Heyo, time for one of my yearly updates!

You see, real-world life isn't really all that eventful, so I don't have all that much to write about. Still working here in Donegal - it's good, though rather time-consuming. I've been living here for the last year or so. Signed up a lease on with Annaelle, Flavie and Angie. I'm the main tenant, so all the bills and things come in my name. Quite a novelty. Annaelle and Flavie have left (and David, and Kyle - no-one seems to last very long in this house) New(ish) housemate comes from Derry - James.

Let's see... I've got internet access here now, so I spend a lot of time on that, and listening to music, as one does. I read a lot, though maybe not quite as much as I used to. I haven't read anything worthwhile in months. I also play my Wii and DS, though I kind of go through phases with those. I'm still pretty rubbish - lost 4 lives on the second star in Super Mario Galaxy. I could probably do with getting out a little more...

Overall - things are good.

Wider world - hmm. Want to talk politics? We've a slight change of government here in Ireland a few months back, for the first time in a decade. I guess that counts as news. It's still Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, but with six Green Party TDs. I don't know if it's made much of a difference in reality.

Ok, well... I dunno, stuff? Yep. Boop-boop ti boop boop. Bye!

P.S. Isn't www.paddysgypsyhorses.com adorable? Traditional thrust worthy (JavaScript and ColdFusion codin') Gypsy Connors Family Ireland! Aww, yeah! The world we live in! "I'll admit though that to look at the remorseless process is sometimes amusing" and so forth. So cute cute cute! Aww. Code on, little gypsy dudes!

Just busy with work.

Got my Wii yesterday. Got The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess, Rayman Raving Rabbids and Wii Play, and an extra Nunchuk for €472. Got a cap, mouse mat, writing pad and a nifty light up pen too. Zelda's awesome, but I'm just starting so it's a bit quiet now. Rayman's super fun! Played it 'til 5 in the morning, so I'm a bit wrecked today. Daaaa!

Bought a DS and a laptop in the past few months too. Having a job has some advantages.

Greetings from Donegal.

Got a room 10 minutes walk from work. Sharing ith Frances and Noel.

First day down, off home now.

Barry

3 months without an update. What can I say; I've been busy with college. But no longer! 17 years of education has now reached its conclusion!

"That's mighty!" - Eamonn Casey, disgraced former Bishop of Galway, 2 weeks ago, on being informed that I would, indeed, be finishing in 2 weeks.

FYP went okay in the end, my report could have been better. Exams also went okay, not sure I did well enough to keep my 2.1. We'll see in a month. My group's Professional Issues in Software Engineering presentation was my favourite though - Peter and Donny in pirate costumes, and the Chewbacca defence, and amusement.

OK, so current life plan is as follows:

1 - Move out on Friday, back home to my family. Been living in Curragh Birin for 2 years (& 2 months) now.
2 - Find work.
3 - Find a place to stay, preferably near work.

I haven't earned a wage for 9 months, spent most of that on rent.

In more frivolous pursuits, I've been rather fortunate recently, scrounged various films from Mark Crowe (watching 'em after this) and Pratchett's Thud! from Rosie (dull, poorly written, needed editing and proof reading, new characters too shallow, some development of the old ones, Vimes has been in 7 of the last 8 books in the main series, plot's mostly made of bits of Men at Arms, Fifth Elephant, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal, A Hat Full of Sky etc.)

Won a copy of Sonic Rush from Following Revolution and a Super Mario Bros. 3 Cartoon DVD from Cubed3. I don't have a DS or a DVD player. Thinking about getting a DS Lite, and a Wii of course. E3 fell on reading week this year. Such greatness. Also thinking about getting the Internet at home? UTVipXL seems reasonable.

Think I got that iPod nano I won playing Game Boy games 2 months ago. So cool! Also got in on last year's Windows Live Mail beta sometime 'round then too. The storage space boost is welcome, but it's horribly unresponsive. Maybe the next update will fix things. Yahoo! Mail Beta, on the other hand, is a great improvement, though I only use it as my spam account. 2/3 more months 'til Firefox 2.0?

So apparently I'm a Considerate Builder? I suppose the builder thing makes sense.

Revolution's new name is Wii!

http://revolution.nintendo.com

I'm in Football Manager 2006. Rather strange.

I got my exam results, a2, b1, b2, b3.

FYP's going ok.

G~Soc AGM was ok.

Not sure I've much else to update about.

