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Well, after I ranted in this blog, Simon decided to have a bit of a rant in his blog!. Heehee. Still, it’s good to have a place to vent sometimes (at least you can’t see people getting bored and wandering off when it’s over the internet.)

I came into town today to buy some Christian sheet music (I’d like the music for ‘In Christ Alone’ and various other things); unfortunately they don’t seem to sell it at the place that was open! So I’ll just have to order directly from Spring Harvest or something.

Ah well. Oh, one more thing — comments should be back soon; I’ve found a way for it to work but I’ll update as and when I get around to changing it!

But nothing that much interesting has happened since graduation. I went to see Shrek 2 on Friday afternoon with Joe, a friend of mine.

It was really good, more adult than the first one, but certainly a very enjoyable film! Another film to add to my list of films to buy on DVD when they come out… speaking of which, Starsky & Hutch is apparently now out, so I’ll probably get that soon 🙂

And, yes, that’s about it for now. Later…

I forgot to mention this the other day, so I thought I’d mention it now. I’ve “removed” the old comments system from this blog, i.e. the one that I made. It’s been replaced by the blogger comments system. However, because of the way my site works, it doesn’t like it. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the way it works. I’ll try and get it sorted out soon!

Anyway. I watched ‘Medical Mysteries’ yesterday night. I was going to post up something about it but I didn’t, but then I read a review of it in The Times this morning and it actually agreed with what I thought. The program went at a snail’s pace, in order to explain something which they probably could have managed in about 30 seconds. George III was suffering from a disease called Porphyria — a very rare condition. It’s unusual for males to suffer attacks, though, and the reason why he did was because of Arsenic (which was contained in some medicine he was taking). How amazing is that? Um, not at all. It was probably the dullest, dumbed-down program that I’ve watched recently. Needless to say, I’m not going to be watching any more in the series of “TV for morons” (which seems to make up about 90% of what’s on TV these days, but hey).

Um, yes. That is all.

Well, I have now had my degree conferred, so I’m a graduate. That’s three years of my life done and dusted. Finished. Finito. No more. It’s a very strange feeling. Well, it’s not actually a feeling, it’s more a thought. It’s not really a feeling… I thought I’d feel sad, but I don’t because I know that I’m going to be back on a fairly regular basis next year! It’s just strange to think that it’s not going to be as a student.

Ah well. The day went well. I got to the ceremony OK… it was good, apart from being a bit boring in places! Me and my parents met up with Philippa and her parents for a picnic lunch (the weather was a little inclement but at least it was quite mild and not raining!). Then I went to Philippa’s ceremony and saw her have her degree conferred, and then went to the linguistics reception, and then came back home.

So, yes. I’ve enquired about another job, I doubt that I’ll get it, but hey. And… that’s about it!

Ok, I thought I’d better post something up here apologising for ranting last night (well, this morning) in my last post. Ah well.

Um, just wanted to say, I’ve started work on a new story after my last effort (“The Spy with the Complete and Total Lack of Inspiration”) entitled “The Terminatrix”. You can read the first chapter on FictionPress, as well as a few other things I’ve written including the spy story.

Don’t wait with baited breath for me to complete additional chapters though! I’m working on it a little bit but not very much. I need to find a site which you can exchange songs on as well, as I’ve been trying to do a bit of song writing recently. Hmmm… we’ll see.

Later!

Phill

Following on from yesterday’s effort to move away from ‘this is what I’ve been doing’, I’ve come across something else I could write about on my blog.

A friend of mine, Zeth, wrote about this on his blog about a month ago. I didn’t read it until now, but I’m going to comment on it anyway. So there.

This is what he said:

Ok. I haven’t used GMail, so I can’t comment about its ease of use! Having said this, I do think it may replace Outlook Express, but Outlook is more than just an email program. 1Gb storage is a lot, but do you really need that much? I mean, I’ve got about three year’s worth of emails on my computer and it doesn’t take up that much – maybe a couple of hundred megs at the most. And a lot of that stuff I could probably get rid of!

Blogger is easier than Frontpage to use… if you want to create a blog. It doesn’t offer any web design facilities, you just select a template and type away. If you (a) don’t want to use a template or (b) want to create a static web page (or a scripting language) you’re still going to have to use other tools.

As for providing a basic word processor — this would be a useful feature for a ‘GBox’… I don’t know whether it would catch on though. Would people really want to type out a letter on their TVs? The average resolution of a TV screen is pretty low, even for widescreen. I don’t think it would really feel right typing out a letter or a document on my TV screen! (And of course, you’d have to buy a printer as well).

It would just be better to get a cheap or second hand PCs. I think one thing that the manufacturers of the ‘web-box’ underestimated was people’s desire to do different stuff with computers. I know that doesn’t make sense, let me explain… people who are just getting into technology and want to send emails etc probably only think they will want a basic terminal to start with. But then they might buy one and realise they actually want to do more, they want to play the odd game, or run another program… this is why I think basic terminals haven’t really caught on!

But I know nothing, so it’s probably best to take my opinion with a very large pinch of salt…

No news on the job situation! I’ve had a couple of calls now from agencies, but no job as yet. Hopefully something will turn up soon — but I do believe that God has these things under control 🙂

Anyway. I’ve just thought of something I could write as part of my new ‘content’ drive rather than just a ‘what I did today’ drive! Shocking, I know, but there you go… Whilst I have been waiting for a job, I’ve had quite a bit of spare time. I’ve decided to enjoy it, because I won’t have this much time off in a while! So I’ve started playing the piano again. Or, trying to.

I did my piano grade 4 in December 2000, and hadn’t played until about a month ago. Now, I’ve been practising for about an hour or so a day every day for the past few weeks. (Bear with me here, I know this is a bit boring but I do have a point!) I was always absolutely appalling at sight-reading, and it took me quite a long time to learn any new pieces. This was a bit of a vicious circle — I didn’t enjoy playing much (and consequently didn’t play a lot) because it took me so long to learn anything, and it took me so long to learn anything because I didn’t play much!

The point is this. Most of the people I know who are any good at piano have been playing since an early age (5 or 6, something like that). Now, I was wondering — is it possible for me (with practice) to become a relatively adequate pianist (I’m not hoping for concert standard or anything, just plain old adequate would do for me), given that I didn’t start learning the piano until I was 12 or 13? Is it simply a factor of practice, or is it actually a factor of how early you start playing? Does starting to play at an early age somehow embed it into your brain more? Does starting at an older age limit how good you can become?

I’ll let you know how I get on… I would imagine all starting at an early age would mean was that you have more years to practice (finding time to practice does seem to become more difficult as you get older). We’ll see (hopefully some of that made sense…)

Just letting you know that I’m still alive! Nothing much has been happening… still looking for a job. No solid news although I’ve had a couple of contacts from graduate recruitment companies. This blog could get very boring now that I’ve left university, I’ll just have to think of some interesting things to say…

Nah, sounds too much like hard work.

It was a good weekend! I went down to see Philippa in Petts Wood. On Friday night we went to the pub with some of her friends, then on Saturday we went to Bromley, then on Saturday evening we went to a classical music concert, then on Sunday we went to Church, then to see one of her friends, and then watched a video and read in the evening.

And then I came home this morning.

A good weekend 🙂

Well, I got a first! 🙂

So I am now Phillip Sacre, BSc (Hons).

It’s a strange feeling… still. It felt good to update my CV! Anyway. Right. I’m going down to see Philippa over the weekend, so I probably won’t update here until next week. So, laters…