of Birmingham though, since I received an email saying:

The way everyone handled themselves on the Pub Crawl last night at a time of great grief and shock was a credit to you and to the name of Aston University and it highlighted the community spirit that we have here.

Quite intrigued as to how a pub crawl can be a sombre and respectful occasion, though I suppose it could be the whole new age 'celebration of life over mourning of death' angle. Just for the record, at my funeral I demand everyone wears an expensive, pure black suit and cries a lot. I'd also like Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder tribute bands playing the entire way though - but no-one's allowed to enjoy the music.

Sunburn

Now, I'm not normally one to think much about racial stuff, unless I can offend or amuse someone with a tasteless joke, but after a day in the sun, I've realised that everyone really is equal.

Note that when I say racial here, I'm talking about things such as skin colour - not nationality. Nationality's a whole other bowling alley, I don't think there's a single country you can name that I can't find a reason to hate, with the obvious exception of Wales, and the not so obvious exception of Denmark. It's not that I particularly like Denmark, I just can't think of anything much they've done. Ever. Danish bacon? Vikings? All good...

On the one hand, it's great to be pale faced and white; you don't have to worry when new anti-terror laws come in; you can walk around the home counties, or drive around the Southern US of A without being shot at (much) and it's significantly easier to pass yourself off as strawberry blancmange, should the need ever arise.

However; playing Stars In Their Eyes as Stevie Wonder requires a lot more than just a Labrador and a big pair of darkened glasses; it's 59% harder to embark on a career as a pimp and whenever you go for a nice day out in the summer, you come back bright red and stinging.

Right, that's about everyone who's not Danish offended, off to bed now, nothing like a sunburned head to help one drift off to sleep. Xx

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Found this story when checking Labradors actually were the breed used for guide dogs just now. I got the best image in my head of a cabbie screaming "NO DOG!" and then driving off in a panic straight into a wall, then the blind person hi-fiving the dog. I really need sleep.

Another Maths Joke

Sorry, guess that was actually a bit of a letdown to you maths geeks wasn't it. For you guys - find the integral of 1/cabin ;)

Emo in a teacup

Went to Alton towers today, with Julie, Adam, Tim, Jas and a couple of other pharmacy guys & girls I hadn't met before. The day didn't start too well, as it involved getting up at the ungodly hour of 8am, which no student should have to do this soon after exams, but other than that, I can't really complain.

We got there at 10, just as the rides opened, after a car ride with a rather odd mix CD (named Berndatte) of Julie's, which seemed to exclusively feature either Howard Shore or Metallica, with a single track by Mussorgsky too.

Started off on the rapids, which seemed designed purely for the purpose of soaking Adam - good for a laugh for the rest of us at least. Pretty fun, if a bit bumpy. Next off we went on the Runaway Mine Train, MC'ed by a very bored employee. I'm fairly sure he had a script full of sizzling one-liners and quips, but unfortunately he strayed into ad-libbing too much, which let the show down a bit. For those of you who aren't quite used to my writing yet, I'll translate; There was a twat making a fool of himself on a microphone whilst we queued, but as he was in control of the magic buttons, we all smiled sweetly and secretly hated him inside. Much like I'll have to do hundreds of times a day in Paris soon...

Nemesis and Air were next, and each was even better than I recall - possibly due to the rather short queues for both this time around. Both great thrill rides, neither of which are particularly nauseating, very well constructed indeed. Air was particularly great, nothing like lying on your back on a roller-coaster, pointing towards the shining sun on a lovely summer morning, might get me one of those for the garden...

Despite all the other great looking things on the map, once we'd finished Air there was one place which stood out above all the others as one we had to visit - Rita's Ribs. This was a really nice bar & grill restaurant which specialised in...oh, I'll let you guess. The chefs managed to whip up something nice for Julie, whilst the rest of us has a full rack of baby pork barbecue ribs, with a bunch of other stuff piled high on the plate (and in fact, falling off it, as soon as anything was touched). If there's one must see attraction at Alton Towers, it's gotta be this.