Yay.

Very nay.

edgeio-key: ce0a2ab6c3849a7b3f02865b9325691c1f134274

Pach BarryH's Year in Video Games Enjoyment

Newfound Awesome
Mario Kart DS
Super Mario 64 DS
Wario Ware Inc. (Minigame Mania, Twisted!, Touched!, it's all super-good)
Nintendogs
Meteos
Earthbound
Adventure 770
Fire Emblem - Mystery of the Emblem, Sword of Seals, The Sacred Stones
Ikaruga

Replayed Awesome
Metroid Echoes (heh)
Metroid Zero Mission
Pikmin2
Mario Sunshine
Ocarina of Time
Breakout, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian, Missile Command, Pac-Man, Q*Bert, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Tapper, Clu Clu Land, Excitebike, Ice Climber, Wrecking Crew, Mach Rider, Arkanoid, The Adventures of Lolo, Tetris, Boulder Dash, SimCity, Star Fox, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong, Kirby's Fun Pak, Balloon Fight GB, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Monkey Ball 2, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike

Unexpectedly Underwhelming
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sigma Star Saga, Sonic Gems Collection (came out on the same day)

Unexpectedly Sweet
Puzzle Bobble
Another Code

Most of the books I read last year were decent. Newlyread Awesome: Nabokov's Pale Fire.

Most of the movies I watched last year were rubbish. 3-Iron was horrible. Newlywatched Awesome: Le Chiavi di Casa. *adore*

Too much Newlyheard Awesome to list here. Ringworm - Van Morrison was the highlight though.

Newlywatchedbutnotonascreen Awesome: The Green Fool - Declan Gorman, Upstate Theatre Co., Belltable Arts Centre

Newlyattended Awesome: Quantum Computing - Prof. Samuel Braunstein, University of York
Unexpectedly Underwhelming: The Games Development Business - Gerry Carty, VU Games
Least Awesome: My FYP presentation. I crashed and I burned. Oh the burning.

Real-life Awesome: Winning an iPod Nano from the fine folk at Fidelity Investments. Installed Linux on it, but it's really only good for music, games, file storage and, to a far lesser extent, video clips. Still super-Awesome. (Got 25 copies of Ubuntu Linux to hand out, 50 if you count the live cds. Anyone want one? Or, indeed, two?)

Unexpectedly Sweet: Robbing bits of other peoples' personality. I think the Pachified (Markified?) dmartin (happy relaxed mode) works best.

Real-life anti-Awesome: Final Year Project. Or currently, next week's exams. I should study, or sleep, or something. See ye.

R.I.P. Mark Seiler

Pachunka tagged me with writing 20 facts about myself.

1. I like my headphones.
2. I like my family's Pentium 166.
3. I like my brother's GameCube.
4. I don't especially like going for walks in the middle of the night. (still do it)
5. If I could only keep one of those, I'd keep the headphones.
6. ..'long as I still had access to my brother's 'Cube.
7. A quick search shows that this tagging meme's been going 'round for at least 3 months now. http://www.livejournal.com/users/clearblacklines/14910.html?mode=reply
8. I've had 3 cups of coffee in the last 12 months. I only drink it when I really need the caffeine. I like to water down an espresso with cold water.
9. My brain doesn't work in shapes. I'm not a visually oriented person. Maybe poor eyesight played a part. I have trouble with spatial reasoning, and making sense of illustrations, and stuff. I'm not too good at designing things. I do like fixing/improving them.
10. Animal Crossing is still king of the... somethings.
11. I always carry at least three library cards in my wallet.
12. I like Sheep in the Big City.
13. There's 40,000 hectares of empty 'round our house. I think.
14. You saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own.
15. 3 months since my first kiss. I thought I'd met someone special.
16. I like John Cleese and Harmony Bear. And Strong Bad.
17. I'm looking forward to The Fastcasts.
18. I haven't slept in 43 hours.
19. Brahman, by it's very nature, cannot be found.
20. I don't like myself.

I tag Optical-Illusion.

Birthday today. I'm 21.

Filled up and handed in my FYP proposal form yesterday. I think it could work out ok, but I'll have lots of work to do on it.

Last night I had a dream of filling in forms that came in the post. Isn't that a bit rubbish? If this were a more respectable outfit, my subconcious would be *so* cut.

FYP computers have been allocated. Sort of. I got mine anyway. It's ok. No sharing this year. Of the 100 or so students that started with me, there's 24 left.

