Start the week with a sunrise
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If you are going to have to get up on a Monday morning it might as well be to a sunrise like this.
Driving Home and Hanging Blinds
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Nothing like driving 225 miles and then hanging some vertical blinds when you arrive home.
Christmas Bash 2011
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We had our Christmas Bash today. A bit near the end of the semester so it was a fairly select gathering, but fun none the less. We did the usual Team Fortress 2 and Pizza
After 3 hours of solid effort Simon found all of the 78 words in the “Three Thing Game” Christmas Wordsearch. We had to give him a prize, but only after we’d checked the age rating of it.
Double barrelled cracker action. I think the blur adds atmosphere….
There are some more pictures on Flickr.You can find them here.
Christmas Shopping on Oxford Street
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We took a day trip to London today. Great fun. We were even brave enough to go down Oxford Street. To say it was busy would be a bit of an understatement. But it was nice.
Political Note: I don’t usually comment on politics on this blog. My opinion is that no matter how you vote The Government always seems to get in. But I feel I must apologise to the rest of the world about the behaviour of our Prime Minister with respect to the European Talks last week. When a previous Prime Minister was negotiating very important treaty stuff he hid a diplomat under the table who passed him notes with sensible things to say written on them. Apparently our Mr Cameron did the same, only he took Jeremy Clarkson.
Christmas Bash 2011
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If you want to know where all the cool people are (and me) next Thursday, we'll be at the departmental Christmas Bash with games, a monster word search, pizza and all kinds of fun. If you are a student in the department you can come too. Tickets go on sale in the departmental office from 2:00 pm Monday 12th of December.
B Grade Radio
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so - what is it?
Bought a “B Grade” radio today. Turned out that the ‘B’ stood for “Broken” in this case. Fortunately they had another one in stock to swap it with, for which the B seems to stand for “basically the same thing but a lot cheaper”.
The Lego Advent Calendar
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I’m now a Lego VIP. Perhaps the oldest one that they have. I’ve got a plastic card with a picture of a little Lego man on it and they send me frequent emails about bargain deals in plastic bricks.
Anyhoo, these are the first two day’s worth from the Lego Advent Calendar. Hope there is a Lego Death Star behind the door for the 24th….
VideoBash on December 12th
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Christophe dropped into my first year lecture today to promote the upcoming Videobash at the university. It’s a co-production between ComSoc and the university film society. Movies, video games, fancy dress. Looks like fun. I think they still have some tickets left. You can buy them next week on the 7th, 8th and 9th in the union.
On a related note, you can get the Final Fantasy movie – The Spirits Within on Blu-ray for 6.49 on Amazon, which has got to be a bargain.
Nothing wrong with Cardiff
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Somehow reed.co.uk seem to think I want another job. They keep sending me emails about jobs that “match” me. Today it is an “Assistant Manager in Cardiff”. Frankly I’m not convinced.
Too Many Accounts
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Today I bought something on the internet and paid extra so just to avoid having to register on yet another shopping site. I found a site selling the item for a tiny bit less but they wanted me to register and set up a username and password (and would presumably bombard me with emails and “offers” ever afterwards). I wish sites wouldn’t do this. Some places have an “order without setting up an account” button and I much prefer this. When I’m shopping on the internet I’m after the goods, not a relationship.
Pan Shopping
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Been buying pans today. At one point I was checking them for heft and wieldability. I think that’s what comes of watching Tangled.
McCoys
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If you are stuck for a nice place to have a coffee in the middle of Hull I can recommend McCoys. They are just opposite Princes Quay and they do a mean teacake. And they have a really nice roaring fire.
Been Better
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Got a nasty cold. Or perhaps a nasty cold has got me. I hate it when I have a list of things to do and then find it hard to do any of them. The only upside is that apparently I have an even more deep and resonant voice.
But I don’t reckon it is worth it.
Our Little Secret at the Gulbenkian Hull
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There is a new play on at the Gulbenkian Centre on the university campus this week. They’ve made the lobby look really red in honour of this. The play is called “Our Little Secret”. I’ve no idea what the play is about, but if you want to go along and find out you can book tickets on 01482 466607.
Lego Addict
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I think I might have a problem. (actually, I think I might have lots of problems, but I’m not particularly keen to blog about any of those).
Anyhoo, I was taking back some Lego to the toy store because we needed some different prizes for Three Thing Game and I succumbed to the rather nice little truck design. I then spent a happy hour watching Naff Telly (so naff I’ve forgotten the program) and building the vehicle. It is now amongst the other Lego toys collecting dust on a shelf. And Lego keep sending me catalogues, and I keep buying things, and making them.
I wonder if there is an organisation for Lego Addicts. If there is, I hope it is much more than a 12 step program for recovery. I’d hope for at least 150 steps and a nice instruction manual to work through. With pictures.
Filthy Hands
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My hands keep changing colour. They go from a healthy pink to a dingy grey. I was ready to put it down to old age (well, perhaps middle age) the first time I saw it. Then I realised what was happening. My new, nicely trendy, black jeans were dropping some of their colour onto my hands each time put my hands in my pockets.
The other snag with trendy black jeans is that you wash them once and they turn instantly into streaky grey ones. But hopefully they’ll keep my hands cleaner.
Star Wars Xbox 360
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There is absolutely no reason why I need the above. But that doesn’t stop me wanting one.
Visiting the Iron Duke
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View from the pointy end, which I’m reliably informed is called the “bow”.
We went to see HMS Iron Duke today. This is a warship that has “adopted” the city of Hull and drops by whenever it is passing, although perhaps it is a bit more complicated than that. Anyhoo, we went off to take a look round and grab some pictures. Thanks to the crew for letting a bunch of folks traipse around your decks.
I love this sign. I just worry that I don’t know what the alarm sounds like…
The Lord Mayor came to see the ship too. That’s his Jag.
Don’t Take Your iPad to Meetings
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I took my iPad to a meeting today. I do love the device to bits (although the battery life seems to have taken a bit of a hit since I upgraded it to the latest operating system) as it is a great way to consume content. Unfortunately I was reminded again of how hard it is to make good use of it to take notes. While some of those around me were confidently tapping text into their netbooks and laptops I was trying to persuade the shift key to do what I wanted and writing “auto-corrected” rubbish. If I had remembered to bring the Bluetooth keyboard to type text in things might have been easier, but as it was I ended up with a few lines of garbled text. Oh well.
Milton Jones in York
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Went to see Milton Jones at York last night. Very funny indeed. Nice to see a comedian that sees no need to be anything other than funny. Nothing nasty or rude, just out and out silly laughs. See him if you can.
