Well, it’s Friday again, at last!

The week’s been ok, nothing special’s happened other than I’ve got wet cycling home a couple of times (it started raining at half distance so I couldn’t prepare) and this morning I had fun in my part of the city where they hadn’t gritted the roads or pavements. Let’s say that it was difficult to stand up due to the ice and even the slightest incline would generate an uncontrollable slide down it. Hence, for the first quarter of my journey I pushed the bike and gingerly walked. It was quite fun watching a dustcart trying to take a turning at 2mph and almost piroetting.

As for the weekend, I think I shall go into Witney tomorrow and get my hair cut. Other than that, I have no plans whatsoever so i’ll probably get very bored. Still, I could look into writing a directory search for our new departmental web site my colleague has been working on or continue with my user-friendly, advanced “vacation” program replacement.

We’ll see. Social life will have to wait ’til next weekend when it’s the By the Gods meeting in London. I’m not sure you could really say I had a social life and I definitely don’t have either a love or a sex life.. but at least it’s not complicated and sordid.

I bought myself a new toy over the weekend using my Christmas money.. a nice DVD player.

It’s fully multi-region, plays not only DVD’s but CD’s, VCD’s and MP3’s too.. oh and it has a Dolby Digital &trade 5.1 decoder too.. all for £120! It’s and Acoustic Solutions DVD 551.. no, I’ve not heard of the manufacturer either. They do have a web site though. (Warning, it’s Flash only.. silly people.)

Anyway, it means that I now have a nice home entertainment system with big widescreen telly, hi-fi with Dolby Surround decoder, SVHS video recorder, Sky digital receiver and now a DVD player with the 5.1 output going into the HiFi’s 5.1 input.

I’m a happy bunny.. all I need to do know is save up for some DVDs! 🙂

Last night, having for some unknown reason not been able to get to sleep ’til 4:30am and then waking up at 07:07 and not being able to get back to sleep and then having to drive from Cornwall back to Oxford I was just a tad knackered. Hence, just after Time Team finished I went to bed.

That long sleep seems to have done the business as I was awake and fully functional at the 07:30 get-up time this morning.. which was a good couple of hours before I’d even think about waking up during the holiday.

It’s amazing how unfit you can get in just 2 weeks. Not only have I had to use one belt notch up from the one I used before but my legs ached hugely after the cycle to work and I was very much out of breath, and I wasn’t even going very quickly either. I’m guessing it’s going to take at least a month before I’m back to the same level of fitness as I was a fortnight ago. Never mind.

After much helpful debugging help from the Bullet crowd, the alpha-test version of the ‘vacation’ replacement program I wrote over the holiday seems to be functioning well. I’m using my own account as a testbed.. so far it’s not replied to any mailinglist.. YET! 🙂

Anyway, time for tea!

I’ll not go through all the little details of my Christmas break on here as so many others have done. I’ll merely do a quick summary, after all you have more important things to do that read lots of drivel.

The last fortnight has been spent resting and generally not doing a great deal, stuffing myself with too much food down at my parents’ place down in Cornwall. T’was most pleasant.

Before that, on the Thursday night before Christmas was the Department’s Christmas Party which took place in the basement of a bar in Oxford. Great fun was had by all and I was even persuaded to dance!

The Friday was rather a daze due to the lack of sleep from the previous two days (trip to Reading to see Lord of the Rings on the Wednesday evening etc.). I was going to phone Lindsey up to wish her the seasons’ greetings but was so shattered after getting home from work I went almost straight to bed and slept right through to Saturday morning, when it was time to drive down to Cornwall.

It seems trendy to do the corporate mascot test, so here’s my result:-

Take the Corporate Mascot Test at Willaston’s Lounge!

It’s a good thing I like Frosties then.

If you know me then you can see how wrong the description is seeing as it says that I’m supposed to be loud etc.

T’was a nice weekend visiting Rachel, Graham and little Christopher.

I travelled up to Yateley on Friday evening, basically cycling home and dumping stuff, picking up my bags and throwing them in the boot of my car. 1.25 hours later (7pm) I arrived just in time to wish Christopher a good night.

Having been plied with tea, Alec turned up, we had a nice dinner, talked and generally chilled out. Ths included watching Christopher’s school’s nativity play graham had videoed on Alec’s DVCam.

Saturday started quite late and involved lots of construction of Lego and Lego technic and the watching of “The Princess Bride” before Fiona and Alec turned up (not together). We all had a thoughly nice lunch of very thick soup and some strange bread. Afterwards we toddled off to the local park where us blokes played “football” whilst Rachel and Fiona talked and acted as goalposts. Once Christopher had got fed up with football it was onto the swings etc. Alec enjoyed the swings too and the wooden beam didn’t bend too much under his weight to everyone’s surprise. The women wandered home early so that they could privately talk out of the way of the men. We followed later.

We watched the school play again which Alec had transferred onto VHS, mostly so that Fiona could go ah at all the kiddies. After which first Fiona left and then Alec, who had to go of to Ian’s party in Hemel Hempstead.

Rachel rustled up a dinner, we ate, we lounged, we went to bed.

Sunday started with Rachel, Graham and Christopher running around getting ready for church whilst I lay warm in bed. I finally got up at 9am and listened to “Breakfast with Frost” whilst improving the half-track dumper truck I’d constructed the day before. Had breakfast and then dozed dreaming of what I could do with my house if someone gave me £50000. The family arrived back at about 11am. The rest of the day was idled away.

After a lovely roast chicken lunch, cheese on toast tea and a number of mince pies it was time to go home.

I finally got home, feeling very tired, at about 9:10pm, put the rubbish out and flopped into bed.

It’s a good thing it’s my last week at work, I need the rest.

Although it’s not been that busy at work this week, it has been strangely tiring. That and having someone call me up the night before last at 11:15, 45 minutes after I’d got to sleep, just so they could tell me that they had a wrong number. Some people can be most inconciderate.

Still, tonight I’m off to see Graham, rachel and little Christopher in Yately for the weekend. Alec is likely to pop over there tonight also, so it’s likely to be a fun, relaxing weekend.

I can’t believe it’s only a week ’til my last day at work before Christmas!

Yesterday I had one of those days where my brain had a flat battery. I’m sure you know what it’s like, a negative IQ and fluff for brains.

I did manage to jump start my cognative processes in the end with two mugs of coffee from the Klix machine (and this example is a classic, biege, chocolate brown with day-glow orange details). I usually only need at most one cup of Klix coffee to wake me up on my most tired days.

I think the Twix bar also helped with its sugar and chocolate.

Anyway, by 3pm I actually had some brain power, which was useful.

The only problem with all this wake-up drug intake was that I couldn’t get to sleep easily last night, so read in bed, then channel hopped a bit, finally getting to sleep at 11:30pm.

I slept well, so this morning I feel fine. Well, I did until about 10 minutes ago when I started feeling drowsy again. :-/

Still, I do have to look forward to one thing, reverendgrim, h0llym0nst3r, sleipnir_ and myself are going off to see Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring next Wednesday evening in Reading. 🙂

It’s Monday morning again.. I think. Well, it would be if I were awake rather than being in the zombified state I am in currently.

I’m guessing the lack of brainpower is due to going to Bob & Jos’ housewarming party at the weekend, staying up ’til gone 3am sunday morning chatting in the kitchen. Then again, I did sleep well that night with a nice little pussy cuddled up on top of the sleeping bag.

I have to congratulate Bob and Jos on a splendid house warming and wind down day yesterday. it was very enjoyable, despite the copious amounts of washing up.

I’m sure they won’t have to cook for the next few days as they probably still have a number of baked potatos and other such things.