The Very Mundane Journal of Alex Trenchard

So, I've been in Bristol for about a year and a half. It's a good city. Large enough to have distinct areas*, but small enough that it feels cosy and familiar.

I like the many small independent shops, even if I normally end up buying things from the big chains anyway. I like that I'm within striking distance of greenery on the outside of the city, and not just an enclosure. It's fun watching Bristol, and its familiar landmarks, on TV. I've just started watching Being Human, on which another post, another time.

However, there is what H.P. Lovecraft would describe as "a Bristol look". I've only quite recently started noticing it, although in retrospect, it's always been there, but I didn't know the signs to look for. I don't know how to describe it, except that, like the classic acid test for pornography, I know it when I see it. It's a look also paired with the Bristol accent, which is rather un-lovely.

Like Lovecraft's hapless narrator, I too have roots around this area. Taken back at a sufficient remove, my family hails from Dorset and Somerset. And that's why I sometimes itch to be away from here. I like Bristol, but I can't stay here for ever and ever. I don't want to turn into a fish-man.

I expect to be back in London in May.



*Many of which have pleasing, familiar mappings onto London, which remains my default mental map of a City. Clifton, for example, is a pretty near duplicate of Fulham, but for the hills and things.

Was very good. I'm not going to go into spoilers, but I thought it was a good adaptation, and fairly faithful to the book, as I remember it.

But most of all, I thought the soundtrack was particularly - and note-worthily - excellent.

It's been over a year since I posted anything to LJ at all. But, uh, now I come to you and I say -- "Don Corleone give me help." -- But I don't ask with respect. I don't offer friendship. I don't even think to call you Godfather. Instead, I come into your house on the day your daughter is to be married, and I ask you for computer advice, for money nothing.

If, by the way, it *is* the day of anyone's daughter's wedding: my felicitations to them, and may their first child be a masculine child.

Actual posts, containing information about my life, and not just soliciting help, will follow in the next couple of days.

( But for now, can anyone help me with my computer? )

After only another three weeks of wrestling with bureaucracy (this time on the part of IC registry), I've finally received my OHMS containing a formal job offer. Now it's only another month before I can actually start...

Still, at least I'll be earning some actual money at some point soon, so I won't be getting by on a combination of sponging and eating up my savings.



Also, OHMS letters are awesome.

A friend of mine has been very badly screwed over by his Uni (actual text follows under a cut) - the course he applied for no longer exists, and the letter telling him so didn't get to him, such that he already has things like a loan, and housing sorted out. He needs to re-apply for a Research position, in the next 11 days.

Do any of you post-grad types have any advice on writing Research Proposals, or how best to deal with Academic Bureaucracy (other than fire)?

( i_andrew: I believe they call it an ostrich up. Like a cock up, only bigger. )

My Security Clearance has finally been processed, and HMG have decided that I'm not a threat to national security after all. I have to say, I'm rather relieved by this, because, as relaxing as sitting at home playing computer games and doing light housework is, it gets rather old quickly, and I'm looking forward to have something productive to do soon.

So, with this multi-month slow step out of the way, you'd think I'd have a job now, right? Wrong. My personal tutor apparently remains every bit as impervious to attempts to contact him now as he has always been. He hasn't replied to letters, emails, or phone calls, and has yet to write me a reference. It's gotten to the point that I've actually told the MoD "Look, don't mind him, he's just a recluse. Here are some other people you can contact instead."

However, we're making progress. I might yet be in employment before the end of the month.

Unexpected competence by the Aero department - they managed to release our results a day earlier than planned (so only two days after the rest of college, not three). I am now the proud owner of a degree.

A 2:2, to be precise.

There'd have been little justice in this world if I'd gotten a grade any higher - there is no way I deserve the same classification as Cristina - although I really thought my project had gone a little better than that.

What are the eigenvalues of the Matrix of Leadership?

I've handed in my project. I've finished Aero.

I'm tired.

I'll post properly when my brain doesn't so closely resemble over-cooked scrambled eggs.

But it's over.

So, I broke a lightbulb earlier in my bathroom (AKA the room I go into with bare feet most often). As a result of this, I've developed the most efficient broken-glass detector ever - it's called my feet.

Ow, ow, ow, stupid me, ow.

