On Thursday myself and Norm headed over to Manchester to see Linkin Park at the MEN.
Turns out that the upper tier is somewhat higher than I remembered from last time I was there so booking seats up there wasn’t exactly the smartest idea. Still once you get settled in you eventually reach a point where you don’t feel like you could fall to your death at any moment which is nice.
Until recently I had forgotten how awesome Linkin Park where so having rediscovered them safely in time for the gig it was awesome to see them live. I’m not sure how well their new stuff really works in a gig setting as it’s a bit experimental a lot of the time, which works really well in the context of an album but maybe not so much in a gig.
Never the less they are still great songs though and when you add in the classics it made for a really enjoyable performance – especially when badly screaming along to every song is not only permitted but actually a good replication of the band 😉 .
On Wednesday I headed over to Bradford to present a talk to the newly formed Bradford Atheist and Humanist Society.
It only actually took me 30 minutes to get into Bradford, which results in a very embarrassing situation for Imran who lives there and told me that it takes him over an hour to get home – even though I managed it in half the time with me just guessing at which lanes and turn offs I needed to be using.
The talk was well received and the society seemed a positive and friendly bunch of people and I wish them all the best in the future! It’s fantastic to see such a society get going at Bradford University.
On Monday I was thinking about the talk I was giving to Leeds Atheist Society the next day was probably a little too similar to talks I have given to them previously.
Therefore I decided to try and re-write the entire talk in one evening. The result was what I’m calling “The Atheist Responses.” It’s basically the same as my Debating the Theists talk but as well as giving some general answers it also gives quotations from what famous atheists have said previously. The result seems to have been positive.
November 7th, 2010 |
Life
Last Sunday we held our first poker night.
It went very well over all, despite the fact I had only started playing poker a week before I managed to win the first game, though in reality, it was almost certainly because I am simply too new to the game rather than because of any skill on my part – once I actually learn what hands beat what and therefore actually understand what I’m doing myself, people will actually get a read on me.
Until then, let the good times roll!
On Saturday we headed over to Kate’s party for a Halloween celebration (I saw Halloween celebration rather than Halloween because Halloween is of course actually on today).
We decided pretty early on it was the worst party ever. We all drank quite a bit so I’m not quite sure what the reasons were but I know we made that decision. Once you accept this though it somewhat lowers the expectations so you can only really go up from there, so in the end it made a half decent recovery.
The company was on the whole good as it was mostly the A-Soc crowd though Nicola’s had some interesting friends. Sometimes, running in the circles you do, you forget that there are a lot of stupid people in the world. Like really stupid people. Embarrassingly stupid. Myself and James had to spend a lot of time desperately trying to hold ourselves back from calling them in an angry manner on the stream of nonsense they asserted; it was like being trapped in a conversation with Storm from the so-named Tim Minchin song.
Still, we made it until the end of the party and so can walk away with a knowledge that we can still keep up with the kids and some highly amusing anecdotes that while I have no plans to share on such a public forum will be happy to elaborate on next time we’re down the pub.
On Friday night we headed down to Alea Casino for my birthday celebration.
We almost ran out of space as I had only booked the table for 15 people and 16 people ended up turning up, not that the restaurant could cope anyway – it took them 50 minutes to bring us our starters, of which they then forgotten one, they manged to forget one of the desserts and to top it all off they even got arsey when I told them I didn’t want to pay the service change because the service was rubbish. Food was nice though.
Afterward we hit the casino floor and effectively ended up with our own private table – there was blackjack table down the end that nobody else seemed to know about so we had it to ourselves, even if it was £5 minimum bet. I put down £50 and managed to walk out even but somewhat trailed James’ returns after he hit three blackjacks in a row!
Thank you to everyone who came down, it was a good night.
We’re pleased to announce the launch of the new Perspective Course website! During interfaith week we will be launching the new version of the Perspective Course Leader’s Guide which will be made freely available to groups which are interested in running their own version of the course. You can request a pack for your group from the website.
On Thursday we ran a special session of our homeless outreach work specifically designed to introduce new people. Turn out was great and we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came down and gave up their evening to help out.
On Tuesday Leeds Atheist Society held a charity quiz night to raise money for WaterAid.
WaterAid is a charity dedicated to bringing clean water and good sanitation to everyone and as everyone at the society is a big fan of having both clean water and good sanitation it seemed an excellent charity to support.
After many weeks of waiting after Viki agreed to wench on us if we got her an appropriate costume, the night finally arrived last night.
So we spent yesterday evening sitting around and drinking, all of which were fetched for us. The problem is now of course that you very quickly become accustomed to such a lifestyle and as such it’s going to be a pain every time we have to make our own drinks now.
Luckily, while discussing what we would do with an increase of money in our pay packets, Viki suggested “if you had all that money you could hire a wench full time, rather than just having one every few weeks when I’m here” which I’m pretty sure is an agreement for regular wenching – and really the least she could do having ripped the wench outfit we got for her 😀 .
