Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I’m 20! How did this happen? All my faith that God would stop time for me didn’t help a bit. It’s almost as if God isn’t up there listening to everything I’m saying. Still as my mum pointed out on the phone earlier today (on the phone as my family went to Kent for a few days abandoning me on my birthday – albeit with a very valid reason) there is still time for God to stop it before her 50th and therefore I can stay 20 forever. It’s still a step too far though.

On the plus side, I just spent a lot of money. I love spending money. I was waiting for my cashback credit card but then is it really worth saving a £10 when you’re spending like a grand, it’s a drop in the ocean and it’s my birthday so I can blow £10 on getting my stuff a few weeks earlier if I want to!

What did I get you ask? Well, I got myself a new laptop as it happens :). The Samsung Q35 to be exact. Weighing in at less than 2kg, featuring a 12.1″ screen and having a battery life of 6 hours (that’s not a typo, CNET said it was the longest battery life they had ever seen) it’s one of the most ultraportable laptops ever. The only thing that comes close is the Q30 which weighs half that but with much reduced features and the really mega expensive laptops which cost silly amounts. And they still don’t match up on battery life.

I also got some new networking equipment. After all I need to go wireless if I’m spending so much on a wireless laptop and my current wireless router is at home plugging the parents network. Sure I could ask for it back as it’s mine and they only have one computer on there now anyway but then I also want wireless at home because I’m home every weekend for work and I would need a new switch even if I could live without wireless as I would need to at least plug in to a wired network at home as that is what my new laptop is all about – being able to work absolutely anywhere. I can carry it anywhere, it has a battery that can last for an entire day away (or indeed an entire weekend at home given I will be working for most of it and so it won’t be turned on a lot of the time).

So yeah, I can’t wait for it to arrive, it’s going to be awesome. I really loved my first laptop when I got it even though it was far from ultraportable but I loved being able to go anywhere with it. Now that I can jack into wireless networks (which cover most of uni) and will once again have something with a battery life I’m really going to enjoy the mobility I lost when my last laptop’s battery gave up and just went and hid under a rock.

As with most of the level 2 SoC students I’m currently burried under a sea of coursework. With coursework in every single module now there is a lot to get through and I haven’t really had time to do it given how much I am working at the moment.

The thing is though – coursework is very stressful. Uni on the whole is stressful. You are constantly having things thrown at you. For my AI21 coursework I have to write a program that will detect edges in an image. Where do I even start with that? There is a lot to be said for jobs where you just turn up, do your work and go home again.

So I went to work on Friday, walked on shift about 9pm, there were about 10 people there and I realised I was the second oldest. How depressing is that! Then yesterday I did my day shift and headed back to uni for Wendy House. I joined B, Sophie and Michelle at their pre-Wendy drinking session at which people were getting somewhat wasted, especially by the time we left for Wendy at 11ish.

As ever it provided a solid night. The music was a bit off but then they did end the night with Crazy. Also I met some cool new people and woke up with a comedian recommendation written across my arm.

I don’t have mega amounts of time as I need to flee to work soon but here is a quick run down of what is going on at the moment.

I feel like I haven’t been blogging much recently although looking at the post dates and such I have (though it’s down to a sensible level at the moment). That said it has mostly been about other things such as internet stuff and gossip, blogging about what is going on with me has somewhat taken a back seat.

No wonder though, I now have coursework in all of my modules and a heavy workload at work too. It’s bringing in plenty of money though and I’m basically just waiting for my new credit card to arrive so that I can buy a new laptop and get cashback for buying it on my credit card :p.

In terms of online ventures I am moving forward gradually, I’m trying to wrap my head around where am I now that I am slowly settling back into uni and can think clearly again. I’m planning to launch a few new sites in the near future, especially those centred around TV as those sites are currently bringing in the most revenue.

Finally to quickly recap my personal life, it’s Wendy House tomorrow so huzzah though other than that there is very little going on. Still single unsuprisingly but not being so depressed about it at the moment which is cool. Maybe it’s because I’m clubbing less and so have forgotten what I’m missing. I’ll soon have a new baby to love anyway (the laptop of course ;)).

It’s the little things that annoy you.

“Can I have a beef and chedder toasted deli sandwich please?”
“We don’t do the beef and chedder any more, it’s now beef and red onion. Is that ok?”
“You don’t do the beef one anymore?”
“Yes but it’s now beef and red onion. It still has cheese on.”
“I’ll have a quarter pounder meal please”

Why is it people stop at the menu board then when they pull up to window one and I ask them what I can get them they stop and have a little think. Seriously, you’ve just been parked at the menu board looking at what you want, decided, then driven round to place your order, why do you need to think about this?

So today I was working window one (the drive-thru bit where we take orders). It’s easier than working front counter as you just take the orders, you don’t have to assemble everything. Though you do have to pass out straws, napkins, etc. As well as doing breakfast menu I went all the way today though and did main menu too, how fancy is that?

