Archive for January, 2009

Tuesday night saw the first A-Soc social of 2009 and quite a well attended one at that. Given a lot of people are not back in Leeds yet, many have exams next week and it been freezing cold outside (literally, it’s well below 0), we still managed to get probably 15 people to come down.

Our plans to meet in The Terrace had been somewhat thwarted by the union not opening The Terrace we switched things to The Old Bar (which weren’t serving food either), people kindly being directed down by union staff who asked Norm “are you looking for the long haired guy and his dad” referring to Paul 😀 .

The Old Bar was being rubbish as well though and closed the bar at 9. Interestingly Izzy turned up soon after to find us all getting our stuff together to leave. She immediately then made an exit stating that “well, Norm’s not here” – charming. The night ended with Kate trading in some shifts at Rationalist Week for a lift home which is fair enough really.

After somewhat of a hiatus over the holiday period while we caught up on all the pre-recorded episodes that had been queueing up and generally took a bit of a breather, podcasting once again resumed on Monday recording another two episodes for my podcast the first of which will go out this Friday.

I have to say it was good to get back behind the microphone and I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I am also planning to add some new blog headers, one of which will be a podcasting one.

Lenovo have just announced a dual-screen Thinkpad laptop which is rather cool indeed. Inside the main 17″ screen is a 10″ slide out screen which gives you extra space on your desktop which is becoming increasingly useful these days.

While I agree that at the moment the extra weight, cash and loss of battery life may not make it worth it, you have to remember that this is the first of it’s kind and five years down the line when the technology has developed a lot more this could be amazingly useful.

I was somewhat suprised the other day when my housemates and guests began discussing the Christmas special episode of Jonathan Creek. Namely because I had no idea such an episode had been made, after all the show has been gone for five years. Gone though not forgotten apparently, wiping out it’s competition to take a 36% market share and rightly so too!

Jonathan Creek is an amazing show and news of it’s report, albeit it for only one episode was most welcome indeed. Though having read over the news articles surrounding it, perhaps there will be further specials, though not a new series, based on the warm reception this special received.

As usual the mystery was a good one, though I will admit not to the standard of brilliance that the original episodes reached. I got as far as working out that the attic room they were looking at outside was not in fact the attic room they were in while inside but that is almost a given, given it’s JC and that is as far as I got.

Fingers crossed when that there will be more specials though in any case I think I am going to have to re-watch some of the original episodes and once again bask in the splendor that is Jonathan Creek’s mind at work, even if he is a fictional character.

With the all-new Crusader pub quiz being a massive disappointment we headed over to Nando’s at Kirkstall for a dinner. This week’s event featured a guest appearance by Liz who I (and indeed everyone else) haven’t seen for ages and so a catch-up was long overdue.

I tried the pitta which wasn’t too bad, though unfortunately didn’t come with any chicken brain. Afterwards we headed to the pub next door which insisted on pumping out dance music but was at least bearable for a drink.

Having been desperate to avoid work over the holidays and I took an hour out over Christmas to draw up this post leaving me with only the events that took place in the last few days to add. Given this you would think I could manage to get it out on the 1st, but apparently not. In any case, 2008 is now well and truely over and we move another step closer to there being another decade between when I was born and where we are now. So here it is…

Is it really this time again? Actually I don’t remember the end of 2007 so I don’t really know how long it feels like. I think I spent it working after having severe problems on New Year’s Eve. Still, hopefully this year’s festivities will prove to be a bit better, wherever I end up being. In any case, the year’s end seems a good time to ponder over what’s happened this year.

Interestingly enough, nothing happened in January. Jack left which was quite sad and something that is hard to believe it’s been a year since. Still, I’ll make it to Australia one day!

Meanwhile February saw our Darwin Day celebration, amusingly enough just a week or so after Mission Week. Indeed such competition between philosophies (or possibly natural processes) caused an earthquake.

It snowed in March, which Michelle was at hope ironically enough. The School of Computing agreed to rename to the Chris Worfolk Institute of Computing Excellence and Fonze drank himself into A&E. Good times.

Of course, things really got interesting in April. The main reason, obviously, was the massive festival of free thought that was Rationalist Week 2008. What a week, what an amazing week. Though there was also the small matter of finishing my FYP.

In constrast, May was a month of fun. I did the Summer Ball, Atheist Society Ball and saw Avril Lavigne live at the M.E.N. It wasn’t all fun though, I found out I failed my FYP and started interviewing again though that would be the job I would eventually go on to take.

There were ups and downs in June, I found out I failed my degree and started work though I also bought my car and travelled up to Edinburgh to co-found the AHS.

