Three things that I noticed today:

1. I’ve been wearing socks a whole lot more than usual.
2. Hibernating Windows XP Pro works a treat.
3. Columbo wasn’t on

I’ve spent the bulk of today doing my biographies project, which is now finished and printed. I’ve yet to mount the covers on A3 landscape grey card (as instructed in the brief), but that can be done tomorrow, as it’s not due in until Tuesday.

Homework-wise, all I’ve got left to do now is a pointless Adobe Photoshop exercise for software training tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind, but not only has this nonsense taken up my week, it’s taken over my weekend too. Plus, I usually spend Halloween night with my television set. Kind of a themed film night, if you will.

Like that’s going to happen now.

As it happens, I didn’t go out tonight either, as I’ve had a horrible headache on and off all day. I really wanted to see the lads too; I just knew that going out would’ve made things worse.

At home, I’ve been doing research for my biographies project. I doubt that anybody else even bothered doing research, but I wanted the titles of each book to have several levels of meaning to them whilst maintaining relevance at the same time. I’ve also had another play around with Adobe InDesign CS, though I didn’t actually start the covers as I’d planned to.

Talking of the project, I was sure the deadline was 5th November, but I’ve since been told (and read) that it is in fact 2nd November. It’s not a problem, as I was going to do it this weekend anyway. I’m just glad I found out in time.

The research and actual designing took up most of the day, so I rewarded myself by watching Bad Boys II with my ‘rents & big-little brother, which hasn’t long finished.

Woosah.

Today’s meeting with John L. wasn’t much better than yesterday’s. My suggestion to dig up the dead, burn their remains and build upward on the burial ground (as a short term solution for the population explosion) wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. But he was pleased to hear that we were at least thinking things through on a larger scale.

We all dossed about on computers for a couple of hours after the meeting. That Friday feeling then saw us going home half-way through the day. Woohoo!

I walked with Elliot S. & Jordan A. to roughly where I’d usually get my bus. I’d not had a proper conversation with Jordan before - the usual pleasantries, but mainly me laughing at things I’d overheard him saying or seen him doing.

In fact (and I didn’t like to mention it yesterday in case something *had* happened), David B. - the first person I ever spoke to at Racodac - was absent yesterday and didn’t let anyone know. He’s in Jordan’s group and Jordan left at least five voice messages back to back, addressing him each time as “David Brown“. Several of these messages were even sung. Then, to make up for his absence, Jordan placed hand drawn piccys of David and the other absent group member on chairs, and continued the group meeting by talking to the chairs as if they were the real people.

Returning to today: Journeying with the two dudes was greatly amusing with laughs all round. I even joined them on their trip to the War Memorial (a fair distance away from my normal bus stop) to get the most out of the comedy. A great end to the Racodac week indeed.

And now I just fancy a quiet night in, which is what I had originally planned on doing anyway. So I shan’t be going out tonight after all.

The imminent launch of ITV3 IS exciting me. Have you seen its branding yet though? Looks very much like BBC Three to me, right down to the logo.

Anyhow…

John L. wasn’t overly impressed with what my Storytelling group had conjured up for our current project. We were given the question: “Do we need old age?”, so were looking to answer it as a question. But it’s clear now that John wants us to look at it more as a problem that requires a solution.

Here’s the solution (from Red Dwarf) that I put forward:

Rimmer: Well, if you ask me, the Eskimos had the right idea. They knew how to handle the elderly and the permanently baffled. Middle of the night, they’d take them out into the blizzard, remove their pyjamas, and just leave them to it.
Kryten: And that’s how the Eskimos cared for their old people?
Rimmer: Absolutely. That’s why there’s no Eskimo word for “Eastbourne”.

I really do like the others in the group - we get on unbelievably well. Hats off to Danny P. today for continuously winding up Laura T. by stating false facts about anything & everything. Funny stuff. Perhaps it’s another of those you had to be there things, though.

Other notable events of the day include:

• Someone trying to hack my Gmail account. Like that was ever going to work.
• Conversing with Liz K. via mobile telephone technologies. Our planned evening in tomorrow has been postponed. So I may see Hob McD. et alia two days running instead.
• Tommy C. insisting that I pay £40 in monthly instalments to see him naked. Hmmm…

That’s it - The Bill’s on now.

