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

Well the end of this week saw the conclusion of all but one of my January exams and it was certainly good to see the back of them. While I felt all of them went well having one on Thursday afternoon and then one on Friday morning and Friday afternoon was a little much all at once and I was quite drained afterwards. Still at least they seemed to go well and in the student world thats all that really matters - sleep is strictly secondary, although many of my friends will argue with me on that point.

Speaking of my good friends here in Leeds on Friday night we went out for a few drinks seeing as we didn’t have another exam for a week and really needed a break. It was a good break too, starting in the Quilted Llama straight after the exam for drinks and food, having a brief interlude at home and then moving straight onto the old bar for more drinks and much socialising. We all had rather a lot to drink too and it showed in some of the group, in particular Matt when he kissed Sarann’s boots, but we’ll leave that one there as there mere act of posting that picture is going to land me in hot water enough!

After getting home Matt and me hit the gin (”again!?” I hear you cry, yes, again, lol) and sat around chatting and listening to various musical bits and pieces, mainly the Beatles - always sounding good regardless of your state of drunkenness!

Getting a late night wasn’t a great plan however as I was hopelessly late for meeting Claire the next morning for the art exhibition. Still we got there and it was a really interesting installation and a very nice way to spend a day unwinding after a week of exams. It was art based on geometry and one part of the installation took the bold step of combining the patterns in the painting with computer animation and a soundtrack to result in an intriguing and at times hypnotic experience.

I feel this week has been a near perfect example of the old addage; work hard, play hard

I just wanted to make a quick blog post to thank all those who took the time to wish me a happy birthday. I got a load of e-mails, texts, cards and other such things, not to mention in-person birthday wishes on campus today which was really nice. Special thanks go to Claire for baking a cake and bringing it over in the evening and Heather for taking time out from revision to come over to see me, not to mention giving me some awesome presents

Glancing at facebook the other day I noticed that a number of my friends have started using the notes system like a blog. As a result I have added a number of the provided RSS feeds to my news reader.

Drew’s writings stood out from all the rest though, not only in that I could identify with much of it but in the quality of the work and thought that had clearly gone into each article. I especially like the article on Microsoft and the one concerning the attitude of people towards a degree in the school of comuting.

As a personal comment I’d like to say to those saying they do history to people when in fact they do computing simply to save face, shame on you. If you’re not proud of the degree you’ve chosen then don’t study it!

Back to Drews writings though, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed and make comment where appropriate, its great stuff. Bravo Drew!

On Saturday night I headed out with Matt, Sarann, Si, Michelle and Phil to go to the Hi-Fi club Boogaloo night. While I knew what kind of music to expect I hadn’t been to one of these nights before so it was a new experience. Matt and I necked a fair few gins to start the evening off and then hit the dance floor.

Its amazing how good funky Latin influenced music is to dance to and how quickly you lose yourself in it all. The DJ wasn’t superb and he crashed a few records, but all in all it was great fun and I’d certainly go again. Others in the group seemed to enjoy it too.

At the end of the night we decided to walk home and we had the amusement that is Matt slightly drunk. I have to say that he’s a brilliant laugh in this state, especially with other folk on the street etc. The walk back was one of the most entertaining I’ve had after a club night and Sarann and Si seemed sufficiently amused as well. His impressions of Andy Bulpit (our AI22 lecturer) will without doubt go down in group history!

When we got back home we didn’t feel like just going to bed so we whipped out a bottle of Plymouth gin and proceeded to cook steak and chips and make a fair dent in the bottle. You can always tell you’re living the student life when you actually think that cooking steak and chips at 3am is an entirely logical thing to do. We ended up staying up till about 6am just chatting about random stuff which was really cool. Certainly this is something that should happen much more regularly, it really adds the icing on an already excellent night out.

On 25th November Heather organised a day out in York for a group of friends to celebrate her birthday. It was a really big day to plan but everything worked out really well.