The food wasn't even too pricy, £8 is about what I'd expect to pay for a meal that nice even outside a theme park - and the rest of the stuff inside was very overpriced. This was a real plus as I'd already happily accepted paying extra for food, thanks to some basic science Julie taught us in the Air queue - adrenaline slows the digestive system. This is what can cause you to vomit when you come off a coaster, but also means that the food sates your hunger for a lot longer - which is why you pay more for the same thing when you're in an adrenaline park like Alton Towers. Either that or they just like making a profit, but I prefer to think the best of large corporations.

Once we'd had this, and abused our free refill torpedo of Coke (£5 for 4 people to drink sugar all day, yes please) some more, it was off to settle our stomach on Corkscrew. Unfortunately, someone else had clearly had this idea 10 minutes before us, and threw up on the train, which caused a slight delay whilst buckets and 'air drying' (ie: running the coaster about) were implemented. The MC for this ride initially described the incident as "Some muppet's puked..." (on microphone), but after consulting his headset, it became a 'technical problem'.

Unfortunately, a few rides after cleaning had been finished, a real technical problem cropped up, and so we jumped out of the queue, leaving a car full of people stuck at a 45 degree angle whilst men with harnesses wandered up and down towards them. In an original and inventive move, we followed the stream of other people leaving the Corkscrew queue to join the queue for Rita: Queen Of Speed, handily located a mere 10 seconds away.

This meant more queueing, with the same bizarre musak playing at us - one track looped, that managed to encompass more genres than I knew existed. Rita was well worth the wait though, I'm sure it's actually a great coaster all around, but the initial acceleration causes you to leave your brain behind, with its 4.7Gs of force, so most of the ride was spent in mute shock.

Still minus four brains, we then proceeded to Hex, which I was sure I'd seen before, and was rubbish, but turned out to be something completely novel. I won't spoil the surprise for anyone who hasn't been on there, but for anyone who has - I completely fell for it - I'm blaming Rita for that one.

After a quick hop on Enterprise (on which the upset to stomach unfortunately outweighs the fun, still quite good though), we had a very quick queue for Oblivion - as the ride had recently broken down, so everyone had left the queue. This was quite a disappointment, and probably the worst of the 'top attractions' in the park. Still worth it for a mere 10 minute queue though.

We ended the day with the Log Flume, which had an upside, a downside, and a very puzzling question. Without consulting search engines - try thinking of three songs with the word 'Bubble' in the title. It's not easy - I may post the answers up later, though I'm sure you'll just Google them later if you particularly care. The downside to this ride was, as I'm sure you guessed, that I sat in the front, and managed to get completely soaked through. On the upside however, there were lots of nice girls coming off the ride to look at whilst queueing, who were either equally soaked, or stripping off to dry.

Actually, that was a slight lie above, we ended our time in the main park with a Log Flume, but couldn't pass up the opportunity for Crazy Golf at the end, handily situated near the car park. The course was 18 holes and absolutely superb, even if I did lose to Tim and Adam thanks to an appalling performance on the last two holes. Each hole represented a ride or zone in the park, which gave the whole thing quite a nice theme too.

Home now, great day - I'll put some photos into this post later, so check back in a couple of days, for when I've grabbed them from someone's Facebook :)

Oh - better explain the title and picture hadn't I. On our way out we passed the Teacups ride, where, amongst all the happy smiling people, there was one emo kid sitting on his own in a teacup, looking depressed and not even spinning the wheel in front of him. At the end of the ride he just put his head down on the wheel for a while, before getting up. I tried to take a photo of him, but just ended up with a video of myself saying "I think I'm recording something" - smooth. Thus, you're left with the Googled image instead.

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Nb: I think my soul really is sliding away, I went to type Microsoft three times instead of 'microphone' when writing the above.

Stop bugging me for an update

'cause I really, really, have nothing to report. Serves me right for letting you get used to daily ones eh?

Anyone want a TV?

