The second party of the weekend was Debi’s birthday party which also doubled as a reunion for some of my old friends from school. It was one of those evenings where you are not quite sure what to expect as I hadn’t seen everyone for ages but it was actually really cool and people were just like I’d always remembered them.

Sadly I was a little tired due to the previous evenings antics so I wasn’t quite at my best but I still managed to speak with most in attendance and find out what everyone had been up to. We also relived some of the classic school moments which was really good fun - once you are off at uni its easy to forget how much stupid stuff you got up to when at school and how much fun it really was.

Although I brought my camera along with me I didn’t manage to get any photos, mainly because there weren’t many opportunities but I did find a good one from facebook which I thought summed up the evening nicely. All in all it was great party planning by Debi and it was superb seeing everyone again. I most solemly resolve to keep in better touch than I have done these last few years!

I’m not quite sure how this happened but I have ended up being set to go to 3 big parties on 3 consecutive days. I’ve nicknamed this 3 day event the party weekend and I’m attempting to party to the full extent at each one and see if I can make it through all of them acting the part of the party animal and still make it into work fresh and bright on Monday morning

Last night I went to the first party of three this weekend in the form of Norm’s house warming party. It was a truly brilliant night. A little slow to start but as people started to drink more they loosened up and we all started to have a great time. Because I’ve been at work so much there are quite a few of my Leeds friends who are staying in Leeds over the summer but I hadn’t really seem anything of so it was a great chance to catch up with people.

Chris had bought some decks to go with his PA system that he had previously purchased to run events for the Atheist society and was having a go at spinning some vinyl. I harked back to my radio days and had a go myself, trying to beat-match the different tracks. I met with limited success but it was nice to get my hands on records again. Having a spot of practice helped in unexpected ways later on. As I was playing a few tunes late on in the evening, a load of randoms turned up and started dancing and cheering for more music so I gave it to them. Soon the whole room was full of people dancing, jumping up and down and having a superb time - the whole floor was shaking with the quantity of feet, it was awesome. I’ve never before had people cheering in my direction “DJ! DJ! DJ!” and I doubt I will again, it was very funny.

Eventually people started to disperse and myself, Matt and Claire left to go home. We could tell it had been a good party because it was 4am, getting light and we couldn’t walk straight for the combination of alcohol and being all danced out. Great party folks, you’re all legends.

Getting up this morning to get a train down to London for my next party was a serious challenge but after dragging myself to the station and consuming large quantities of caffeine rich drinks during the journey I arrived right as rain in a wonderfully sunny central London and made my way to St. Albans.

The next party is Debi’s birthday/reunion party and it looks set to be great fun. I’m already all set to go and have a crate of beer to bring along!

Its a restaurant I’ve walked past many times when I used to live in Clarence Dock, but I’d never actually eaten there. Until yesterday that is. Its actually a superb little place. The service is quick and the food is excellent. I ordered a reasonable size portion according to the menu but it was huge when it arrived and very tasty. There is also a huge range of food on offer, with a nice selection of specialities extending into drinks and deserts as well. I never thought bowls could be made of ice and that green tea makes good ice cream, but I was mistaken!

The prices were not cheap, but as a place to go and enjoy good food and the relaxed atmosphere in the company of friends its the ideal venue. We all enjoyed ourselves and I’m sure we will return at somepoint in the not too distant future.

On the outskirts of Leeds, in Roundhay, there is great place to spend a day out - Tropical World! For Chris’ birthday we headed out there as a group and spent the afternoon looking at all the amazing creatures they have there. A fair few photos were taken by us all too, you can catch my contribution in my photo gallery.

After our visit we grabbed a pub lunch and then as most of the group got things ready for snacks and drinks at Chris’ place, myself and Norm went to the pub with Chris and sunk a few ales. It was nice to chat to Chris and Norm over a few drinks as its not something we’ve really done before outside of a group setting.

After we’d got ourselves nicely tipsey at the pub we went over to Chris’ house and had a nice evening chatting with everyone, and for me, catching up with what had been going on while I had been away down south. It just proved to me how great a group of friends I have here and how much fun our gatherings and days out really are. Oh and if you haven’t yet heard, Sarann got really rather drunk

Although regularly using facebook notes to express his thoughts and feelings, Norm hasn’t previously had a proper blog. Today however marks the first day when he has a place on the web to call his own. You can check out Norman Ralph’s blog here and if you know Norm and blog yourself then please update your blogrolls. I’m hosting it for him on my server and have added a few plugins for additonal, improved and spam-free functionality and a placid, clean looking theme to get him off the ground. I wish you every success with your blog Norm!