Also, I know they need to let light through, but does lightbulb glass have to be so thin, brittle, and... well... frangible?

Yes, I know there was a certain amount of pubbing yesterday. But today was my last lecture EVER at Imperial.[1] And I feel that this needs celebrating, probably with alcohol.

Cheese Soc have their end of term free cheese and wine in the Union Bar at 5, so I would recommend that we start there, and then, if there's room in the Union still at 6, stay there, otherwise head to the Tea Clipper. Any non-cheese inclined people[2] are more than welcome to come along at 6.

Any takers?



1 - Scarily, this now means that we're meant to know Aero. All of it. And in just over three weeks we're being examined on it.
2 - Lactose intolerant, or those people who just inexplicably don't like tasty cheese.

Well, there went the first Test. Whilst not an entirely unmitigated disaster, it was at best a barely mitigated disaster. Only a fine stand from Pietersen and Collingwood saved us from being utterly humiliated. Harmison's bowling was a disappointment from start to finish, and the players who to my mind best justified their selection were Ashley Giles and Geraint Jones - two players I would't have picked (I'd have fielded Chris Read and Monty Panesar instead).

In other news, I've vaguely remembered how to program - I need to for my CFD coursework - and I quite enjoyed it. This is, of course, a good thing, but not least because my final year project, on which 60% of my grade for this year depends, is going to be largely computational.

In other other news, things seem to have sorted themselves out between Cristina and me. They're still complicated, but we're back together at least, and taking things one day at a time. Thanks to everyone who offered support or a friendly ear to rant to this week, and apologies to anyone to whom I may have unwarrantedly been an arsehole. It's not been my best week ever, but it looks like things are getting better.

And now it's time for bed.

Cristina just came round and told me that she can't keep hurting me. That she can't keep making me tired and grumpy all the time. That she's not going to stop being depressed.

In short, she came to break up with me.

I still think she's going to get better. I told her this. I also told her that I still love her, no matter how unwell she is, and that I'll still be here for her when she changes her mind. But she told me to just get over her, and find someone else who won't make me unhappy. I tried to reason with her, but it's difficult when she's depressed.

I hope she'll feel better, realise what she's done, and change her mind by tomorrow. If not, I think this is going to hurt. Both of us. A lot. I'm not expecting the next few days to be a lot of fun.

But it hasn't kicked in yet. At the moment I still just feel numb.

Shockingly, for a fair number of these, it's actually possible to tell what the interest is. A little disturbing was the number of what I thought were fairly innocent interests which came up as porn. Although, I guess that's what the internet is for...

( My Interests Collage )

Hurrah! Am super-l33t plumbing/DIY ninja!


After not one but two trips to my local branch of PlumbingSupplies-R-Us, I now know more than I ever feared there was to be known about stopcocks, ballcocks and O-Rings, and why mine were sub-standard in every regard. Furthermore, I now have repaired my toilet, all on my own, and without flooding my bathroom. I thnk that's quite a success, especially given that I'm a left-hander who, despite 21 years of experience, still has difficulty remembering which way to turn nuts to tighten them...

Also, does ever single part of that sound like an innuendo, or is it just me? No wonder it's always plumbers who get lucky in those stories. Cor, grab hold of my adjustable wrench, luv...

...although I've just had quite an adventure which involved writing off a car, getting a ride in an ambulance, and visiting the A&E of Shrewsbury Hospital.

The short version is that it could have been worse. I have a few scratches on my head, and a few nice bruises, and I imagine I'll have quite a good headache for a few days. Apparently the car was going backwards when it hit a tree, and whilst the back has been rather staved in, I was substantially fine, which probably isn't what would have happened if I'd been going forwards. There also weren't any other cars on the road at the time I lost control, which is good, because I'd been weaving from side to side, and if I'd hit somebody head on, it could have ended very badly indeed.

( As far as I can remember what happened is: )

I'm still planning to go back to London soon. I'm still really looking forward to seeing Cristina again. But not just yet - I'm probably going to have a rather quiet day, because I'm still just a little bit shaken.

"May you live in interesting times". Looks like we do.

The internet has already been flooded with people arguing both sides of the issue. Some would like to claim that it was Islamic Extremists/the Jews (yes, sadly, some people still seem to believe this)/Antarctic Space Nazis¹. Others claim that it's all just a government plot so that John Reid can, as promised, take away a few more civil liberties.