G~Soc AGM last week. As far as I can remember, prof_cardinal is president, trumad is vice-president, zilog_jones is ents officer, Wizo's LAN officer, Demot Jim's RPG officer, John Paintball's paintball, Alan? is PRO, someone else is Webmaster. I dunno. When a vote on LAN nights resulted in a 10-10 tie, we rolled a d20 to decide. dmartin brought a copy of Transhuman Space, and mentioned a con trip.

Some of us went to the clubs and socs office afterwards, which led to the uncovering of the Triangle Fiasco

Singed up for cyberpunky campaign Phoenix is starting this weekend. First RPG in 17 months. Getting (part of) the old clique together, me, wetflame and TNT at least, and 2 others sorta confirmed. Should be fun.

Our Amnesty International STAN group's planning a 'Reclaim the Night' yoke for Halloween. The others are looking forward to it, but I really don't know how it'll go.

Yahoo! seems to be hiring/buying *everyone* (Well, not everyone, but it's still a bit mad)

Google Reader is all ajax-y and stuff.

I'm rather busy at the moment.

Back in college again, 4th year.

Current modules:
CS4567 Component Based Software Engineering (Jim Buckley)
CS4218 Telecommunications Network Architectures 1 (Seamus O'Shea)
CS4157 Software Quality (Michael English, Michael Lane)
CS4826 Human Computer Interaction (Michael Cooke)

Also a FYP (Final Year Project) - of Doom! Got Michael English for my supervisor. Nine software metrics to implement, Perl hackery, talk of a research paper, a load of scary scary stuff. *stress*

3 old housemates out, 3 new ones in. Seem like a good bunch of guys. I moved downstairs so Brian can have the same room as last year. I think I like the new room more anyway.

I've been doing a good bit of the usual chatting-to-people-I-haven't-seen-in-months.

Got a bit of a head cold at the moment.

Pain in my wrist is getting annoying.

Some Gardaí in Limerick don't like travellers.

"The falsification of this journal. First off, it doesn't reflect my daily life. Most of what happens hour by hour here is quiet and dull. [...] What is down, is a chronicle of incidents with a potential for wholeness they did not have when they occurred; a false picture, again, because they show neither the general spread of life's fabric, nor the most significant pattern points. To show one is too boring and the other too difficult. [...] All I have been left is the exhausting habit of trying to tack up the slack in my life with words" - Delany, Samuel R. Dhalgren. Bantam, 1975.

Funniest thing ever - Van Morrison's contractual obligation album Back in 1967, he wrote and recorded 31 songs in one session. Songs about royalty checks, and ringworm, and wanting a danish etc.

I really should have checked this thing for replies over the weekend, but I've been a bit busy. You guys are great. Seriously. Thanks! Really makes me feel a whole lot better.

Called round to the Gardaí yesterday and made a statement. I'll be getting round to stuff like visting the Students Union and a doctor this afternoon.

Yesterday, my father told me to phone him at half five today, to read him a story from the newspaper. Otherwise he says he'll give me a 'puck in the mouth'. I find this odd.

Bye.

Went to Headgear gig in Dolans last night. Place wasn't too hard to find. Posters said 8:30, but it didn't start 'til 10. Only went 'cos Darragh had my name at the door. Plus one, apparently. Heh. Great gig, really intense. Some of their better known songs were stripped down to just a drumbeat and Darragh's vocals, while the rest of the band stood there, not playing. Really weird. Supported by David Eoin, I think.

Got mugged by 2 teenagers while walking through my housing estate on the way home, at 20 past 1 in the morning. It's a student area, just across the main road from the university. Both were shorter than me, but one had a knife. They seemed to know what they were doing too. Didn't take long for the situation to go from "Half-drunk guys messin' around" to "Eep". I didn't do a great job of defending myself, I don't know what the recommended response to such a situation is, but I doubt it's anything along the lines of "Hey, I'd prefer if you didn't do that." It was a pretty funny exchange really. Got a bit confusing after a while, little real damage though. A financial loss of 60 cents or so, cuts on my left leg that look pretty gross, my left eye & the side of my face are sort of messed up, I banged up my glasses fairly bad, my left wrist's swollen and sore (roll on one-handed game console controller revolutions!), and I got a cut on my right ear lobe.