We did a number of really cool things. Firstly after meeting up with everyone at York station we made our way to the Shambles where we got a Victorian photograph taken of the group. This involved dressing up in traditional clothing, posing in front of a typically York background (the Minster Cathedral) and attempting to look as serious as possible. It wasn’t all that clear after it had been taken that it would come out so well but after it had been processed into black and white with that traditional Victorian look we were all very impressed with it.

After the photograph we had what became known as “free time” where the group slip up and spent a little bit of time exploring York. We took this opportunity to go and grab a coffee and talk about Christmas type things which were really nicely displayed in the various shop windows. We’d hoped to get into Betty’s but the queue was round the corner so we had to settle for Starbucks. The whole free time thing was quite amusing because for about a week before the trip I had been joking with Heather about how this term made it seem like we were organising a school outing. It turned out to be not far from the truth when we had to make a few phone calls to find out if people knew how to get to the restaurant and when we did a sort of head count outside, lol

For dinner we met up with the group again at The Slug and Lettuce which while a fairly generic place to eat turned out to be a really cool part of the day and a good opportunity to chat to everyone and get to know some of Heathers friends a little better. A little time was spent taking photos of each other and Heather unwrapping her presents from friends which was quite amusing because it involved Heather having to explain to me just exactly what the pig feat was! The food wasn’t half bad too with Heather and myself sharing a large duck platter with pancakes and plum sauce. Mmmm, tasty. After a slightly rushed desert we left to make sure we were in time for the ghost walk

The shambles ghost walk is famed amongst York students as being the best in the city and this time we weren’t disappointed. The guy who does the ghost walk is in fact the photographer at the shop past images, where we got the Victorian shot done. As a result of this he knew it was Heather’s birthday and proceeded to put he on the spot a number of times throughout the evening which was really rather amusing. What was so cool is that no one realised right until the very end of the walk who the guy was and how he knew it was Heathers birthday. The point of realisation was when the photo on the left was taken. Click it for a larger copy. Whats so good about the shambles ghost walk is the way the stories are told and how the audience are invited to participate - its one of the best things to do after a day in York, I’d highly recommend it.

After the ghost walk we headed to the Evil eye cocktail bar, not only the best in York but in my humble opinion one of the best in the country. The atmosphere is completely unique and the furnishings very quirky. Its always a good way to end a day. This time around they were serving mulled wine as well as the usual cocktail menu which was a nice Christmas touch. We ended up drinking down a fair few interesting combinations and taking some of the funniest photos of the day.

All in all everybody had a great day out and it was really great to meet some of Heather’s friends from back home. York is a seriously cool place and I can see us making many more day trips there in the future simply because a day is never long enough to explore everything there is to offer. I lived there for over 2 years and still don’t feel I’ve seen everything there is that is worth seeing.

A large number of photos were taken during the day out and you can see a large number of these in the photo gallery of the day. More will be added as they get sent to me. If you took photos of the day send them to me in high quality and I will add them to the gallery. Below is a small copy of the superb Victorian photo we had done. If you click on it you will be taken to a full size scan of the original photo.

NB: This photograph is only to be hosted here. If you want to tell your friends please link them to this post. If you wish to use this photo yourself or upload it anywhere else please ask myself or Heather for permission.

On Friday night I went to an Indian night at Norm’s house. The general theme was a load of Indian food cooked by Norm and then drinks and conversation afterwards. It’s been a little while since the whole group has got together in one persons house and it was nice to chat to everyone in the one place.

After an hour or two we were running a little dry on alcohol and such so we took a trip to a local off-license and got a fair quantity of really cheap cider. To say it was rocket propellant would be an understatment but it certainly further lightened the mood once we started to drink it.

Interesting episodes of the evening included a towel snapping match between Chris and Norm with some interventions from the sidelines, B’s usual antics, and placing Sarann in a wooden cupboard above the stairs - photos available on request! All in all it was a great night, big thanks to Norm for organising it