Either way, the people who'll suffer are the innocent ones: people attempting to fly today (estimated by Sky News as 400,000) and the peaceful majority of Muslim communities who want nothing to do with bombs, terrorism and killing.

Whatever the case is, let's not forget something very important here - nobody died. Nobody was killed. Nobody exploded on a plane over the Atlantic, and nobody was shot by the police. Whilst I'm sure British courts aren't perfect, the 21 people arrested will be tried in accordance with the due process of law, and inevitably it will be a high-visibility, highly publicised trial which should provide an additional layer of accountability. And in the end, hopefully justice will be done. Not revenge. Not murder. Just justice.

And that's the best thing we can hope for.

Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I think we've not handled this one too badly. Beats invading countries, anyway.

Edited to add: As someone wisely pointed out, "Liquid bombs? They should have used snakes."

---

1 - As cool as this last would be, sadly I don't think it's very plausible.

Well, another good episode (I'll avoid spoilery specifics though), but is it just me or did they start that 15 minutes earlier than normal?

Oh, and exams are over! Hurrah and huzzah!

So, this month I've been mostly revising. Well, first there was coursework, and quite a lot of it. And now there's revision, because the department in their infinite wisdom sadism has put exams the moment we get back. At least I have one day's grace; pocket_size_g has an exam at 10.00 the very first morning. Anyway, the point of this post is to complain that my brain is fried from too much revising. Proof?

Firstly, I'm excited by the new browser-bar-thingummy that LJ has at the top of the page. And secondly, and much more scarily, I'm starting to find the "O RLY?" owls funny.^[1]

Give me distractions, ask me questions, or just kill me now, but this is not a healthy state to be in.



[1]If, somehow, you haven't seen these, then: (a)welcome to the internet, and (b)you could check out www.orlyowl.com or Wikipedia, but it's hard to see why you'd want to.

I may not know a lot about CAD, but I'm pretty sure that the part I've just drawn, which is all of 30cm long, shouldn't deform by 13m when loaded.

Hate coursework.

Hate aero.

Sleep now?

So, once again, how long since I updated? Ah, it's been another week.

It's been a busy week, and once again it's about a 50/50 split between Aero giving me a lot of work, and me pretending it doesn't exist until the last minute. I'm also panicking about Picocon, for what good that's doing, and trying to hold all the other parts of my life (and tattered psyche) together too. And mostly managing. Which is nice.

This week's discovery: Drawn Together, which people have been telling me about for ages. So offensive, yet so funny. Or possibly 'therefore'. I'm still not sure which.
This week's acheivement: Winning the RAeS Aero Challenge, which I plan to take at least a very little credit for, even if most of the hard work was done by non_trivial.
This week's disappointment: Coming home today and realising that there was not a single clean mug in the house, and that I'd need to do washing up before I could have any coffee.
This week's cunning plan: To get Rupert Neate removed as Felix Editor by persuading him to run the Mohammed cartoons.
This week's meme: Johari squares, this time with prettier interface. http://kevan.org/johari?name=lazy_alex

Anyone who knows me well will know that I have no strongly held religious beliefs of my own. But I do believe that no cartoons are worth setting fire to an embassy over. So, Islam crazy fundamentalist Muslims who are giving the rest a bad name, if you can't take a joke, screw you.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/02/the_caricatures_themselves.php


Edit: In response to a few of the justified comments below - sorry, you're right, this isn't Islam as a whole, but a few over-reacting members. It *is* unfair to judge a faith which professes peace and tolerance by the actions of a handful of fucktards, but I'm sorry to say that that's all we get in the papers these days.

Well, my body has decided that I don't get to go to sleep tonight.

So I'm searching through lists of 'worst songs ever' and downloading them. All. So far the worst thing I've downloaded is Agadoo (I'm sorry), but I've just come across something that looks EVEN WORSE.

Yes, there's something worse than Agadoo. Not the Birdie Song, although I have that too.

A German band called "Super-nanny und der neo-Nazi".

It's wrong that I'm actually looking forward to listening to this, isn't it?