So I've got a fairly small TV which I've had for many a year, but no longer really need since I got my gorgeous big LCD one. It's got a remote control, VCR inbuilt and a 13"/14" screen. It's still quite nice though, and there's no problems with it working - I've even got an aerial back in Cardiff if you want too, though I mainly used it for playing ps2 games and watching videos.

If you could use it, let me know - I'd obviously prefer you to take it off my hands in Birmingham, but if I like you enough I suppose I can deliver to Cardiff or Reading :)

Logic

Thought of the day:

• God loves everyone.


• Jesus Christ was (is) God incarnate.


• Christian means 'like Christ'.

So, should all Christians be bixsexual?

I guess this is Aristotle defending his sexuality from beyond the grave...

Edit: Though, obviously, he wasn't a Christian.

Alcohole - in photos

I hate technology, I'm thinking of becoming a Luddite - but they'll have to rename it to something with more of a charismatic name first. I mean, sure I spend most of my life interacting with one electronic medium or another, and sure I'm off to work for Microsoft, evangelising technology soon...but do people always have to take digital photos of me drinking?

Here's a select few from Adam:

In Gosta, already a little tipsy.


In Jason's kitchen, enjoying a perfectly normal drink or two.


Debating another great idea, with some trepidation being outweighed by the alcohol fuelling my system.


To quote Adam's tag "The look of, 'why would I want to do this to myself?'"


Where's this drink going? Taking all bets.


I think it went in the eyes...


Julie laughs, as I reach for a noose to hang myself with, to forget the pain.


No comment.

Found a house for Reading

Been chatting to one of the other MS Interns who's found us a great house to live in in Reading during our internships.

There's 5 bedrooms, so at £2500/month I think this place is an absolute steal, especially given the pool and jacuzzi there.

Note aswell, that pool maintenance is included - something I always look for in a property.

Are you my mother?

Ok, there's been a lot of confusion with the latest post, with people not being sure whether they fall into the category of 'my mother' or not. So, I've devised a simple test, if you can answer no to all of the following questions, you are my mother, and shouldn't read Alcohole

1. Did you not give birth to me?

2. Is this not a picture of you?


3. Shouldn't you not read the post immediately preceding this one?

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Thanks to Sylvia Wong for the quiz structure.

Alcohole

As I believe I mentioned before, prospective employers have in the past been known to read up on this blog. I'm also aware that my mother visits too. If you fall into either of those two categories, now would be a great time to stop reading.

Yesterday was the end of the exam period for those studying Optometry, and for those studying Pharmacy. Given that I don't study Optometry or Pharmacy, this was clearly a time to celebrate for me - as I was surely free from all exams in both subjects for.

Things started off well, we went to Gosta Green and sat in their beer garden drinking, whilst people nearby talked about telescopes and other optical machinery. Most of this talk didn't actually make sense, so we (the non-optometrists) decided to drink some more, in the hopes that it would become clearer.

Things started to get a bit cold as the evening wore on, and my clothes wore off (assisted by various girls), so we moved inside after awhile, when someone, possibly Claire, came up with the fabulous idea of everyone going back to Jason's flat in Lakeside, and drinking there.

Admittedly only say, half, of us had actually met Jason more than once (and Julie kept insisting his name was Ivan), but this seemed a great idea, so back we went. Tim's practical joke of pressing all the buttons in the lift backfired when he realised that there was no-one else in the lift, and that we were going to the fifth floor, but we all made the best of our special time together in the lift.

It was when we got into Jason's kitchen that things started to go a little bit wrong though. American television had unfortunately influenced me (and will therefore be sued forthwith) into thinking that taking alcohol through the eyeball would be a great idea, and as 3 out of 4 optometrists in the kitchen also thought it was a good idea (possibly influenced by alcohol themselves), I tried it out.

Now, the thing they never show you in those films, where the cool guy takes shots of vodka to the eye, is the bit directly afterwards where he falls on the floor in pain. I can however vouch for the fact that it does get you very drunk very quickly, with rather a large headrush. Jason kindly informed me (afterwards) that this was due to...mucus membrane absorption? I'll admit I'm a bit hazy on the science by now.