Just wanted to make a quick post to congratulate Laura Bolton on getting engaged. I hope you and Anthony will be very happy together and wish you all the best for the future. Be sure to let me know when the wedding is!

My contacts database has been running for a month or so now and I wanted to post an update on how I think its going. I decided to add a small(ish) number of people to it and see what the uptake would be like and so whether to invest my time and effort in adding the rest or my contacts.

Sadly, its not as good as I’d hoped. Of the 47 contacts I have currently added, a staggering 20 of those people have never even checked their details by accessing the system and many of these people will thus have incomplete details in the database. Others have checked their details but not bothered to update them, despite the fact the checking interface makes very clear what needs to be added to/updated and makes easy provision for the updates to occur.

I have to say I’m slightly disappointed with it all. I coded the system because I’m not very good at keeping in contact with people and I’m forever forgetting peoples birthdays so I wanted something that would remind me in a location I visit every day - my blog admin control panel. It must be said that if people don’t start using it then I’m going to pull the plug on my usage of it and release the code for others to have a go in case they have more luck.

It really doesn’t take long to check your e-mail, click the link and fill in your missing details (a minute maybe?). No one else will see them apart from me and I’ll actually remember your birthday. Your details will be perfectly safe. Obviously I can’t force you, and I won’t even try to force you - if you don’t want your details in its fine and I will delete your entry, but I don’t have a brilliant memory so if you don’t hear from me and/or I forget your birthday and you have ignored my e-mail about the database, its not my fault. It would certainly help me a lot if people used it and for my friends I’d hope that fact alone would be enough of an incentive to use the database.

I’m sure people will start to suggest that I should use facebook to check peoples birthdays, but because it is more open people don’t place their addresses in there, nor does facebook e-mail me when a birthday is coming up and let me know what day its going to fall on so I can time the post correctly for sending a timely birthday card. My system does all of these things for me, so you can see its a great help.

Sorry if this sounds like a moan, I guess it is in a small way, its just that without something like this I’m significantly more lost as to whats going on with my friends and aquaintances. In the next 3 days or so I’ll be sending out a reminder for those who have missing details so if you’ve lost your original e-mail for the system and want to help keep me up to date, you’ll get your chance soon. If you never got placed in the database and you’re reding this thinking “I’d like to help” then please e-mail me and I’ll add you

It really felt like social events had got started for the term when we all met up for an evening of drinking, fun and merriment at the Old Bar on Saturday night. Apart from the fact that the band at the far end were quite possibly the most awful I’d ever heard (hence why we were as far away from them as possible) and George was working behind the bar instead of sitting with the group it was really good fun. We caught up on group goings on and were soon knocking back the drinks. A load of random people joined us who a fraction of the group appeared to know but the rest of us just continued as if they hadn’t arrived, lol I left just before the others, but I didn’t miss hardly anything and it was great to see everyone in the one place. Long may these type of social gatherings continue!

In other news it was also a momentous night for Sarann, who after months of saying she wasn’t a geek and being flatly told she was, finally was awarded a reprieve to the status of non-geek. The reason was quite simply that she didn’t know who Tux was. If you don’t know who Tux is, you’re not a geek either, or certainly not enough of one to merit geek status at any rate. I must say I found it remarkable that any computing student wouldn’t know about Tux, but then I am rather fanatical in the field of Linux

I just read on Paul’s blog that he has been running his web business for a year and is doing very well. This is brilliant news and I just wanted to take the opportunity to say congratulations for pulling it off. Its not an easy road to get started on and I’m glad its working out well. As for asking for help etc. I’m always happy to assist and I’m glad you’ve found it useful - feel free to ask anytime. Best of luck for the future mate, you deserve every success.

Indeed they are, and what a joy it is to have them behind me at last. Due to my exams being spread out over the whole two weeks of the univeristy exam period it really has seemed like a bit of a slog. On the whole though I feel they haven’t gone too badly at all. As ever there were panic moments during revision but I can honestly say that when I sat down in front of the papers very little gave me cause for concern and I think I managed them quite well. Just have to wait for the results now to be sure.

School of Computing students very much live by the maxim of work hard, play hard so last night seeing as the work was finally behind us we all went out and let our hair down. We left the exam at 4 and went straight to the Quilted Llama where we got ourselves some sofas and some additional seats and started chilling out and drinking. Matt and I hit the gin (Bombay Saphire no less) and seeing as it was his birthday everyone was buying him drinks. We all ended up getting pleasently drunk which was nice and left at closing time to go to the Library because they were open later. When we finally left there a few of us came home to our house and we basically stayed up all night. I ended up getting to sleep at about 6am.

Its great for exams to be over and great to have such a cool group of friends to celebrate it with