Got home relatively safely in the end. But that 60 cents won't last forever, and now they know where I live... duh duh duh. Boiled up some water in the kitchen and washed most of the blood off (and I just had a shower before I went out too). Housemate (Séan) walks in during it (think I woke him up) As he walks to the utility room, he asks "How's it goin'?" My reply - a cheerful "Hiya!" as I continue wiping my cuts...

I'm gonna be making a report to the Garda Síochána as soon as my mobile's charged. Writing this helps me get the main facts straight, and gives my something new and interesting to put here too. So everyone wins. Bye.

Whee!

http://cube.ign.com/articles/651/651275p1.html

How much crap can this thing take?

I was just having some fun with it.

Trying out Google deskop at the moment. This is what my current sidebar looks like.

It's not great at the moment, I'm hoping it'll improve over the coming months.

Miscellaneous tidbits from the last few weeks:

Got my exam results, 2 As, a B, a C and a D. Not the worst set so far - that was Autumn of 2nd year. Managed to get my A1 in Documents Architecture alright. Weird getting a C in Databases, but a B in Paddy Healy's (much more difficult) Digital Signal Processing.

Met Merrua on the bus a while back. We got to talk for the first time in over a year. Sent TNT a few texts, and arranged to meet up for a meal sometime soon.

Had an interesting IM conversation with a guy who has hated me for the past 6 years - or so I thought. Quite nice.

Yahoo! Music UK & Ireland has 'launched'. Personalised radio station, same as the US version, but ad free.

I know there's been lots of good music released so far this year, but you can get though them at a fair old rate thanks to this 40-hour-week lark. Tried a good few podcasts, haven't found anything really worthwhile. Why can't people use the advantages of the medium, instead of just adapting to its disadvantages?

Anyone else heard Jan Wayne's version of Mad World? If you have, I feel your pain - it's so incredibly awful! I mean, not even Gigi D'Agostino's version of Lennon's Imagine was this bad - and that was bad.

Played a bit Another Code: Two Memories at wetflame's. No battle system, you just spend your time walking around looking at stuff, and listening to people talk about stuff, and figuring things out. It's certainly not for everyone, but it really appealed to me.

Yeah! I've met a few of my 43 Things goals! I also reported a security bug there a few months ago, and they fixed it. No Smith-style multiple replication for me.

Saturday night was great, but that probably deserves a post of its own...

Job's going grand, at any rate I'm certainly getting through the work.

The world's seriously messed up.

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/misc/print.php?artid=611958 Oh my god!

I've met my 2 remaining housemates, Adrian and Eileen. All round, I seem to be living with decent folk.

Work's grand. I've been moved down to the first floor, sharing a cubical with Pam and Eugene - also decent folk, easy to chat with, and they share their chocolates. Got a windows box (P4 2.8ghz, 512mb) all to myself, and local admin rights, so I can install whatever I want. So far it seems all I need is pipelined Deer Park Alpha 1 and foobar2000.

GCC 4.0.0 came out four weeks ago. Worth a download for the optimization infrastructure alone.

Bought new clothes for the summer, a nice pair of pants for 25 Euro and 2 t-shirts for 50 cent (the price, not the rapper).

More people round the place than I was expecting. In the past week or so I've seen johnny_kitsch, govindaduck, dmartin and Überpixie.

Went to wetflame's on Wednesday, spent most of our time watching '60s and '80s Doctor Who.

Stayed up late last night watching some of Gu Huo Zi Zhi Ren Zai Jiang Hu, and Lola Rennt.

New house - 120 Curragh Birin 'stead of 15. Practically identical, with a few notable additions, like a laundry room (washing machine and tumble dryer), a sitting room (TV with a set-top box, but 4 channels) and housemates who, so far, speak fluent English (Adrian and John) Rent's 30 Euro per week, with food another 30. New web site job's paying 320 per week, so I think my financial situation's okay.

Last week I went to see Star Wars: Episode III. 9 Euro for the 2 of us. (I haven't gone to the cinema for over a year) I actually liked the first few minutes, but it wasn't long 'fore I was finding it painful to sit though. I will admit the deaths of the Jedi (on Mygeeto, Felucia etc.) actually got to me. There were a couple of other bits I liked too. I also came up with a crazy Changeling: The Dreaming theory blaming the myriad flaws of the prequels on an excess of Glamour.

I am incredibly tired.