Edit: it turns out to be a TV show, not music. And it's quite incomprehensible. Also the nanny isn't terribly super, and the Nazi isn't a terribly convincing Nazi. Not even a moustache.

The only bit I understood was the step-father saying (of his son, the titular neo-Nazi): "Fur mich ist Danny ein kleines, dreckiges Arschloch", which means "To me, Danny is a small, horrible arsehole." What a guy.

It's less good than I thought.

My new computer has maliciously decided to remove all trace of the old one from my life. I had quite a nice backup of most of the useful files from my old laptop on my iPod (which, yes, had twice as much storage space as the computer, stop laughing now). And it's all gone.

I'm actually still numb, the pain hasn't really set in yet.

I have a new computer.

Following the ritual cleansing of the harddrive of AOL (and the microwaving of the CD) it seems to work.

And it connected to the internet first time.

I am a happy bunny.

Last year had its ups and downs; overall I finished much higher than I began though, and 2006 looks like it should be even better still. I, being a smug git, am starting it by heading off skiing. I hope karma doesn't smite me too heavily for this, as I sincerely intend to return with all my limbs still intact.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a really great New Year's Eve, and doesn't have too much of a hangover today. Have a great 2006!

Good news, everyone! My AFD coursework now works(*), because we had it set up wrong, and now we don't! Hooray!

(Yes, I'm easily pleased.)


In other news, I'm still happy and healthy, things are going well generally (with the course, with societies, and especially with my personal life) despite the fact that I appear to have drunkenly volunteered last week to become a sub-editor on Felix (the University paper, for you non-IC types).

Admittedly, one of the bathrooms in my flat *did* fall apart three weeks ago, and we're still waiting for the plumbers to say that it's dried out enough to be put back together (this really isn't much of an exaggeration); also we're still looking (as far as I know) for a third author for Picocon.




* We now have working constraints. We don't yet, for example, have an answer or anything. But I figure it's now only a matter of time.

We won!

Wooooo!

And since which I've had a bottle of wine, and what was left of a bottle of rum. Talking of which, it turns out the address to the Captain Morgan Spiced Rum website is the very concise www.rum.com. Anyway, my choices are now to move on to white rum (Bacardi), blue Curacao (yeah, sure), cheap Scotch (Grouse), Galliano (ugh!), or bizarre Tanzanian vodka-u-like. I don't know which is least bad.

Advice?

M. von Fragstein: co-author on a paper about crystal growth by day, 1337 gamer-d00d by night.


Also, for people's amusement and distraction, LiveJournal Connect, an LJ six-degrees thingummy.


Also, courtesy of Radio 2's random facts, apparently David Hasselhoff's great-uncle was Karl Hasslehoff, the inventor of inflatable sheep. Can't find ANY corroborating evidence anywhere on the net, but please, a fact this random NEEDS to be true!

Argh, why must time move so slowly?


Be 3 o' clock already!

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )

This is deeply strange: people seem to be disappearing from the office.

Left in my section are the Tech Support guy who looks like the character Mouse from The Matrix, the woman with the harelip, and the woman who mumbles. And me. Everyone else... vanished. They're not in any of the meeting rooms either.

Possibilities (with probabilities!):

1) Spontaneous office-wide coffee break. Not that unlikely.
2) The Rapture. Pretty damned unlikely.
3) Outbreak of contagious invisibility. See 'The Rapture'.
4) People have all decided that it's such a lovely day that they'll take the rest of it off. Unlikely-ish.
5) Other. Probably the one.


Entirely unrelated to anything: the song "Bewitched, bothered and bewildered", by Frank Sinatra, is wonderful, and I'd quite like it to play over the end credits of the film of my life.

Today on the bus in to work, I saw a man dressed in a green tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a grey shirt open to mid-chest with a large medallion, and purple corduroy trousers. This look was topped off with the strangest sunglasses I've ever seen. Shaped like John Lennon glasses, they were only about half-tinted, so they were just slightly grey rather than being real sunglasses. Oh, and this man was about sixty, so did NOT carry the look off well.

That said, I'm not sure what the 'look' he was trying to convey was. Maybe 'I get dressed in the dark'. Or 'my eyes have no colour receptors, which is why I need these strange polarised glasses'. Actually, that's pretty plausible - case closed.


( And now for questions, because it's traditional that I don't start work until I've been here at least half an hour. )

Oh my god.

