Category: Uncategorized

… nearly had you for a second! I’d love to say that I’d done something interesting over the last couple of days. Unfortunately, I haven’t. I sent off an application form to the Royal Mail. That’s about it…

I see that Tim Henman has failed to live up to his name again. That guy could barely win a coin toss if he was under pressure, let alone Wimbledon… ah well. At least it’s not a given that Sampras is going to win these days (or any one player, in the final it could be either Federer or Philippoussis). Should be a good match, I’m looking forward to it!

Right, well, better get back to nothing.

(incidentally, since I believe Simon is a fairly avid reader of this blog, he’ll be pleased to know that I’ve kind of been working on a new design for Crossring. Admittedly I’ve just blatantly ripped off someone else’s, but hey… I might get it uploaded sometime soon. Or not. I dunno…)

I don’t know if you’ve been following Wimbledon, but in the Women’s Singles it’s another Williams vs. Williams final. How boring. There’s just no depth to women’s tennis at the moment…

My website has had nearly 1000 visitors! Not unique, but nevertheless… still a landmark! Visit the homepage — if you are the 1000th visitor, please sign the moose book 🙂

It’s really weird. Real Media is a standard streaming format for web based media content, for example DJ mixes. If I want to turn a 60 minute wave file (approximately 600 megs) into a streamable real audio file, I run it (or used to run it) through a program called Helix Producer Basic. This is the official program that Real come out with for you to create Real Media content. Unfortunately, it seems to be a little erratic: using apparently the same settings, a 55 minute long mix is approximately 8 megs; a 17 and a half minute file is about 9 megs. That just doesn’t make sense…

So I’ve decided to go back to the old Real Producer Basic, slightly older but a bit less erratic! That should at least provide file sizes which are proportional to the length of the original…

In other news! Still no work 🙁 I rang up the Royal Mail and asked if they needed any temps (or ‘casuals’ as they’re called)… they told me to ring the central office. Apparently casuals are allocated on an ad hoc basis, so I might or might not get work there. They’ve sent me an application form which hopefully will arrive tomorrow, and I’ll take it from there. If anyone knows of any good jobs that are going, then let me know 😉 Or you could just pray, that works too 🙂

I spent most of today watching Tim Henman, and working in FruityLoops on a new breakbeat track that I just decided to make on a whim. It’s a crazy mixed-up world.

And I can’t wait to get broadband! Still 10 or 11 more weeks to wait until I go back to Colchester. That’s life…

Ok. Yesterday I went to Church in the morning, and didn’t do much for the rest of the day. Today I went into town, getting completely soaked (I got a lift there and back but I got wet just by walking the short distance from the car park, it was raining so heavily…)

Bought a couple of records. Watched Tim Henman play this afternoon — bit of a rollercoaster ride but he managed it in the end! Read some more of “The Salmon of Doubt” by Douglas Adams, including the interview he did with an Atheism magazine. I always think atheists have an interesting point of view… some of them seem to see Christianity or at least the establishment as religious people coming together to reassure each other that they’re right. I see atheist magazines and such like as existing to reassure each other about being right. Comme ci comme ca.

Anyway. I spoke to my friend Tom for about a minute and a half — ringing from South Africa! It was really nice just to hear from him after not speaking to him since Christmas. He’s one of my best mates from these parts 🙂 He’s coming back on the 26th August, and the weekend after there will be a big party! That sounds like very good fun!

And apart from that, I don’t think there’s much else to say. The family got safely back home today, so now we’re in peace and quiet 😉 Still no news about work (Manpower have nothing). Tomorrow I’ll give the Royal Mail sorting office a ring and see if they have anything. I recorded a mix today for a DJ Battle that I’m entering on the DJ Source forums. I can’t think of any other random sentences to put at the end here, so it’s goodbye from me and goodbye from sid the spider…

We have some relatives staying for the weekend, my sister and two nephews and a niece. For some reason my youngest nephew (aged about 3 or 4) has decided that it is his duty to inform me of everything that he is doing whenever he sees me, and take it upon himself to ask me every question that crosses his mind. Oh, bless his little cotton socks! Yeah right…

I find myself retreating to my room fairly often to try and get some peace and quiet!

Apart from this… I went to see “2 Fast 2 Furious” yesterday with a friend of mine (Michael). It was pretty good! As opposed to the last film it actually had a storyline (compare with just being entirely about driving fast cars and then having a suggestion of a story somewhere around the middle and the end.

Haven’t done much today really. I went to the co-op to buy some Lemonade, so I can now make pints of blackcurrant and lemonade! I did try making one but unfortunately (a) the lemonade wasn’t cold enough, having only been in the fridge for about ten minutes… (b) I used too much blackcurrant stuff. Ah well, I’ll make a better one next time. Assuming noone else actually drinks the lemonade first…

Ok, I’m going to sign off now… one last thing though. Simon has removed the comments system from his online diary (NOT a blog! apparently…) because no-one ever uses it. Well mine doesn’t get used that often, but as he was the one who suggested that I add it (so he could disagree with me, which he hasn’t done as yet) I won’t remove it 🙂

I’m sure I made a post on this blog after Tuesday. Having said that, it’s still only Thursday so perhaps I didn’t.