Finished exams today. First 2 (AI and Digital Signal Processing in a 2 day period) were fairly rough. Got an A1 in today's Document Architectures anyway, I don't know about the others :-P

Heading home for the next 10 days or so. Then I'm starting work, down here in Limerick, on the 6th of June (a bank holiday?) Apparently, I'll be setting up an interactive multimedia web site. I haven't been told what exactly this will involve (or how much money I'll get :-P) *shrug*

Moving out out of my house today. Been here well over a year. The other housemates are getting a lease on it, so they want me to move out. Going to have to find someplace new to stay.

Social life has been strange lately. It, you know, *exists* and stuff. I'm getting asked out to lunch, or to the cinema, or to "hang" (with the air quotes :-p) fairly regularly. I'm not complaining, but I do find it really strange when people act disappointed if I turn them down, or complain to me that I 'don't spend time with them anymore'. I'm the same worthless eejit as always, I don't know where this 'respect' stuff's coming from. Online's easier to deal with, real life I often end up feeling really awkward, or staring, or stuff. But summer starts today, and the college empties, so it'll be back to normal again for the next few months at least. Nice while it lasted.

K, listening to Monolithic Systems Technology's quarterly earnings conference call a couple of weeks back, noticed some interesting stuff. Sent a email to Larry at GameCube Advanced, who made a big deal about it, and Engadget

Then GameSpot and IGN picked up on it. And then it started to spread. This has happened to me before, but it's never been this widespread. I'm seeing this quote I typed up copied and pasted *everywhere*, poor punctuation and all.

I also got a few e-mails off of famous types. Yay.

Oh yeah. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. 6 months. *shivers*

wyvernfriend has sent me a present of all three books in Mercedes Lackey's 'Last Herald-Mage' series. This right here represents a sizable chunk of the happy.

Thank you!

The opening of the first book reminds me of the opening of the 'Fire Emblem: Trail of the Blue Flames' game that came out for the GameCube in Japan a few days ago.

Nintendo are currently sending a mannequin hand in my name to a real estate firm, Bell & Murphy in New York.

My copy of 'Metroid Prime 2 : Echoes' has been stolen by a guy from France. That's not good. He did leave the manual and box behind though.

Chess intervarsity on Saturday, Griffith College Dublin won, the UL team I was on came 2nd.

Went to see American Splendor last night, and then Spirited Away (again) American Splendor is amazing. It's beautiful, (sur)real, deep and really funny. I can't explain it. Spirited Away was just as brilliant the second time round. Hung out at wetflame's afterwards.

Friday afternoon, a couple of weeks back, I watched a postgrad (William Hunt?) show off some cool Bluetooth and wireless stuff in the Jean Monet, like floAt's Mobile Agent - controlling a laptop through your mobile phone. It rocks.

Misc. other links:
A few gigs of good music in here, here and here.

:-/
Okaay.
Satellite's worth a click.

Handed up AI project last week, I'm working on Norah Power's RE project now.

This morning I tried out 43 Things

It got me to do a little thinking 'bout my goals in life. I'm hoping to finish my college course in a year and a bit. Then, I'm planning on getting a job - a 45 year cycle of workin', sleepin', eatin' and bathroom facility usin', before eventually retiring, or dying, whichever happens first. (have to die sometime)

I'm never going have a car, or a house, or fall in love, or get married, or start a family, or any of that stuff. So, really, my life is never going to get any better than it is right now. And right now it sucks.

Truly appalling-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4392519.stm
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/13/spy_world?mode=PF

Rest in Peace, Pope John Paul II.

An electrical blackout. Unavailable UNDERGRADUATE domain. Five days without access to my profile. A dead power supply. A kick from a stranger. Dog excrement. An ice cold shower. A flickering light bulb. College work. Stress. Little sleep.

No college on St. Patrick's day. Chinese food. A visit to wetflame's. WarioWare Touched! Laughter. Musical downloads. 4 days off for Easter, starting today at 13:50.

Ok, update time. Course work's piling up. Got 2 group projects today, one in AI (weather forecasting, credit rating & predator prey) and one in RE (redesigning a product or system from a choice of 9 (Gmail, Picasa, Winzip, Ticketmaster system, AA travel insurance system, Motor Tax online, DDD, 02's games arcade, or Celsus Software's Mobile Order System)) Also weekly Matlab stuff.

