I’ve finally got round to adding email notifications to further comments being posted on my blog entries. So if you comment on one of the entries you can now opt to be notified by email if someone posts a follow-up comment on that same entry.
Many of us having gone back to work this week, it got to Friday and there was nothing else to do but hit the pub. Plus with it being Kieran’s birthday it was a good reason to celebrate, even if Kieran was a few hundred miles away in Swindon.
It was a rather good turn out in the end with myself, Si, Sarann, Michelle, Greg, Nicola and Kate turning up. Not that I got chance to speak to anyone other than Si or Sarann but I’m sure I will get chance to at some point in the next week.
Last night saw the long awaited work’s Christmas party.
Turn out wasn’t particuarly good, we got about 20-25 people of the 50-odd we have on the books and indeed some people were stuck at work with us being unable to find cover (how rubbish is that!) but I think it was far more noticable because from my generation either simply don’t work there anymore or have lost interest in such ventures.
Still there were enough people there to provide ample conversation and in any case we could at least enjoy a fun night of watching Crabs (who, the best way I can describe her alcoholic type behaviour is to say she is like a young Michelle, though not quite on the same level yet) try and stay on her feet having had a little too much to drink 😀 .
There was also a rather large buffet, to the tune of £800s worth of food which had been laid on. I think I saw one person go up there, so money well spent really. As I explained to someone I think was Emma the regional manager, if they aren’t going to bother to lay on hot, fresh food then we’re just not interested. Though that didn’t stop us from taking a plate home at the end of the night!
All in all it was a pretty good night though personally I would have prefered it if it was just our store as I think would quite a few other people. Good times none the less though, and I’m most looking forward to tooking into my left over chicken 😀 .
The observant of you may have noticed that there are some new header images on rotation on my website and blog. These are in keeping with the original header images – one stock shot, one hero shot and one collage. I’m planning on expanding the amount of images in rotation over time though I only want to do it when I have interesting images to add.
The first one is just an image I picked up off iStock which I loved.
The second is a photo of me blogging, I might re-shoot this at some point in the future as it didn’t come out exactly how I wanted it but then I thought it somewhat of a lost cause to translate my imagination into photography and so got as close as I could.
Finally the collage is a few of my old school pictures from back in the day when I was at high school, or at least six form. Given appropriate aging effects, of course.
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.