Summer truely having arrived, July was a month of changes. We properly moved into our new house and followed it up with a suitable house warming and now that we live in the suburbs dinner party. Many of us went through graduation.

Thanks to summer being rained off, August was a very empty month. Atheist Society continued to do very well and the It’s Only Water campaign was launched but nothing overly exciting.

In constrast September saw quite a bit of cool stuff going on. Freshers’ Week arrived along with my rather successful dinner party for eighteen, Norm came out of the closet, my podcast officially launched and started to grow from strength to strength.

Following on from this, October was a busy month too, I turned 22 during the infamous chicken brain incident, the Atheist Bus Campaign hit the scene, I delivered my first proper talk of the academic year to Atheist Society with out new, suitably enlarged audience, went speed dating, led a church service and held the first meeting of Pro Life Through Pro Choice.

If October was a month of many events, November was a month of big events. Apart from Obama being elected, Atheist Society held it’s very successful interfaith panel and started it’s live webcasts. I travelled to Bradford to meet Peter Cave, Leeds hosted the second national AHS conference and we took 22 people down to London for our annual Weekend Away.

Finally you should really be able to remember December but it included many firsts for Atheist Society including our first sports night and our first Thursday Night Dogging. I also took my first ever sick day from work. Atheist Society continued to do well with 17 people attending our Winter Solstice meal and we even good a good attendance to our Christmas Day meal as well as fun down in Tamworth at the AHS festive party. Things finally came to a close with our New Year’s Eve party.

Well, that’s it, 2008 in a nutshell. Extensively cherry-picked to miss out all the events that really mattered to you and inclusive of events few people really cared out. But there you go, hopefully, 2009 will be even more interesting.

The New Year’s Eve party having got a little bigger than the Facebook guest list would suggest, I suggested to Si and Kieran that we go for a bit more of a relaxed drink on Friday at our favourite local watering hole, the Deer Park.

It almost snowballed out of control again, having invited my housemates and then Kate having text me to see what was going on, though in the end it was just five of us which is a perfectly managable number. I also had somewhat of a challenge with the organisation given I was still at a wedding when it started and so was organisating from the other side of town.

Still it turned into quite a pleasant night with us staying till well after time had been called.

I was rather suprised when I got an email on Monday from Gijsbert inviting me to his wedding – on Friday! Apparently he and his girlfriend Weili, who have been living together for a while now anyway had decided to marry and wanted to do it soon so decided to keep it fairly small.

The ceremony took place at the Town Hall which is quite a nice venue even if they do struggle to find an ambient temperature between rooms but all the staff were helpful and professional so it made for a nice ceremony.

Afterwards we headed back to Gijsbert’s appartment for a quick stop before heading out to dinner at Oriental City, an excellent though hidden away Chinese restaurant in town. I managed to eat my way through quite a large array of dishes, they just seemed to have a line of people bringing more food to the table, not that any of us were complaining, the duck and the still intact sea bass being particular highlights.

Because of the general fray of Wednesday night, a lot of people were unable to make our now infamous new year’s eve party and so we decided to stage another, much more relaxed gathering on the Thursday night instead.

After a quick explanation of the walk in fridge (our conservatory doesn’t have any heating) and a short tour of the house we settled in for a few drinks and a bit of music as Charlotte and Felix battled each other to see who could make the worst DJ 😉 .

Oh. My. God.

Last night was a strange night. Luckily I wasn’t the only one not drinking and so I had Si, as well as Fonze and Sophie, to keep me company in the sober corner. I had some quite good few chats, particuarly while outside where Kieran was kindly sharing out some fine Cuban cigars.

Michelle probably had the wildest night, reaching new heights in appropriate text messages which I shall not discuss here. I will discuss however the events that followed, namely Michelle hooking up with Greg and the two spending the night together (despite Michelle’s attempt to hide him when Sarann and Liz arrived at the door). I have no idea what happened while they were in the bedroom together though given Michelle’s antics at last year’s new year’s celebrations, I think we can all imagine the general trend of activities!

Sarann was determind to prove that I am massively unhappy and that this emotional state could be altered in some way, explaining that she would “do anything” and adding that “I won’t tell Moz” so who knows what the offer entailed.

The night some what culminated in a semi-naked communal shower involving Norm, Michelle, Sarann, Greg, Nicola, Miriam and Anne which resulted in Michelle smashing up the bathroom and causing water to come pouring through the lounge ceiling. Suprisingly enough such trouble can be traced back to Miss Jackson who as well as smashing her way through the usual glasses also managed to smash up some plates too.

The morning after was the usual plan – down to the Deer Park for some Recovery Steak because it is always a good idea. Everyone was feeling a little worse for wear though luckily I have all day to recover before my next party!