I'm not entirely sure how things proceeded after this, so feel free to correct me if you were there, but I believe the next great idea came after my lack of motor skills led me to spill some archers on the table. This combined with Jason's wonderful advice resulted in me trying to snort the archers - both with a straw and without. Aside from slight pain, I don't believe this worked very well, but I did manage to get it to come *out* of my eye, which was fun.

In fairness, it could have worked well, and I was just already so drunk I didn't notice the increase in blood alcohol by now. Naturally, the quarter bottle of Archers that was left needed to be finished, and just drinking it would be rather an anti-climax by now, and so I (and yes, I am completely making this up as I have little recollection) thought "Archers is a girls drink...what do you do with girls? Hey, I know..."



I woke up in my own bed, mostly clothed, so I presume the rest of the night wasn't so fun. No idea though, none at all.

Blades Of Glory

More homo-erotic innuendo than Top Gun.



It was however, highly entertaining, and the skating was actually pretty impressive in its own right. Certainly one to watch if you fancy a laugh. Or you're into rampant homosexuality.

Quadrun - Real Gaming

For Christmas, Terra got me a pack of classic Atarii games, which I left out meaning to play for a while, then eventually 'tidied' and forgot about. I opened them up recently, and started playing around with the classics (asteroid, millipede etc) - which were a lot harder than I remember.

I always say 'games nowadays are too easy' and other such things, but it's not until I get my Amiga out, or play Atari games like this, that I realise quite how easy things have gotten. An example is Quadrun, a game I'd never found before (pictured above) which is insanely hard, but absolutely brilliant.

Apparently it was only ever available by mail order, after some idiot decided to use 9 young girls as a market research group. Other interesting trivia is that this game took two programmers to make - due to the complexity with voice synthesis. I'm gonna go play it some more now, I might even get to the third level..

Sickeningly Bad

This is the logo for the London 2012 Olympics, set to define the venues we build and the Games we hold, according to BBC News.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the logo is a severely sunburned athlete being sick. Well, looks like we're in for some modern art and poor performances, but at least the weather will be nice.

Edit: To date there's 7250 people who've voted in the poll. 82.66% think it's awful too, hilarious.

Spalding, part II

Like Back To The Future part II - but less interesting.

So, for those of you that haven't guessed, or that I haven't already told, the reason I went to the lovely place known as Spalding was to visit my brother for a couple of days. As promised, here's a little recount of what we got up to.

First off Gareth took me to Sergi's deli, a simply amazing place filled with foods you might never even have heard of. Given a large enough wallet, one could happily eat there for weeks, never having the same thing twice and never having a bad meal. We passed on the haute-cuisine this time though, and just had some sandwiches made, which were ace.

Got back to Gareth's flat, which is surprisingly large, and nicely kitted out (though, oddly lacking a bed), and then went out to see some of the independent shops, including the bookstore mentioned in the first post. The lack of bed wasn't really an issue, as I had a comfy mattress to sleep on, though I'll admit I almost had a heart attack when I found out that the only (rather small) mirror was the one above the sink in the bathroom.

We also went out to see Ayscoughfee Hall, which is now a free museum with some pulchritudinous gardens attached, which are open to the public 24/7. The museum itself is quite interesting too, with a lot of interactive exhibits - which I enjoyed, despite the fact they might possibly have been originally intended for someone with at most half my years.

The museum included a short video, intended to give viewers an overview of the fens, and the growth of the area known as South Holland. Unfortunately, the opening sentence was "Our understanding of the fens is more of a mystical feeling, than a geographical reality.", and after that it was hard to take anything seriously.

It's quite interesting how the fens have been drained, and the effect this has had on the local land. On the one hand, the place is now inhabitable, instead of just marshes, but this has also causes the area to shrink, so that the school where my brother teaches is now almost in the sea, whereas in Roman times it was miles away from it.