Out of the ordinary: Motion Picture society (me, electrolyte9, trumad and Nick) ran a table quiz on Tuesday. I was worried it'd be a disaster, but it all worked out so well. Some really nasty questions. A music round with no questions on music. Thumb wrestling to settle disputes. Nick's spontaneous "Are you not entertained?!" And it was a great success!

Amnesty International meeting yesterday - we're trying to organise a benefit concert in the Scholar's for week 10.

Tried some wargaming last night. Warhammer 40,000 and Lord of the Rings. I didn't particularly enjoy it. Lost to trumad , dr_cardinal and other person whose name I've forgotten. Saw zilog_jones, garmacottar, aoifec and others. Yep.

Linux talk last week, Java talk today.

The new Star Wars Revenge of the Sith trailer's cool. The new Legend of Zelda trailer is awesome.

The video for this is beautiful: http://www.autamatamusic.com/promotion.html
Ken's from Mayo/Dublin and Carol's from Dublin (and Tychonaut Tycho Brahe Plague Monkeys Low Babies)

I hope the 13&God album gets released here - if it is I'll be getting it as soon as I can afford it (which won't be any time soon)

The Bunratty Open (aka International Chess Festival 2005) was on last weekend. A whole weekend of playing chess, talking, reading and general dossing around. Went to see La Mala Educación on Monday. Went to a blood clinic on Wednesday, but my blood pressure was low so I couldn't donate. Got to hang around with ulhorse, trumad zilog_jones and johnny_kitsch for a while. Met with Timmy Hennessy (Students' Union President) and Laura Czajkowski (Societies Officer) on Thursday to try and arrange funding for the Motion Picture Soc. Not looking too good. Also went to chess, and a meeting about An Focal (college paper) Yesterday had 2 sets of techy talks, 2 by Janice O'Connell on the evolution of system development and Microsoft .NET and 2 Skynet ones on security and Kerebros.

I bookmarked this a year and a half ago, and then forgot about it. I still like it though. http://www.vsdobbs.com/g3/

College has started again.

This semester I'm going to be doing:
CS4416 Database Systems (Michael O'Neill)
CS4816 Artificial Intelligence (Niall Griffith)
CS4146 Document Architectures (Richard Sutcliffe)
CS4156 Introduction to Applied Digital Signal Processing (Paddy Healy, Donncha O'Maidin)
CS4566 Requirements Engineering (NoraH Power)

Got my results from last semestor (2 A1s, an A2, 2 B1s)

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (discoverer of pulsars) gave a presentation here today, 'twas interesting.

Gave my room a bit of a clean yesterday. Sorted out my things, and threw out all the old stuff I didn't want to keep any more.

I'm back for 4 months this time.

Exams over and done with. Off for three weeks - one at home (starting today) and two here in UL, doing a bit of work for Gearoid O'Neill and Dr Joachim Fischer. There'll be some money out of it, though they say it 'won't make a rich man' out of me. Also - 'tis good to have the exams out of the way - I could do with a rest. Bye.

Busy-busy. Exams starting soon - 2 next week, 3 the week after. Lots of study to be done between now and then.

V2 MUSIC have released Moby's new album "Hotel" as a free stream on their website. It's not due out for another 2 months. They've got plenty of albums from other acts up there too. Edit - I guess they took it down.

Well, I'm back.

Happy Christmas to everyone!

I'm going home for 2 weeks.

*goes home for 2 weeks*

Last night's Motion Picture Society meeting was going to be the last one before it disbanded. When I found out, I threw a fit. I don't think I did a particularly good job of changing any of the rest of the committee members' minds. Instead of dying altogether, the society's on hiatus 'til next semester. I'm sure there'll be more people to run it then than just Nick and me. Like some of the other committee members, or ordinary members, or someone.

Other stuff has happened since I updated. None of it was particularly good or bad. A few close calls.

I was sick, but I'm not so bad now. Just a cold and a sore throat.

Oh. Another new housemate. I've can't remember his name now - it started with an S. Also from the Czech Republic.

2 quiz things I took today:

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Moderate
Schizoid:	High
Schizotypal:	Very High
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Very High
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Low
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

The Ultimate LiveJournal Obsession Test
Category	Your Score	Average LJer
Community Attachment	16.13% You've got pals to cheer you up when you're down, but no audience to applaud you... Yet.	22.33%
MemeSheepage	10.53% You fill out forms at work - why should you fill them out for fun?	28.03%
Original Content	20.97% Monthly bitch sessions and occasional movie reviews	38.03%
Psychodrama Quotient	2.41% Warning: Can Flame When Necessary	17.09%
Attention Whoring	27.27% You do a little dance whenever someone friends you	20.75%
Take The Ultimate LiveJournal Obsession Test and see how you match up!

