*insert witty tagline here*
Oooh! i’ve been playing around with PHP some more and discovered the great image manipulation functions!
There’s a nifty little tutorial on the Now Playing Winamp plugin web site that shows you how you can dynamically create a ‘now playing’ image for your site… I modified it slightly to work with my mySQL database instead of a text file.
Here’s the resulting image:
Bleh… now back to attempting to study!
Woo! What a nice day!
First, many thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, presents, etc! 
After a nice long lie in I started off the day with a conversation with my parents (in China) Hanne (in Norway) using Skype (a great P2P VoIP application made by the same ppl as KaZaa!)…
For lunch I met up with Jim, Ben, Bob and Swannie and assaulted my arteries with an infamous Pig and Fiddle “Coronary Burger” (Two meat patties, two slices of bacon, two sausages, and a fried egg… a heart attack in a bun! mmmm!). We were then gonna go play mini golf in the park but it started raining so we went off and played with Ben’s Gamecube (Super MonkeyBall rules!)…
In the evening Sophie and Claire made me a crispie-cake using a box of rice-crispies and an entire bag of mini-Mars bars…. rahhhhh *Drool*. So my food intake for the day was substantially less than healthy… oh well. Appeh Buffdeh!
Finally, after opening cards and presents, I spent the remainder of the evening in the pub with Bob, Ben and Jim… so all in all it was a great birthday!
Once again, thank you to everyone
Tonight the housemates and I are off to Las Iguanas to celebrate Sophie’s, Tara’s and my birthday (coz we’re all May-borns)…. so photos and whatnot shall appear later/tomorrow!
Oh yeah… as for revision… bah… it’s going very, very slowly!!! T-minus 8 days until the Networking exam. I suppose I should start cracking down on HCI and Logic now, too :’(
Anyway… that’s all for now 
Woo! Here we go with GarethWestern.com, version 2. This version is based on WordPress.
I got bored of the whole D-I-Y idea for the same reason I used Gallery to power the photo gallery: it doesn’t make sense to spend all the effort in developing a complete solution when a good one already exists. And since WordPress is open source I can modify / add anything anyway (such as the Jukebox feature, in the main menu).
Woo! So… behold the well-formed XHTML (Transitional for now… i’ll ‘upgrade’ to strict at a later date), the artistic CSS, the dynamic PHP, and… uh… whatever else I add later on!
Rah!
How many members of the Bush Administration does it take to replace a lightbulb?
Seven
* one to deny that a lightbulb needs to be replaced,
* one to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about the lightbulb,
* one to blame the previous administration for the need of a new lightbulb,
* one to arrange the invasion of a country rumoured to have a secret stockpile of lightbulbs,
* one to get together with Vice President Cheney and figure out how to pay Halliburton Industries one million dollars for a lightbulb,
* one to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the lightbulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag,
* and finally one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a lightbulb and screwing the country.
Oh…
my…
god…
Ok so here’s the deal: I had an interview with this company called Atos Origin, right? Well it wasn’t actually an interview… just the first round of the graduate application process, involving a 1 hour test. The interview is the second stage. Anyway… so I was supposed to go to this test at their location in Bristol at 4pm. So I set off at about 2:50, thinking “yeah… no worries… an hour and a bit to get there. It’s only Bristol… no sweat… just catch a train, then a short taxi ride to the office!”
Big mistake…. rule #1 (that I really should know by now): a British train is the most unreliable form of transport in the universe, bar NONE! Thanks to some sort of hold up in South Wales, all the trains on the main line to London are screwed up, meaning there was no train that could get me to Bristol in time for the test. So my only alternative is to get a taxi… I go to the taxi rank, but noone knows how to get to the place I need to get to! Doh! Luckily there was an Internet cafe across the road so I run across to print off a map… the cafe’s printers are ALL broken (they broke just minutes before I actually needed them, of course). So I scribble down a rough drawing of the map and rush back to the taxi rank and off we go (time: 3:35pm)… after FINALLY getting out of Bath the rest of the journey was relatively straightforward, UNTIL….
We get to the business park which is the sprawling complex of buildings. So we drive around, following the numbers to try and find the right one, only to get all the way around the park without seeing what we’re looking for. So we do it again. No luck. So I rush into the nearest building and ask them where the hell the “Atos Origin” building is… they’d never even heard of the company, but the number i’m looking for is just down the way… so I ditch the taxi (£40 poorer!!) and leg it. After wandering in the general direction I see nowt but buildings which I assumed to just be warehouses… so after a few minutes of walking I stumble into another building to ask for directions. After explaining my predicament to the administrator (who had also never heard of Atos) she very kindly offered to look them up on the Internet to call them (for at no point thus far had I been given a phone number in case I needed to call them myself)… so while she was doing that she told me to make myself comfortable and have a look around… at this point I noticed I was actually in Aardman Animations (makers of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc)!! So I had a quick look around there, mostly just in the lobby, and the various W&G paraphernalia (including some model of the sheep in CRAZY asian-style packaging - lots of bright colours, crazy symbols, etc)… very cool!
It eventually turned out that I was right next to the building I needed to be in…. phew! And only 40 minutes late (remember the test was only an hour long :)… so after making my pathetic apologies and ranting about the trains for a few minutes, they let me take the test (which 10 other applicants were already stuck in to) and even being so kind as to give me a full hour… how kind. The test itself wasn’t so bad… I didn’t quite finish it, but I’m sure that isn’t uncommon coz it was about 90 questions, each of which required multiple-line answers. Anyway so I finally finish the test at about 5:40 (noticing that the rest of the office staff have since gone home). So now it’s time to head back. Oh yeah and the company also informs me that they are unable to refund my travel expenses at this stage of the application process, as there are still TWO more rounds (assuming I pass this test)!! GAAHHHHH!!!!!! Damnit!!! Well, time to head home!