Something Awful Fashion SWAT.

Can't breathe for laughing.

Best. Antidote to work. Ever.


Also, for the record, nothing bad did happen yesterday. I guess I was worrying about nothing.

Due to my own ineptitude, compounded by the fact that I didn't notice said ineptitude for all of yesterday, I've just had to go back and manually edit 166 records which were mislabelled. Whereas normally it'd be a simple job to do a Find/Replace on them, ReferenceManager (as has already been mentioned) hates me, and wouldn't let me do it for that field. So. That was a good way to spend my first hour at work.

Yesterday evening I went to go and see Stealth. I was expecting a cheesy movie where things would get blown up. A lot. And, well... Yeah. A lot. And cheesy romantic subplots, some utter drivel about prime numbers, neural networks, and computer screens covered in equations to convey to the general public "This is SCIENCE!" Oh, and crude ethnic stereotypes, too. The only really realistic thing in the whole film was the main character's pilot-sized ego. But fun. As long as you don't stop to think "So, he's accelerating at 30g then? But why isn't he dead?" or "So, now he's flying hypersonic without a g-suit? Fine whilst he's straight and level, but if he turns a corner, he's mush."

In other news, the test is going fairly well, and it's good to see decent scores from both Vaughan and Bell. Pity about Pietersen, but there's still the second innings to make up for it.

I choose to ignore the rampant madness going on in the world around me (Blair attempting to set up the Spanish Inquisition to hunt terrorists, Howard going off on one about activist judges in a worryingly american-sounding rant, Bush attempting to get intelligent design taught in schools) and focus instead on things that make me happy.

• England won the 2nd Ashes test (yes, I know, my last post said this too, but it bears repeating) and I think we have a good chance tomorrow in the 3rd.
• Today my sister bought me lunch (mmm, sushi) and also brought a food parcel from home for me. This includes a bottle of slightly worrying looking Tanzanian vodka (!) and a lot of cheese.
• Talking of which, my love for cheesy music is no secret, but I'd forgotten quite how much I like the Grease soundtrack. I've had to stop listening to it, because if I start singing along at work, people will look at me. But after work is another story. The same applies to OMWF.
• The shuttle made it in one piece, and although the program is clearly on its last legs, it appears that NASA are serious about replacing it with a next-generation craft, still working on the re-usable orbiter concept. Sure, we're using one-shot rockets in the mean time, but some day we'll have re-usable space ships again. And maybe they'll be designed by people I know. The time frame is about right...
• Work has some downsides, but this is made up for by the fact that free internet usage means I can spend my days listening to TMS and Radio 4 comedies, and chatting to people on MSN. To everyone who livens up my days - and you know who you are - thankyou.
• Free printing also helps.

Now, most people assume that I'm not terribly interested in watching sport, and on the whole they'd be right. But I make an exception for cricket. And this weekend has proved, over and over, why. The second test has been a fantastic, glorious game, with brilliant play by both sides, and upsets and excitement on every day.

And it's been bloody close. Stressfully, nailbitingly close at times.

And whilst I could talk at length about Flintoff's contribution, or the tactical value of Giles' spin, what really matters is that WE WON!

I think ReferenceManager (the program I'm using) hates me.

The other day, it would every now and then, for no terribly obvious reason, transliterate stuff into Cyrillic, which was very likely the proximate cause of my starting to hallucinate other things being in Greek. Today it decided that it didn't like hyphens. Trying to copy and paste snippets from a document file, all the hyphens got stripped out. But - get this - having done a "find and replace" and replaced the hyphens with identical hyphens, it works. *cries*

In other news, and in no particular order:

-Having had a hair cut means that washing my hair now takes all of about one minute.
-Today I saw a girl wearing the silliest trousers I've seen for a very long time. They were huge, baggy things, with straps and tassels and what-have-you hanging off to all sides, and the whole lot was in camouflage. It looked like she was wearing the bottom half of a ghillie suit.
-The overture to La Nozze de Figaro is a massively uplifting piece of music.
-From the same opera, the piece in which Cherubino is told he is being sent to join the army is a fantastic march tune to keep time to whilst walking.
-England seem to be off to a solid start against Australia. Keep the boundaries coming. Edit: 100 for no loss. Good stuff. And 132/1 at lunch, with Trescothick picking up 14 off Brett Lee's last over. Shame about Strauss, but we're in good shape.
-My supervisor is still off sick.
-But on the other hand, no cake today.


