Are we still reading this?

Figured I'd get some thoughts down, maybe either of you will read it, maybe you won't... It's late, so this is all likely to be junk of course. Feeling a bit down recently, I think it stems from two things; firstly, the fact that I'm a bit lonely, and secondly, my lack of ambition. Fixing either of those would fix this mood I think, but obviously that's easier said than done. I concentrated so hard on becoming a professional programmer, now that its happened, I'm kind of stuck on where to go next.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I have fun doing it, but I feel like I might've set my goals too low. I know I'm capable of more than I'm doing at the moment, but I'm a bit stuck on direction. Obviously nothing happens overnight, I'd be the first person to say that... I'm not at all used to not having a very clear direction though. At the moment, it's just earn money to buy a house - but then what? I feel like I should have aspirations, but I seem to have settled into a routine, and I'm not at all satisfied with it. I should probably take some time off, have a holiday, relax, think about things a bit.

The loneliness part is an odd thing, it makes me ponder on how fickle emotions are. You can realise that they're chemicals, you know that there are certain things you can do to elevate your mood, but where do you draw the line between artificial elevation and 'productive' elevation? I think at the end of the day, I'm missing companionship... Breaking up with Lyss hit me harder than I realised, and the thing with Heather really didn't help that...

The 'date' last Saturday I think went quite well, but I'm just fretting that it went terribly and that yet another person thinks lowly of me. I hope it didn't, but I just can't bring myself to think positively. Why do I care so much what other people think? I certainly didn't while I was with Lyss, but it seems my self-confidence has just plummeted since then.

This is going to be an embarrassing post in the morning... Anyway, In short, I need to get my life back on track... Where do I start?

Split the Atom

http://www.begin2spin.com/ - Remember that yo-yo trick, 'split the atom'? Remember how no one could do it? Well, I was in Camden on Sunday and happened to buy myself a Viper (you remember that really expensive yo-yo that everyone wanted? Well, pretty cheap now...). Anyway, long story short - I can do Split the Atom :) It's actually pretty easy once you can do brain twister, just requires a little extra spin (which the Viper really helps with, can't quite do it with my other yo-yo yet (the Lizard), but almost, now I know what I'm doing...

Anyway, just thought I'd say - how cool is that? :D

Driving Lessons

Can either of you guys recommend any driving instructors? Looking to start lessons soon, got my licence :)

This WGA debacle

It's awkward to communicate through comments. This warrants a new post anyway, so, to recap from comments below:

James said...

Windows have recently released a "security update" which verifies whether you have a legit copy of Windows or not. Since this is a secondhand laptop, I have no idea, even though Windows is telling me it's pirated. Until it's resolved, I won't receive security updates. Gay.
22/6/06 2:39 PM

Markrian said...

I see... Being a laptop I'm sure it did at one point have a legit copy of Windows, but after a reinstall and a lost license key, probably not anymore. Sucks to be locked into Windows! There might be work-arounds - in fact I'm sure someone's come up with something already, it's just a matter of finding it.

Or, you could buy a copy of Windows. (How much does that go for nowadays? A quick search on Amazon shows that full versions of Windows aren't easy to find! Ah, found it. £169.99 from Amazon for XP Home Full edition with SP2 built in.)

Another option is to switch to Linux. There're no guarantees everything will work perfectly with it, though the latest releases have progressed enormously. IBM laptops often work flawlessly. What'll it be? I'm happy to help you out whatever your decision.
23/6/06 4:07 PM

Markrian said...

I was curious and checked out the price of Mac OS X on Amazon. That's £79.99, less than half the price of XP. It's a shame it doesn't run on non-Apple hardware (yet).

I just noticed that Windows XP with SP2 is available for £63.99 from Amazon, but the difference (or catch?) is that it's the OEM version. I can't remember if that really matters, and what differences there are, if any, between OEM and retail software. OEM software is aimed at businesses which build and sell PCs. Retail is for putting in Dixons. So the average person pays out £105 more than a business for a copy of Windows XP.

After checking again, Windows XP Retail has actually gone up in price! See retail and OEM on Amazon.

Honestly, why?

And then the wall spoke

Went to Germany for a week to visit my grandad, or Opi, whom I hadn't seen in over a decade. Every day there had perfect weather, reaching as high as 34 degrees in the shade. We went swimming in natural sulphur springs, ate lots of hazelnut ice cream which was yummy.

I read 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' on the outward journey. Good book, surprisingly readable and moving. I'm not sure whether this was intentional, but I disliked the kid whathisname. I couldn't deal him. At the same time I respected his like for mathematics and the scientific method. The problems described prompted me to explore them for myself.

Whilst in Germany I read 'Fear Itself'. The first few pages pissed me off a lot; bloody Americans... The story seemed to pick up a bit though. Some insightful stuff about the nature of fear and sexual pleasure in there. Not bad for an American.