With the local butchers (real Lincolnshire sausages..drool) and other such places about, we ate well the whole time, and I found a great little independent clothes shop called Take 2, selling exactly the sort of thing I like to wear. I got two new pairs of trousers, and a new top, all for the princely sum of £9, though I think I gave the old lady behind the counter a heart attack when I tried one of the tops for size, I'm not sure she's ever sold one to a male before.

Watched a bunch of films too (Borat is *so* much better than I was expecting), went out to see Springfields (as described in part I), and also saw Wales get absolutely thrashed in the rugby, with Chris Czekaj getting a broken leg too, to rub things in. It still seems weird, watching him playing international matches, when I remember playing against him myself at school - though he was, admittedly, a little better than me even then.

Edit: See comments for corrections on geographical issues, if you're into that sort of thing ;)

Guns don't kill people, Frank Sinatra...do

Heard this on the radio the other day - unfortunately I can't find the BBC's online report on this, so I'm going to have to link you to the Yahoo news page.

Man killed for singing out of tune at karaoke

I'm personally in favour of this becoming some kind of law, having had my ears mutilated more than once by someone who thought they could sing. Also, I've just spent 5 minutes of my life trying to decide on the title I gave this post, or 'Don't sing it Your Way'...pretty bored eh?

Spalding

As if going to Reading wasn't enough, I've just gotten back from the latest venue in my tour of the world...Spalding. I've had such a fun and adventure filled time I think it better be split into two posts, so I'll try and keep this first one mainly about the place itself.

Now, for those of you who don't know where Spalding is (which, let's face it, is pretty much all of you), I've just returned from a short Google to find a map of the UK with Spalding marked on it. Unfortunately, no such thing exists (although I did manage to find that map of Europe on which Wales was somehow missed out), with big places such as Kings Lynn and Wisbech pushing it off the map, so I've drawn it on myself:



Located a mere 25 minutes from the conurbation of Peterborough, Spalding is a hive of activity to rival Paris, Rome or London. Always on the cutting edge of technology, a sign prominently displayed in the centre triumphantly announced "Internet Now Open".

Being a music lover, one of the first things I did upon entering the startling metropolis of Spalding was to engage myself in the local scene. The local scene consisted of an independently run bookstore, with the latest releases tucked away near the back. Admittedly, the choices were rather limited, with the store only catering for 'Jazz/Blues', 'Classical' and of course, the inevitable pop. I bought the London Suites by Fats Waller and Crazy Rhythm by jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli (both dirt cheap), though I was tempted by some of the contemporary music in the pop section, which ranged from Glenn Miller to Julie Andrews, and even with that youthful rascal George Gershwin making the way into the rack, with his wild, bangin' tunes.

Obviously, with any urban nucleus such as Spalding, there's going to be gang trouble, and the police simply weren't around when we saw two boys in a fiesta, parked on a single yellow line for well over an hour, talking to three girls on the side of the street. The locals gave these guys, known as the local mafia dons, a wide berth, averting the eyes of their children, knowing that at any time one of the boys could light a menthol cigarette.



Rampant sarc(h)asm aside, Spalding is actually quite a gorgeous place, and does really enjoy all mod cons, even electricity. I still think there's a market for Sega Megadrives and Sony Walkmans there though - you'd make a killing. A short walk takes you to Springfields shopping centre, with some absolutely gorgeous and free gardens provided for all (and, astonishingly, ignored by most shoppers), designed by some of the big names in gardening. See above and below.



There's a gorgeous river running through the place, a 13th century parish church, lots of other places of fair interest and just lovely scenery all round. It's a relatively short train trip to London or Nottingham, though that's normally used in the opposite direction when it comes to shopping trips. You see, the independent shops in Spalding are phenomenal - selling simply amazing food, books, art, antiques and clothes - and people apparently travel there from the big cities just to visit the shops. Highly recommended for a visit, or maybe even a short stay if you're looking for somewhere relatively close, quiet and not too pricy.

Second post (ie: what I actually did) coming up later, watch this space.