And to think I was worried about the cricket when I saw we'd lost two after I came back from lunch...


Flintoff and Pietersen are absolutely rocking!
Ah hell. There goes Flintoff. Straight after tea, too, the bloody fool.
And Giles too. Oh, we're screwed now.

I take back everything nasty I've ever said about this job.

They just gave me free cake and coffee.

Let it not be said that my loyalty is very easy to buy... but coffee, and coffee and walnut cake...

This is too cool to possibly be true, but nonetheless, I so badly want it to be:

Christopher Lee to sing at heavy metal festival

Octogenarian actor Christopher Lee is reportedly performing at a heavy metal festival in Germany.

The 82-year-old Lord of the Rings star is taking part in the Earthshaker Festival in Geiselwind, Bavaria.

He will sing with two bands, Manowar and Rhapsody, according to concert organisers.

Lee will be accompanied by a live orchestra and a choir and will perform alongside heavy metal bands such as Grave Digger, Dragonlord and Forces of Evil.

Taken from www.ananova.com


Edit: Damn, it was at the end of July! I missed it! *cries* No seeing Christopher Lee singing heavy metal for me then.

Dear Academics,

If I have to type the details of your life's work into a database, the least you could do is be consistent in how many of your initials you want to use, or how you spell your own freaking name. I know Shakespeare didn't. But this is a more enlightened time, with spellcheckers and everything. And you all have PhDs, which suggests you at least ought to be intelligent - even if you're not necessarily gifted with scads of common sense, you ought to be able to manage basic fact retention. And you're all old, which suggests you have some years of experience in writing your own name. And most of all, with the possible exception of the CivEng professor who also has written two dozen pieces of criticism on the Poema de mio Cid, you are not only not Shakespeare, you are not even close.

No love,

me

I think my brain is trying to tell me it's had enough for one week: everything I look at appears - for the first millisecond after I look at it, or the last before I look away - to be written in Greek.

Sleeping in may be the order of the day for the weekend. That, and all the housework I've been putting off all week. *le sigh*

OMG. There is actually a Professor Snape in the database. I can't find any records of anything he's worked on, so it's possible that somebody put it in as a joke, but still... in Imperial College's Staff Publications Database, there's a Professor freaking Snape!!

Well, the job is moderately, but not mind numbingly dull, and it's good to be out of the house a bit.

It is, as expected, database monkeying, but mitigated by the facts that:

a)It's a database full of academic papers and things, all of which have quite exciting titles and are (or at least were at the time of publication) on the cutting edge of their field.
b)It's an easy job, and I can work in a reasonably relaxed manner and still get told I'm working too hard. Me? Working hard? I'm sure you're getting me confused with someone else. (By 'reasonably relaxed', by the way, I mean that I'm spending half my time - at least - reading LJ and the RPG.net forums, and a fair bit of the rest just chatting. Not exactly flat out here.)
c)I've just come across a set of records by a Mr J. Cobb. To those of you who haven't watched Firefly, that'll mean nothing, but seeing that name attached to proposals for a small robot for knee-replacement surgery is both bizarre and cool.

Oh, and also: yay for the shuttle. It's up, and it seems to be working. Good for them.

As of Monday, I will have a job. This is a Good Thing. My job description will be Database Monkey, although I'll answer to Monkey.

As a result of having a job, I'll be able to afford to travel a little in September. This is also a Good Thing.

And, yes, this means that, as a result of being the Monkey, I'll be able to go (almost) anywhere.

Dear Livejournal,


This week, I have acheived rather little, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

( Books I've read, including copious spoilerage for Harry Potter )

( Jobs, rambling, other stuff. )

Finally, on a lighter note, this evening I received an email which has sent my ego soaring way out of control. If anyone sees it, I'd quite like it back, although if you could deflate it first, I'd be much obliged.

Oh no, not again.

Well, the good news is that ICSF won't have to hold an EGM to find a new chair.

The bad news is that you lot have to put up with me for another year.




I've passed Aero second year. And there was a great big sigh of relief.