Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I got a call from Vodaphone retention this morning.

Suddenly, they can do me the packages for new customers and can even give me the special offers on top of that too. So I now have 500 minutes and unlimited texts and they’ve even gone as far as to throw in free itemised billing (which I already had lol). Best of all they are now doing it £5 a month cheaper than o2.

So I now have a phone on the way from Vodaphone and a phone on the way from o2 as well as my PAC code even though I don’t need it. Messy, messy situation.

First of all, such heresy as was rumoured back in January has been put to rest. I remain as ever a Sony Ericsson fanboy. And not just because the contract was £5 cheaper than going with an N95 or P1i. But because I’m old and afraid of change.

I have however officially requested my PAC code from Vodaphone. Much as Kieran ran into problems when he wanted to upgrade his phone when his last contract expired I phoned up Vodaphone to complain that none of their price plans on their website were available from the upgrades process.

The patronising call centre worker explained (well more confirmed my suspicions when I proposed such ideas) that they were only available to new customers. To be honest I thought such practices had now died out but apparently not. I explained to him that the packages being offered to me were “just rubbish” so he passed me through to their promotions department.

Properly implemented CRM systems shine through as always as I began talking to the girl in promotions by giving her my phone number, confirming my full name and address and other security details even though I’d already done that twice this call (once with the automated system when you phone up and once to the guy in upgrades).

She managed to throw me together 150 minutes and 500 texts for £25 a month. However, given o2 were offering the slightly more appealing 400 minutes and 1000 texts for not much more I decided to officially abandon Vodaphone in favour of o2. No doubt I’ll be telling a similar story in 18 months time.

Michelle has just gone home meaning that I am the last remaining person in DEC-10.

I don’t see the point in going home really, I have to be back on campus for like 8:45 so I figured I would feel worse if I went to sleep. Still I have a really full today – I’m booked up almost solidly until 9pm which should be lots of fun. Still, only 40 minutes until I can have my last Red Bull (I’m rationing until the shops open again :D).

If you missed the house party on Friday you missed an interesting affair. Notable events included Fonze drinking himself unconscious and waking up in hospital, Liz taking off her jeans while in my darkened bedroom, Izzy feeling up Norm, lots and lots of Chinese food and endless discussions about pornography. So yeah, your standard Circle event really.

I haven’t posted for a week. A week! That’s a long time for me. Though I have noticed that I have been blogging less lately. Some would say it’s because of how busy we are all are a the moment but then I’m always busy and it has never stopped me before. Others would argue my life is just a little less exciting a the moment. Myself, I remain unsure.

Perhaps it is the inevitable doom of FYP. The fact that we also have plenty of coursework deadlines on top of that (I have another 5 before the end of semester 2) not only doesn’t really help the situation but also explains why I’m in the lab at 4am. And glad to be here. The hardcore nights are back :D. It’s good we get one more run in before we graduates.

Because quite frankly, this could be the last time. I mean what is there after this? Once I get these courseworks out of the way and given our software demos are next week (mine is on Monday so I won’t be pulling all nighters for it next week) there is really just report writing to be done which I doubt many people (though I would like to think a few of us will) will be writing up in labs. And in any case, doing write up isn’t the communal experience you gain from late night coding sessions.

We really need one more for old time’s sake. And get some chair races in too.

Kieran correctly pointed out earlier today (well, technically yesterday now) that things are getting a little too close to graduation. Today was our last staff student forum meeting (at which it was agreed to go ahead with my proposal to re-name of the school to the Chris Worfolk Institute of Computing Excellence but only if I was dead). There are a lot of things coming up that will be the last of something. It’s actually getting scary.

On the plus side the provisional exam timetables are now out and I don’t have an exam at 9am the night after I go to Manchester for a gig. Which is quite a nice bonus. It’s also quite a nice bonus that I seem to finish before everyone else which makes a big chance – indeed last summer I had an exam on the Friday of week 3 – the very last day of exams.

So yeah, that is my late night rambling on what’s been happening recently. I’m sure I’ll think of more as soon as I hit publish. Luckily, you shall be saved that fate ;).

The disadvantage of living on a huge fault line in the Earth’s crust is that occasionally, it moves.