Opi and I talked about politics and war, and of course his war stories. He wrote a report of his experiences in the Russian front in German a few years ago and we decided he should translate them into his best English which I would later edit.

Came back to Cambridge on Thursday, went to the Homerton Event on Friday, which for a tenner was excellent. Much better ROI (Return Of Investment, not Republic Of Ireland) than any ball could manage. Obviously Saturday I came to watch your show James - good stuff, I'm told. Sunday was Wyvern's Garden party, which was fun. There were women in bikinis wrestling in jelly! Apparently each girl received £100 for joining in. If I were a girl I so would have done that. Didn't sleep a wink Sunday night. Then came Jesus May Ball on Monday night, which was excellent, and I got four hours sleep this morning after Survivor's Photo. Oh, saw Will Brown the other day, and at the end of the ball - he's a galled tit, I mean tall git now. Claims he's extremely average here, which after having read some Maths Tripos papers I'm not surprised by.

Looks like I've got my placement in Astrophysics Part II next year, pleased about that. Should be a fascinating year.

How's the Christian thing going? And Camille? Did you know there's a French singer by the same name who I think is fantastic?

Fine, fine...

Right, well - I've finished work very early today (been an extremely productive day and I worked 11 hours yesterday, so finished a little early), so I'll blog a bit. My life hasn't been particularly interesting of recent, it's been spent working, revising and hanging out with the people I'll be living with next year (it's going to rock :D). My calendar app is *rocking*, just a few things to sort out before it'll storm GUADEC :)

Looking forward to GUADEC quite a bit, having never been to Spain before, or a Gnome conference - I should be playing in a band there too, so all in all, looking forward to it... I'll make sure to take lots of pictures with my new phone - The Motorola V3i (I may have mentioned this before?) It has its faults, but on the whole it's quite nice and the camera is a huge step up from my last one. I opened a Flickr account the other day, check it out - Not much on it yet, but I've started taking more photos, I'll put more up soon.

I've not got much to report I'm afraid, other than work and hanging out eating pizza. Things have been extremely hectic, I've not really had the time to sit down and just think about life - I don't know whether this is good or bad, but I'm quite satisfied with the way things are at the moment. I especially enjoy my job, I really take pride in the work I've done for OpenedHand :)

So, what are we doing this summer guys? I need to take a holiday or I'm actually going to have a nervous break-down/heart-attack, so I'm thinking we should take some time to do some hardcore chilling - and by chilling, I mean eating rolls, playing frisbee, being beaten by me at Smash bros. and finally completing Paper Mario(?)
- When are you guys back? I'll be home from beginning of July.

Hey guys

Hey there, you're right, its been far too long since I wrote about my life and feelings and all that rubbish - As for linking to this blog from my blog... Don't know if it's really the right place for it yet, will have to see. Thanks for the compliments though :)

Things have been really weird for a while for me - Not weird bad, just weird. I've been very very *very* busy, so I've not had too much time to think about anything. I think I need to take it a bit easier if I can soon, but it's not really looking like I'll have a chance - perhaps the Easter holidays. But yes, quite stressed, but also quite fulfilled. I bought a playstation two (two = small version) last week, with We Love Katamari - an excellent game (about the only reason to warrant buying the console :p), played that a fair bit. Also, if you didn't already know, I spent the weekend in Brussels, courtesy of OpenedHand, for FOSDEM 2006. Was very cool, but I was also pretty ill - couldn't eat very much at all, big tonsils, etc. Hampered my networking capability a bit, which is a shame, a lot of relevant and interesting people I should've shook hands with. There's always next time anyway.

Emotionally, things are up and down. I'm very satisfied on the whole, but it annoys me that I'm only capable of so much in a given time - There are so many things I want to accomplish... Things with Lyss are really good, I really love her and being with her :) It's weird, I couldn't stop thinking about her in Brussels, the extra distance really brought her closer to my thoughts. I find I'm getting a lot more confident these days. At least, more confident in environments that suit me anyway. I feel less confident in environments I don't want to be in (bars, clubs, around people I don't know..), but I have the confidence to be in those situations less. I feel I'm getting slightly over-confident, but at least I feel that and I can put myself back in my place when I see myself being too much of an ass.

And guys, I miss you! I have other good friends now I suppose, but it's really not the same at all - Whenever I tell other people very personal things, I always feel like I'm forcing myself, or I'm doing it on some superficial level and that it isn't the same as with you guys... We seriously need to get together at some point, perhaps have a bit of a smash bros. sesh, some rolls, a few rounds of 'stylishly throw the fridge magnet', y'know...

Anyway, off to bed now, totally shattered - Leave your comments/posts!

Optical Illusions

There've been no posts in a while, so here are some optical illusions that will blow your mind, James. (Chris has seen them already.)

cool_illusion

colourPerception