Nintendo are sending me a free copy of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for being one of the first 25 to successfully play along with the Channel 51 puzzle. Pretty sweet, eh?

Lately I've been getting a little fed up of real life crap. Now I feel happier.

A fortnight since I updated this thing. A pretty lousy fortnight.

I'm seriously behind on my friends list.

Super Smash Monkey House played the Stables on Friday, but I forgot to go. The Frames played a Halloween Ball in the Mansion House in Dublin, and it was shown live on Poverty Two. The Frames are great, and so was the show. It put me in a really good mood. "Feel free to join us up on the stage, do whatever."

I think I might be getting sick, what with the head cold, and stomach pains, and weird-green-flashy-dizzy spells :|

Assignments to do for Software Architectures and Data Structures and Algorithms this week, and a SA midterm on Friday.

Picked my elective modules for next semester - Introduction to Applied Digital Signals (Paddy Healy :/ and Donncha O'Maidin) and Requirements Engineering (Norah Power) :)

And tommorow's the big day. Good luck John, hope ya win.

Update time again. As usual, highlights, as I remember them.

Wednesday - went to see The Camembert Quartet play in the Stables. They remind me of an Irish version of Tenacious D.
Thursday - Hung out with wetflame instead of going to chess. 7 hours of talking, video games, talking about video games, laughing at stuff on the net.
Friday - Supposed to meet up with Pachunka, didn't happen. Instead hung out with Wetflame for another 5 hours. (Sailing mishap!)
Saturday - Spent morning in the library, then travelled home.
Sunday - Hung around at home.
Monday - Hung around more. Went back to UL.
Tuesday - Lectures. Didn't do much. Talked to El Wizo, govindaduck, matte_kudesai and Leanaht.
Wednesday - More lectures. Motion Picture Society meeting tonight.

When I get depressed my life seems meaningless. Blah blah blah

Because I posted a broken link last time - www.channel51.org

College have given us the day off today, so they can show the place off to secondary school school children.

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday.

www.channel51.org - Uncovering the truth beneath the veil

( Some more memes )

I'm 20 now.

Two weeks of lectures down, ten to go.

Early impressions -
Operating Systems Overview - Yeah, I like. Seems like an easy module.
Computer Networks - Also seems pretty easy.
Systems Analysis and Design - Probably okay. So far the module reminds me of last year's Introduction to Systems Analysis. Lecturer (Sonia Zheleva) reminds me of my boss from Germany :/
Software Architectures - Okay so far. We get a project in a few weeks, writing a word processor in Java. Could be tricky.
Data Structures and Algorithms - Scary. Hard maths. Negative marking. Paddy. This one might take some work.

I think they're easing us into the work this year, 'cos the last two weeks have been pretty easy, and it looks like they'll be gradually increasing the workload as the weeks go on. I think I'd prefer if we were doing some of the more difficult stuff now, it'd be better than doing five projects at once near the end of the semester.

Other highlights of the fortnight-

Went to the AGM of Tenforward, who have renamed themselves as the Motion Picture Society. I'm now a kind-of-but-not-really committee member, without an actual position, just generally helping out, along with matte_kudesai (who was elected Public Relations Officer), johnny_kitsch, govindaduck, zilog_jones, dr_cardinal, Horse, Leanaht, Meredith, Tiernan MacNamara, Thomas King, James Butler and Stuart Foy. Yes, it's a big comittee.

Also went to the G~Soc AGM. Similar. A little dull compared to other years, no contested committee places, or thelordofcheese. Ah well.

Met Barry O'Dea at both meetings, spent the rest of the evening at his place (which also happens to be dmartin's place. He burned me a cd of mp3s from his new PC, we played video games (F-Zero GX and Soul Calibur II) and caught up in general. Just like old times. Also paid a visit to the apartment of Girl-from-Russian Olga.

Tried out Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles in single player, but didn't really like it. Nice production and graphics, but the gameplay seems a little shallow. I didn't play it for long though, and I'm sure it's better when it's played with others.

All-in-all, a good two weeks.