We don’t. But it didn’t seem to save us last night. Sometime between midnight and 1ish the ground decided to shake measuring 5.3 in the Richter scale^[1]. Not a bad effort for the UK, indeed it was the biggest we have had for almost 25 years.

What I was particularly surprised out was that the UK actually seems to have survived. While I feel it is too strong a term to use the phrase natural disaster because let’s face it, 5.3 on a global scale doesn’t even really qualify as an incident (and therefore let us call it a natural event), any kind of natural phenomenon just brings the UK to a stand still. For example you would think that a country known worldwide for it’s miserably rainy weather would be able to deal with rain. Of course in reality, you’d be wrong.

So I guess all that remains to do now is sit back and wait for someone in the church to claim this is God’s way of punishing homosexuals in Grimsby.

The season is upon us again.

With the general workload being very high this year anyway it’s easy to forget how manic it gets when coursework deadlines start looming. And they have. I found out today that the first AI23 coursework was in fact due in this morning. And it’s formative. So yeah, dropped the ball a bit there. Luckily it’s an easy enough piece of work that I get it done today – after all, I have 19 hours from my lecture finishing till 9am tomorrow :D.

Meanwhile my IS coursework is quickly approaching, GI32 is due in at the end of next week and SY32 is due in the week after along with the software for my final year project. There will be a second piece of AI23 coursework due in some time as well as the final report for my FYP and in between that I have to fit in planning for Rationalist Week, putting on a rocky horror night, a school disco, my TKD grading, writing One Life sessions and a to do list which is still over a page long. You’ve gotta love it :P.

That’s right.

Free lunch no less.

Today’s IS lecture as a workshop hosted by Deloitte. Which included free lunch as well as ex-School of Computing student now Doloitte consultant Dan T. It actually turned out to be really interesting and a rather successful afternoon. Deloitte looks like a great place to work (despite my initial skepticism about consulting companies) and over a free drink on Deloitte in The Fav Dan said he could put me in touch with the right people to speak to about getting some sponsorship for Rationalist Week. Good stuff.

It smooths over the disaster that is Rocky Horror. Having sent the flyers to print yesterday afternoon I found out this morning that our venue has fallen through. So I’m currently desperately trying to find another venue for it. Argh!

:(.

I’ve spent the second half of this week in bed ill. Which was mighty inconvient given I have loads to do (still, went don’t we these days?). It also unfortunately resulted in me having to cancel my presentation at Skeptics Anonymous and my Valentine’s Day date with Chris from the CU. Still thanks to mt housemates, plenty of sleep and an endless string of DVDs I’m now back on my feet, at least provisionally.

Guess the song. (Seriously, make some really obvious guesses or you’re going to be kicking yourself when you Google the title of this post).

Saturday saw the first Wendy House arrive so we – we referring to the whole Sarann crew (or are we Norman and the Jets; or are we the Chris Worfolk experience featuring Michelle) kicked things off with a warm up at Circle Party Central. The night included some drinking, some spinning of the old records on my shiny decks and even some karaoke (an event we hope to repeat under the new name of “An audience with Bryony Gaskell”).

It was good to see a few people I haven’t seen in a while. Notably, Sophie who has to strain with the problems of post-graduation life and Fonze who has now come crawling back to his real friends (what’s the emoticon code for sunglasses? :p). Plus any excuse to use my sound system is a good one – as Norm correctly points out, the whole point of the night was just to play Cascada really.

Wendy was good as always. I got bought a drink by a girl at the bar which was rather cool. Evanescence – Bring Me to Live was just coming on and being desperate to get back to the dance floor (she explained) she asked if I was being served and if so could she put her drinks through with me). I told her I wasn’t being served and she took this to mean “I am being served I just don’t want to help you” and bribed me with a drink. I then went on to explain it still wasn’t going to save her anytime but that was my limit. At some point, it’s just not worth trying to avoid a free drink ;).

All in all (how often does the last paragraph in my blog post end with those three words?) it was a good night and indeed a very good 3 days. With exams overshadowing the whole of Chrismukkah (not to mention the holidays themselves never really being a nice time) it was good to properly unwind a little. Ah well, back to the grind I guess.