15 minute commute to work!
With schools out for the holidays and a lot of people having finished work last Friday too the roads are a dream to drive on. My commute to work normally takes almost twice as long, I could live with this all year.
After the a month of development and planning, Leeds Skeptics in the Pub is finally officially going ahead in January. The idea is that once a month people can get together and discuss a chosen issue over a few pints, though no doubt any topic selected will simply be a starting point that will be long lost after the first few rounds!
Yesterday was the first of two Christmas parties at my office. The first of two because we’re really busy at the moment so didn’t want to have a full on night and so decided to go out for a meal last night and have a proper drinking session in January. Of course last night turned rather heavy as everyone knew it would but there you go.
We started off at the Cuthbert Broderick which was absolutely packed. I don’t understand why there were so many people out on a Thursday night, maybe because it’s so close to Christmas, maybe because Thursday is just a heavy night in Leeds. In any case, I wasn’t too impressed.
Dinner was at Ha Ha Bar also in Millenium Square which was a bit of a mixed bag. The starters were very small indeed while the main course wasn’t too bad but basically you just get some kind of meat on a dish and then a few potatoes and vegetables to share. To be fair to them though the steak was cooked very nicely but then it’s not like they gave you a choice how you wanted it.
Once we’d eaten we headed out round a few bars including the one in the German Christmas market which was an interesting experience (and where I happened to run into Rosie and Danny) and then worked our way down to the Headrow. By this time it was gone midnight and so with only half our number remaining I decided to head home. Nick was buzzing and so headed off with Tom and Dean for further beers (no suprises there lol).
The damage from last night showed when I rolled up to the office to find I was the first person there. Tom arriving soon after informed me that he had gotten in 5:30 that morning having goten through a great deal of antics including Mojos, breaking up several fights and a cup of tea in Little London. Good stuff.
Massively disappointing is all I can really say about Casa Mia.
When we initially approached them to host our Winter Solstice meal they were very enthusiastic and said they loved to get student groups down there. However things turned sour a few days before the event when they started getting arsey with us and started demanding Norm’s credit cards so they could bill if we didn’t turn up with the exact number of people.
When we got down there they were alright though not overly friendly and they can’t add up apparently. They gave us 15 menus for the 16 of us, a mistake which they refused to correct, which is odd that they would get it wrong given they were so insistent we bring that number of people.
The food was alright, I rather enjoyed by rib eye steak but the portions were small and all I got was a steak with chips, nothing else which is cheap given you get a bit of salad with your £5 pub steak. I will admit the ribs were nice though.
Finally as we settled up the bill they tried overcharging us which we quickly shot down. All in all, I don’t think we’ll be ever going back there.
Afterwards we headed on to Courtyard (though the freshers went home because they just can’t keep up :p ) for a few drinks which was really good. It’s not the cheapest place but not out of line for the city centre and they have a quiet atmosphere and very comfortable seating so I stand by it as an excellent choice.
Is it really too much to ask to not have to wake up in a mini-ice age every morning?
It’s ridiculous, it’s really not that far fetched to expect our heating to work as it’s scheduled to. Or maybe it just turns on but doesn’t bother to heat anything? Either way I’m pretty sure the situation could be made better by repeatedly smashing the little control box.
It’s not like it’s ever warm in our house at the moment, I’d forgotten how cold it really gets, I mean, surely it was this cold last year? Maybe I just don’t remember it but I can’t remember it being this cold for such a consistent period and it’s only December at the moment, we have another two months of winter to look forward to.
Sunday saw the electricity company turn off our power for a few hours for maintenance.
So rather than do it when everyone was out at work, they apparently decided to do it when everyone was home. So arriving home at 3am after work on Saturday night I then had the fun of sorting all of my computers out and powering them down ready.
Once the power came back on again I then had the fun of powering them up again but of course, they didn’t all come back on again because computers don’t work that way and that would just be too easy. But I didn’t want to be able to enjoy my time off anyway.
Facebook have really been dropping the ball recently.
I don’t know what they have done to their photos uploader, but whatever they have done has broken it. I can’t say I’ve ever really had a problem with in until about a month ago when I started having a few problems, which have just started getting worse and worse.
For one thing it started crashing when I tried to upload large numbers of images. This has really annoyed me when uploading images for AHS Conference and London were I would be uploading 60 images at a time (into seperate album because for some, no doubt pointless reason, Facebook only allows 60 images per album) it would send them all which as you can imagine takes a long time and then crashes when it finishes.
The uploads are constantly failing too. Which again seems to wait until it has completed and all the images have been sent to bring up the normally “upload successful” dialog which comes up saying the upload has failed and you should try again. Which you possibly should, but not right away as the dialog would seem to indicate because it will just go on failing.
And to top it all off now, the “simple uploader” to use if their main uploader isn’t working, now rather than letting you upload the photos just sends you back to the main uploader without saving the photos, which, once again of course, sends all the data first which keeps you waiting for ages, before disgarding it all. Brilliant.
I’ve completed the first draft of my holiday schedule. It may still change a bit allowing for socialising as there are a few parties going on and Kieran will be up but that is the basic plan. Not everything got as much time as I would like and certain projects (such as Brett, Norm and a few others would be aware of but they’re all very hush hush at the moment) didn’t get any time at all. But I’m sure I’ll get some time for them at some point.
If you requested some of my time and didn’t get allocated any there is an appeals process, which, if successful you will be bumped straight to the top of the list for next year 😉 .
We ran a second sports night at A-Soc on Friday for those who didn’t want to engage in the traditional end of term celebrations. It was quite well attended given how many people have gone home for the holidays.
I didn’t stay long as I was still feeling awful but I did see some of the marathon Trivial Pursuit game – never underestimate how long that game takes!
My blogging has been very sporadic recently.
Mainly because I’ve either been at work or in bed and so haven’t really had chance to blog or had anything to blog about. I’m gradually getting back on my feet now though so hopefully by tomorrow I should be feeling fine again.
I really hope so anyway as next week is going to be a busy one. I have the A-Soc holiday meal on Tuesday, then I have Wednesday off and then I have 4 back to back parties – work’s Christmas do, Jenna’s Christmas do, Sarann and Liz’s birthday party and then my mum’s birthday do.