Then I realise I have no idea how i’m getting back to the station (no way am I paying another £40 for a bloody taxi!)… so I get a few numbers for some Taxi companies in Bristol, only to find that they’re all completely booked for the next hour!! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Luckily I brought my oh-so-interesting Advanced Logic book with me, so I found a comfy place in the sun and started revising… joy.
Once the Taxi FINALLY showed up, the rest of the journey was pretty straightforward… caught a train from Bristol Parkway –> Temple Meads –> Bath, getting home at around 7:40pm. BAH! So this afternoon has been a bit poo, really.
Well, no point crying over spilt milk. I’m gonna make an effort to put a lighter spin on everything from now on! I’m sure that the whole kerfluffle this afternoon was just payback for something I did in a former life… consider my comeuppance paid!
Anyway… so that was my day. Oh yeah! Here’s a story Hanne wrote for the blog a few days ago, while celebrating Norway’s birthday. So heeereeeee’s Hanne:
—- BEGIN GHETTO_SKJETTEN —-
Gareth wanted me to add an entry to his blog so I thought today might be the only day I had anything fairly interesting to write since it is the Norwegian National Day.
By the way, I was very impressed by Gwen and Pete who remembered the day and sent me a card. Thank you:)
On the 17th of May 1814 Norway got it’s first constitution after being in union with both Denmark and Sweden (those bastards;)) So every 17th of May we dress up for a parade with our red, white and blue flags and sing the national anthem.
It’s been a lovely sunny day and I went to Lillestrøm town with my dad (my poor mum had to work).
My sister, Elin, graduate from High School this summer and therefore she takes part in the traditional ‘russe’ celebration. (see photos) For 19 days all the seniors dress up in red clothes and drive around in red vans, and get very drunk and do all sorts of pranks. (Norway is full of lovely traditions). By the way, the rich kids don’t have a van, but they have busses with sound systems for thousands of pounds (See Here)
Today was their last day of partying and they took part in a parade thorough Lillestrøm town. After drinking all night they looked a bit tired, but they managed to put on a show for us. I think my sister will sleep thorough the next couple of days…
Well, maybe this will be the last 17th of May I’ll celebrate in Norway for a couple of years. In August I’ll move to England to be with Gareth and I doubt I’ll get time off from work to go to Norway for the National Day. To be honest I’m really not that bothered…
I wish everyone a great summer and good luck on your exams if you have any. And I want to use this opportunity to say ‘gratulerer med dagen’ to all my friends who are studying abroad. I miss you all!
And Gareth, I miss you and love you lots. I can’t wait until you come to Norway in June. Furthermore, I’m really happy to have you back to normal… Hope I have been able to give you the support you needed and that you feel a bit more relaxed now. Elsker deg:)
Love, Hanne
—- END GHETTO_SKJETTEN —-
A few pics from the celebrations can be found here
Phew… wow… that’s a long entry. I need a nap now.
Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
It’s over!!! Thank god/jesus/allah/budda/zorko! At approximately 11:45am on Thursday the 13th of May, 2004, I handed in my dissertation, done and dusted.
The last few days have been insane with stress and things weren’t really going very well with the writeup because I kept finding loads of bits that needed additions/changing but there just wasn’t enough time. Over the last 96 hours I got about 6 hours slep (not good, I know, but even for that little time I did sleep I didn’t sleep very well because I kept thinking about what needed doing).
On the last night (Wednesday night) I was still reading through the document and making changes here, there and everywhere. Ben, having completed/handed in his dissertation the day before, noticed that I wasn’t getting the job done quickly enough and so, in an unfathomable act of friendship, came over at 3am on Thursday morning to help me proofread. We continued to do so until about 8:30am at which point it was declared ‘FINAL’ and I stumbled my way up to Uni to get it printed, bound and turned in (along with my essay on fuzzy logic, which I had finished a few weeks ago and then forgotten about until the last moment). *Queue the music: Blur - Song2* WOOOHOOO!
So yeah… I wasn’t really happy with the final thing. I feel I just had too many aspects to cover so I did a sort of spreadshot over as much as possible, yet ended up lacking lots… oh well. Hopefully at least I proved I put way more than the ‘recommended’ 300 hours into that ‘thing’.
So yesterday, after turning it in, I came home and slept soundly for a good six hours. Ben and I ventured into town for some BK then met up with a few other compscis to unwind. Everyone was, obviously, still quite knackered so it was just a quiet affair involving a few drinks before we all went out seperate ways. It was also my housemate, Sophie’s, birthday! Hopefully we’ll all go out and have a proper celebration sometime soon.
On Friday I FINALLY got a chance to play some football with some of my coursemates again. Great fun! Although 7 months of dissertationing has taken it’s toll on my health so the game was lacking in energy somewhat.
In the evening it was the first annual computer scientist awards ceremonies. Organised by Stevie, Alex and Laura, the evening turned out to be great fun and hopefully it’ll go on to become a long-standing tradition. My hat goes off to them!
Well, I did have a lot to say in this entry, but I’m tired of writing now so i’ll continue more tomorrow!
