Sex Dolls

It's 2:30 am and I'm still awake, toying with the CS31220 assignment I have to hand in next week. Out of boredom I started googling for information on Syd Barrett, which turned up a page on rotten.com - which I can honestly say I've not looked at since I was 14. Seems the site has grown a lot since then and now features pages that don't include pictures of dead people. Fantastic. There is some classic stuff on there and I had a good laugh at some of the stuff they're offering their now maturing audience.

Eventually I stumbled across their information on Sex Dolls (no, it's not safe for work). Oh my god it's funny. Seriously, when you're in the privacy of your own home, get yourself a beer and read this page. When I got to the "Fat Angry Mom Doll" I nearly ruptured something I laughed so hard:

Beautifully written. There's actually some really good stuff on there if you have a look around. I don't endorse pictures of dead people, but there's some excellent satire on the site. Now, back to those UML diagrams I was enjoying so much.

ARGH!

Just marked out the date for the hand-in of my major project / dissertation ... the 18th and 19th of April. It's now on my wall-chart, and a long green line shows the days between now and then. Except it's not actually very long.

Oh god, everything has changed gear all of a sudden. I thought the first semester was going far too fast, but now the second semester seems to be going at double speed.

It gets better

This year just keeps getting better. Oops, I'm being deeply sarcastic and bitter again.

Bad Week, Bad Month, Bad Year...

Gah, bloody Endsleigh STILL haven't been in touch. I've just rang them and they say they've sent confirmation to me. I asked them about the new insurance document and they say they have no record of me requesting one, and that there is a £15 charge for it. Bastards. I decided that, seeing as I was already having to pay £15, I may as well get it sent next-day delivery. When I was with the AA they provided next-day delivery for about £3 or £4. But not Endsleigh. Oh no, they just don't do it at all. So I'm going to have to wait until Thursday to get the new insurance document and hope and pray I don't get fined for taxing my car late. Fuckwits.

I'm Still Alive

It's been a busy month. 3 exams and 4 assignments (two left still). Plus I went to Liz's on Monday with the intention of staying a few days, but ended up staying until Friday when Liz got ill. Then, as I had to be in Aber over the weekend but I didn't want to leave Liz on her own, I had to bring her to Aber with me. On Sunday she needed to go back to Newbury, so I drove her home. Then today I drove back.

And today was the last day I could legally drive too. The stupid arseholes at Endsleigh insurance still haven't sent me my insurance document through, so I can't tax my car. Incompetent bastards, I rang last week. I'm going to have to ring them tomorrow and give them one hell of a mouthful.

In other news I have what I like to call "Chinchillahairitis".

Exhaust[ed]

I took the car into the garage to get the exhaust sorted yesterday afternoon. I'd spent the morning ringing around garages in and near Newbury to get quotes which varied from an astonishing £76.90 down to a mere £30.88; needless to say I went for the £30.88 option. It was a bundle of laughs trying to find this place. They advertise as being in Thatcham, on the A339. I looked at my map book and the A339 doesn't go anywhere near Thatcham. Odd. I asked him where I was going and he gave me some directions.

However, as I don't drive around Newbury much I'm still not particularly familiar with the roads. When I got onto what I thought was the A339, the road signs all said A34. Hmmm. I drove for a while on this road thinking "it'll say the A339 any second, it has to", but it didn't. Eventually I gave up and drove back to the flat to get Liz's A-Z of Newbury. Had a look in there and I was right: It was the A339. Odd. I drove down it again. Sure enough all the way along it the road signs clearly state that the driver is on the A34, and that it will lead them to some B-road or other, but no mention of the A339. Until you get about 6 miles out of Newbury, that is, when suddenly there is a small roundabout which is signposted correctly.

Then when I found the garage, which is in Headley (nowhere near Thatcham) I missed the turning I needed. Then I couldn't find anywhere to turn, so I had to drive several miles out of Headley. Eventually I found a pub with a car-park that I could turn the car around in, then drove back.

The exhaust was fitted really quickly and it was a friendly service, although it cost me £35 in the end because they had to replace the big clip that holds the rear box onto the mid-section. That was fair enough though, when I was under there I could see it was rusted to death. I paid, the bloke in the garage explained that a 2 year warranty with them really is a 2 year warranty (er, glad to hear it!) and then I was off.

Strangely enough the car sounds a lot quieter with a silencer on it. No more scaring old ladies at the lights... No more pretending to be in an F1 racing car on the motorway... No more risking being pulled over by the police...

In other news

Google are trying to take over the world. They've just introduced a new service that allows you to search the titles, subtitles and programme information of a number of (probably American) TV Stations. Plus they've announced an interest in VoIP technology and want to create their own Skype-like service. BT are quaking in their boots over this apparently. Google are beginning to make me feel uncomfortable now, they're slowly taking over the whole world.

One Of Those Weeks

Yes it really is one of those weeks. 20 minutes into the journey to Newbury last night the silencer fell off the exhaust on the car. It was fine until some fool was over-taking coming towards me and I had to slam the brakes on. When I started accelerating again it sounded like I was driving a tractor and something was making a sort of chiming, clunking noise every time I went over a bump. Not good.