Today was my first day back in college. My first lecture in roughly 10 months (290 days) - by far the longest break I've ever had from school/college. I'm glad it's over in a way. I got a chance to see a lot of familiar faces that I hadn't for a while, and to do a lot of the talking/eye-contact sustaining that usually comes with this.

So - this semester I'm going to be doing:

CS4125 Systems Analysis and Design (Sonia Zheleva)
CS4135 Software Architectures (Chris Exton)
CS4145 Operating Systems Overview (John Sturdy)
CS4115 Data Structures and Algorithms (Paddy Healy)
CS4225 Computer Networks (Seamus O Shea)

Ended up spending Wednesday - Friday in the library, doing some work and listening to streaming radio. Not a bad way to spend your time.

nagran was there too.

New priest at mass yesterday, he based his sermon on 2 ABBA songs.

I'm now the proud (or whatever) owner of a new network card/modem (and a cd-rom drive) cos the ITD department were throwing out an old Pentium Pro, and a load of broken monitors (well, I assume they were broken)

Life's good.

The computers in the room I'm working in are being rebuilt tomorrow, so I'll be moving somewhere else for a day or two. Only 2 weeks left 'til my course starts agian anyway.

Here's a meme.

Popular interests among barryh's friends

1. music (19) 11. fantasy (9) 2. ireland (16) 12. art (8) 3. reading (16) 13. anime (8) 4. movies (13) 14. science fiction (8) 5. books (13) 15. chocolate (8) 6. writing (12) 16. mp3s (8) 7. computers (11) 17. radiohead (7) 8. poetry (10) 18. lord of the rings (6) 9. photography (10) 19. libraries (6) 10. singing (9) 20. donnie darko (6)

Interests gestalt

My most interesting friend is tiedinknots who has 14 of these interests, followed by tinystages (14), ceolnamara (11) and sallysunshine (10).

Normality Index

My friends are 82.64% normal.

Analyze me !

Username: Popular interests created by _imran_

Another quiet week.

One of my old housemates (Oleg) has moved back in, and this time he's brought his girl friend (Markéta, I think) with him. She seems nice, but she doesn't speak English.

Anything else? No. Not really.

College library got some new books. Whee. They're up in 813 (American Fiction?) instead of in General Reading. Should keep me going for a while in any case. Got to talk with a guy from my course when I was there. Still can't remember his name. More of a 'know-him-to-see-him' anyway. Probably worse to not be sure of the names of both of your housemates.

This week's been fairly good, especially Monday and Tuesday. No real reason, just felt a lot calmer and happier than usual. Less stressed. Wednesday wasn't as good, mostly due to lack of sleep. I got to meet matte_kudesai (he just happened to sit down beside me in a computer lab while I was checking my LJ-friends list) First time I got to meet someone in real life after reading their hournal for a while. Partial water change day and today have been better, not quite as good as Monday or Tuesday.

I've got some Gmail invites going to waste, comment if you want one.

Does anyone know what 15 magpies, 3 pigeons and a seagull is supposed to mean?

Just back from eating dinner in the Scholar's. Something called 'Ham Pasta Carbonara'. It was okay.

Followed by a little amateur mouse hunting.

Which in turn was followed by a meeting with thelordofcheese, zilog_jones, dmartin and a guy whose name may or may not be Senan.

Well, I say 'meeting', it was actually more of a 'sitting nearby and eavesdropping'. Cos I didn't actually speak... But that's a type of meeting, right?

And I got to show them a month old copy of the Irish Independent I had in my bag, and laugh a lot.

Cringe-iddy-cringe.

An interesting read, imo.

http://www.boingboing.net/images/blobjects.htm

Went to froodie's going away party on Friday. It was great. Got to talk with her, zemphis, Maeve, Überpixie and dmartin. Saw govindaduck, thelordofcheese and Wrinkles, but we didn't talk.

Other than that, been spending time with Donny, and nagran (who's sitting across from me at the moment) Well, actually been spent most of last month with Donny, but we only started talking last week. Been talking to lord_lucifer occasionally too.

Met Barry O Dea (El Wizo) - says he'll be back in college in September. This is a *good* thing.

Anyway - back to froodie. She's great, and now she's going away.

Bye </a></b></a>froo.

This morning I had my first cup of coffee in 3 months.

*sits and shivers*

*shivers and sits*

From wyvernfriend (and also chrisakadl and angellair)

IMDB's Top 100 Best Movies of All Time generate this HTML for your own page at ObeytheFist.com
( The Results )
Which movies have you seen?