I didn’t go and see the Fast and the Furious 2 yesterday; instead I’m going to go and see it tomorrow. Hopefully!

In case anyone is thinking about getting ADSL (BT’s broadband service) I’ve been looking at it the last few days. You don’t have to pay everything that BT charge you — if you get just the line-only service you can get some other components from other stores around the net, for example CCL Computers do a nice little wireless router for less than the BT Openworld Official Store does. Not surprising really, given that BT would probably only endorse technology that was the most expensive…

I’ve been having fun with my new sound system. Unfortunately the problem is that I can’t turn it up very loudly otherwise I’ll annoy neighbours and / or my parents. I probably won’t be able to turn it up too loud next year either given that I’ll have flatmates and neighbours and the walls aren’t particularly thick. Just like the walls at canterbury road, actually. At least I’ll have a bigger room though.

Have you noticed the subliminal message I’ve been trying to give throughout this post? 😉

I rang Manpower (the agency I’ve signed up with, although by the looks of it I’ll probably have to sign up with many more) today and they said that they had no work. Actually they said they had no “outstanding” work, in other words they’ve probably got some but just don’t like me. Typical.

That’ll be all. It’s good bye from me, and it’s good bye from my keyboard and mouse… and computer, phone *erk*

My speakers have arrived 🙂 They came this morning. Well, technically it was half way between morning and afternoon (it arrived just as I was starting lunch.)

Unfortunately it meant that I had to trek half way across Ipswich to get some speaker cable (which, incidentally, cost £2.10 — that was a half hours walk in each direction…) But it was worth it! I recorded a mix this afternoon which I will be uploading sometime in the near future. Hopefully…

I began to type something there but I’ve completely lost the train of thought I was on so I’ll start afresh.

I have now finished reading my copy of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! Only two more Douglas Adams books to go… but they’re a bit shorter! Tomorrow I’m going to see the Fast and the Furious 2. I’ve also got to chase up the temp agency about any work but I think I’ll wait and do that on Thursday! Hopefully they’ll have a big company want a lot of temps for work (for example, the Royal Mail last summer). It’s always good when that happens, you get regular work. It’s annoying not knowing what I’m going to do, especially considering that my bank balance is now about zero, but I guess it’ll just mean I have to trust God. I hate it when I have to do that 😉

Ok, so I said a few days ago that I wouldn’t be posting much over the holidays. I seem to have proved myself wrong over the past three days or so! Me being wrong? That’s almost unpossible…

Why is it that whenever I am expecting a parcel, the moment the parcel comes I always seem to be doing something else? For example. The package that was supposed to come today came, but unfortunately at the precise moment it came I was upstairs. You can’t hear the bell very well from upstairs, and the guy didn’t really hang around long to find out if knocking loudly would work… I came back downstairs again to find a little yellow card indicating that they’d tried to leave a parcel but couldn’t. Annoying thing was I heard it being put through the door but didn’t get out there in time to stop the guy — I saw him drive off…

Still, they’re going to try again tomorrow and this time my parents are going to be in as well so hopefully at least one of us will be able to pick it up! Also in today’s news… I went into town and signed up for the temp agency, no work was immediately forthcoming but they said they’d call. Which means that I’ll be back in there in a few days asking, and so on and so on until they do find me some work. Or I get fed up and sign up with another temp agency. And another one…

I’m just not really geared up for keep going on into the agency, I don’t feel up to it… keep pressurising for work, I don’t want to do it! Has to be done though. As for the rest of the day — the usual. Not really much to be said on that front…

I told you I wouldn’t be updating as much! But I will update every two or three days at least. Hopefully…

Yesterday… wait for it! I didn’t do much! Woo-hoo! Went out for a walk yesterday afternoon, spent some time reading… watched a film in the evening about Anne Frank…

This morning I went to Church. It was OK, apart from the pianist playing a couple of songs like a dirge! I really hate it when people in Church sing songs as if they really do’nt mean it. Admittedly I’m as guilty of that as anybody considering that I really don’t like a lot of the old songs that we sing, but even some of the newer ones? Once I graduate I’m going to find a Church that I actually like — no offence to the one I go to now (at home, not in Colchester) but I only really go there because of my parents. This is turning into a bit of a rant, isn’t it?

On a more positive note, this afternoon I spent most of it working on a new remix of “Over the mountains and the sea”. It’s fairly good but as with all these tracks, there seems to be something missing from it — the problem stems from having to take a small section of the track to repeat. Some of the bits are ideal for that purpose, but unfortunately because they were meant as part of a bigger tune repeating them means that the track sounds like all buildup and no real tune! *sigh* I think I might just end up making my own melody one of these days 😉

Tomorrow I’m signing up for the temp agency. Fun fun fun. Still, I’d rather be earning than not — although the big difference between this summer and last summer is that this summer I won’t have a huge debt to work off so I’m not going to be desperate for money! Which means that if I don’t find work I’ll go into debt but not massively, I could probably just about survive without getting a job all summer.

Ok, that’s all for today!