Back on point, my quote wasn’t really a little thing. Because I’d already selected deli meal and so the only way I could remove that was to total it which in order to do I had to specify a deli sandwich and a drink too. I then had to void both the sandwich and the drink each one requiring me to swipe a managers card through the till. How annoying is that? Every time a customer changes their mind or you get something wrong in order to remove it you need a manger card. Why? What’s the point?

Other than that is was quite cool, it’s doing something new. I’m sure it will be boring once I get used to it but at the moment it’s interesting. It’s weird though as like breakfast, when you have nothing to do, you actually have nothing to do. On closes or indeed in the kitchen generally there is always something to do. Wipe down counters, get more stock out, tidy up, etc but on window one there really isn’t that much to do. I found myself wandering into the kitchen to tidy, re-stock and sort out chicken orders when they were waiting on something.

CNET TV has come out of beta – it’s now a finished product. I don’t know why. It’s awful. I think one of the reasons YouTube worked so well because it buffered so well that you simply didn’t get the video stopping half way through while it buffers some more. CNET TV hasn’t heard of buffering apparently, it gets around 5 seconds or so before stopping and buffering for about 20 seconds. I’m on quite a fast connection and never have a problem with any other video streams so CNET really need to work on that if they think they have a finished product.

EDIT: Hehe, now their player has died all together. Great job guys :p.

I came across Firefox 2.0 and news of the latest release candidate for it. While it is looking good for improvements on 1.5, I was horrifed to discover that the close tab button has replaced by individual close tab buttons on each tabs. That is probably the most annoying feature I have ever experianced on a browser and so I’m hoping there is a way to change it back to how it is in 1.5 though I’m not sure how much chance there is of that.

Monday night brought another session of karaoke in the Old Bar, this time with everything finally working and they had even found the rest of their collection of karaoke CDs (which was like 80-90% of what they had) so there was a decent choice for Ant to entertain us all.

I also joined him kicking off with a good bit of Britney Spears’ Crazy and gradually working my way through S Club 7’s Reach, Blink 182’s What’s My Age Again and Alanis Morisette’s Ironic by the end of the night.

Past like 11, 11:30ish it had really thinned out, we were about the only group still left in there by kicking out time. Well good night.

Got out of work about 3ish last night / this morning and went over to pick Michelle up for some late night random driving about. I really, really hate Sunday trading laws in that the supermarkets are closed at like 4am two nights a week, Saturday and Sunday, the two nights I would geniunely want to use a 24 hour supermarket given I tend to work the Saturday and Sunday closes.

We tried about 3-4 different supermarket petrol stations none of which were open and ended up at Texaco (after dropping by the Tesco car park to shout at Rich for telling me the Sainsburys one would be). We then dropped by my McDs and then went off in search of stars. We ended up going as far as Otley but still couldn’t see any. Maybe they aren’t there anymore?

Ok, time for a rant. I’m sick and tired of people almost looking down on me whenever I mention I have a credit card. I actually have 2. And I’m applying for a third one. (There are reasons, I’m planning to cancel one and there are reasons for having two which I’m not going to go into here but ask me if you really want to know).

As soon as I mention “oh, I have a credit card” it’s all “oh well you’re going to end up in loads of debt you won’t be able to pay off.” No, I really won’t. Just because you may be a retard who can’t handle money, doesn’t mean I am. For your information I’ve had a credit card for a year and I’ve done just fine with my repayments thank you. And that is really the only bad side to credit cards, the fact you can get into debt if you’re not careful (even though students get really low credit limits anyway).

So with that in mind, here are the arguments for having credit cards. First of all, and I think this reason makes it silly not to have a credit card. Making purchases online. If you buy something that never arrives or you get ripped off, what are you going to do? Chances are loose your money and feel bad about it. But if you have paid for it on your credit card, your credit card company will refund you. Debit card purchases aren’t protected like this. PayPal’s “buyer insurance” is limited and doesn’t cover most internet purchases.” Your credit card does. Buying things on your credit card is the best fraud protection out there.

Secondly, if you need to buy anything in an emergency you have you’re card.

Thirdly, if you are using your card so you don’t need to carry as much cash around. Therefore if you get mugged they won’t get your cash and you can simply cancel your credit card as soon as you get home, they mail you out a new one and everything is good.

Forthly, as well as giving you protection online it more simply allows you to buy things online. I’ve come across instances where online stores will only take Visa or Mastercard, without one you simply can’t get what you want.

Indeed, to extend that point some highstreet stores won’t take all cards. Lots of places didn’t take my Solo card and just the other day I was in Debenhams who were telling customers trying to pay with a Visa Electron card that they couldn’t accept it. That’s one of the biggest department stores in the UK.

Fifthly, I’ve just applied for a credit card that gives me cash back on everything I buy just for using the card. They are giving me money to use this card. Why would I not want that?

Finally, you get a period of a month or two between spending the money and having to pay for it. That is a month or two, the money you have spent is still sitting in your bank account earning interest.

So, to conclude. I fully understand some (indeed many) people have problems managing money and so should avoid credit cards as they can cause lots of debt. But used wisely, credit cards are amazing things so for those of you who like to preach the evils of credit cards please hold your judgement and take a minute to consider the fact it is you who has the problem managing money, not us.