I pulled the car over and had a look underneath, and sure enough the silencer and the rest of the exhaust system were no longer one. Arse. I was now faced with a choice: Return to Aberystwyth, or carry on. I looked in the car and found some string, which I used to keep the silencer attached to the car, and then carried on. I then had to endure four hours of "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ... .... RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ... *clunk*clunk* ... RRRR ... RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ... RRRRRRRRRRR ... RRRRRR RRRRRRR RRRRRRR ... *clunk* RRRRRRRRRRRR". Every so often I'd change into fourth gear and it sounded like I was in an formula one racing car, which was cool, but then I'd need to change back to fifth and it sounded like a tractor again. Less cool.

By the time I reached Newbury my ears were bleeding and everything sounded like it was happening several miles away from me. It gave me a right headache. Now I'm going to have to ring some garages and get quotes for a new exhaust.

Road Tax

I'm having "one of those weeks". This morning I was all set for my exam, and I went online to check the venue details and seating plan for my module and found it wasn't in the morning as I though - it is in the afternoon. But then, because the 'net was down I couldn't get on MSN to confirm this. I was still not confident that it was in the afternoon, but then at 9:00 I saw people on that module heading towards the campus. FECK! In the end I went to the exams board in CompSci to check, and I just confirmed with someone else that the exam isn't until this afternoon.

So, as I now have the whole morning to myself, I decided I had better go sort my road tax out. So I trundled down to the Post Office and queued in a ridiculously long queue. When I got to the counter I explained that, while I own the car, I sort of forgot to send off the registration documents. She looked at them and said that because they were signed she could still process it. Splendid! "Can I have your insurance document?" She saked, and then it all went downhill. I couldn't find it. I keep all my car stuff in a folder cleverly marked "car stuff"; but it wasn't in there.

I've torn my room apart looking for it. I was talking to a friend on MSN about it, and I said "if it's not in the folder then where the hell else can it be?!" to which he replied "in another folder? or for some weird reason at your parents house"

And then the truth struck me. "SHIIIIIIIIIT"

My parents, who are currently paying for my insurance, did not believe me when I told them that my insurance is already as cheap as you can get for someone of my "level of experience" of driving and age, and they insisted I send them my insurance details so they could ring around and look for some cheaper insurance. I sent them the whole lot. Including my insurance document. And, sure enough I was right, they couldn't get a cheaper quote. (I did spend 2 and a half months ringing around, after-all)

So now I need to email my Dad, and ask him to get my insurance certificate from my Mum. Who is almost guaranteed to deny any knowledge of it, as it will be buried under masses of crap. I need it before the end of the month or it's an automatic fine.

God I hate being a student. If I had a job none of this shit would be necessary.

Hacking Revisited

Heheh, my email was replied to. It turns out the person in question is a member of the West Wales LUG. I thought I recognised his name, I've seen some of his emails to the WWLUG mailing list. We had a fairly long conversation over MSN and he seems alright. He claims he was scanning for vulnerable machines, and adding them to his firewall to avoid the possibility of infection from spyware/adware/worms etc. I'm not sure I agree with his activist approach to protecting his machines, but otherwise he seems alright.

Actually it was slightly humerous in that we were clearly both researching the other while talking, and introducing facts that we had gleaned about each other into the conversation. Although he looked a little silly when he asked me how my year out with NTL had been. Somebody (I've yet to figure out WHO, exactly) clearly gave him the wrong info.

At some point I really must go to one of the WWLUG meetings. I've been meaning to since the start of term, but cash and time commitments keep getting in the way. Plus it's in town, which means braving the hill. And it's in Scholars and I hate that place since it was taken over. The new landlords have fucked the place over completely.

In other news, I'm going to fail SE330. Hurrah.

Meatloaf, Bat Out Of Hell II - Back Into Hell

A song just began on my playlist: Bonnie Tyler - I'm Holding Out For A Hero. It rang bells. Not the song itself, I know the song. Everyone knows the song. The underlying piano riff and drum sequence were screaming at me. Then it hit me like a tonne of pins being dropped from a great height: Meatloaf made a song which has exactly that piano riff and drum sequence in it.

Good Girl's Go To Heaven (But The Bad Girls Go Everywhere) on the album Bat Out Of Hell II, Back Into Hell and Bonnie Tyler's "I'm Holding Out For A Hero" feature the same piano and drum... could this be a coincidence? A quick google search revealed that Jim Steinman wrote I'm Holding Out For A Hero, and anyone who knows anything about Meatloaf will know that Jim Steinman wrote Bat Out Of Hell, and Bat Out Of Hell II. AHA!

So, it seems Steinman reused parts of the two songs. I don't know which came first so I can't tell you which borrows from the other. I'm not sure whether he was cutting corners or whether he did this as some sort of trademark thing, or whether it was supposed to be slightly ironic, or what...

Anyway I had to put this down in words as it has been bugging me. Just some random trivia for you to remember and spout at people when you're in the pub and one of those two songs plays on the jukebox, then everyone will look at you with admiration and adoration for having such a remarkable general knowledge of all things musical.