Adobe InDesign CS is this: sweeet.

Teachers was entertaining last night, but not a patch on the previous series. In fact, it’s a completely different program now as they’ve KILLED OFF the three main characters and even moved schools.

Wednesday:

The same [undocumented] Russian Mafia bloke from a couple of journeys back got on the bus again this morning. And not only does he look like a Russian Mafioso, he also looks sort of like Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) from Red Dragon. Poor bloke.

As predicted, I wasn’t missed on my day off yesterday as nothing happened. Annoyingly though, everyone seems to have started & finished their biographies projects in the single day that I wasn’t in.

So I felt it best to make the most of my nothing-time in making a start. QuarkXPress, however, didn’t like this plan. So much so that I crashed four computers trying to do the same (relatively simple) task. I won’t include details of said task here, as it’d be garbled, confusing, and quite frankly duller than an in-flight magazine produced by Air Belgium.

Deciding it best to do the project in entirety at home, I did my usual rounds of the Internet, which saw me setting dates for Friday night and Saturday night with Liz K. and Hob McD. respectively.

At 2:00 PM, the Moving Image & Graphic Designers shuffled into the Lecture Hall for a lecture on allegory.

allegory
noun
a story, play, poem, picture or other work in which the characters and events represent particular qualities or ideas, related to morality, religion or politics

It was during this lecture that a trip to Greenwich next Wednesday was announced. Why we’re going, nobody knows. Well, the lecturer does of course, but us students haven’t a clue.

—
I’ve just downloaded the demo version of QuarkXPress to see that the error I was experiencing at Racodac is occurring here too. Great. So I’m now downloading the trial version of Adobe InDesign CS and am going to be doing my project at the weekend using that instead.

Fun.

Shock! Horror! - Laying in bed this morning, I was all set to go to Racodac despite still feeling horrible from yesterday. But summing up the pros and cons in my head swayed my decision to have the day off.

Pros:

• I can have a lie-in.
• When I get up, I won’t have to get dressed properly.
• I won’t have to get the bus.
• I won’t be missed, as they don’t register attendance.
• I won’t be missing any work.
• I can laze about, watching television all day.

Cons:

• ?

Not that I felt any better, but once I’d got up at 10:30 AM, I did consider going in. The idea was quickly dismissed though, as doing nothing then watching a film could be done at home. The only difference would be the choice of film.

So lain in a sleeping bag on the sofa, daytime television I watched. Followed by Return of the Jedi (in not-too-loud surround sound) this was, although I’m sure it wasn’t what everyone else was watching at Racodac; I managed to pick up the silver boxset cheaply, as my gold boxset edition of Return of the Jedi had dips in sound when I tried watching it in surround sound downstairs before.

Plus, the silver boxset looks better on my shelf.

And through being out of sorts and perhaps through not going to Racodac, I’ve felt disorientated all day. My sense of time has been really poor for starters - I nearly missed the new series of Teachers (which starts in about fifteen minutes), but luckily caught the tail end of its last “coming up” advert whilst channel hopping.

Bless the remote control, that’s what I say.

The journey on the bus this morning was almost enjoyable, as being half-term week, all the nasty little kiddies weren’t on board.

Although software induction was supposed to start two weeks ago, I’m having my first software training day today. So far we’ve been shown the basics of some obscure program called Adobe Photoshop. Apparently the advanced stuff will be dealt with later in the year.

The young lady who’s heading these tutorials is pleasant enough and knows what she’s talking about. I’ve no gripes with her - it’s only fair that everyone’s brought up to a similar level of understanding. After all, that’s not what the foundation course is for, is it?

It’s just that I’ve had the worst headache all day. I know that’s something easily said, but this headache really is the worst one that I’ve ever had. And I had the 400mg Ibuprofen tablet that I carry around in my wallet an hour ago, and it’s made no difference.

I was planning to stay for The AFS‘ screening of Halloween on the big screen at 6:00 PM, but I can see myself heading home early if my headache doesn’t clear. Just as well I have it on video, really.

Argh!

From 9:50 PM last night until 3:40 AM this morning, I celebrated the television set by sitting in bed and watching various airings and video feature presentations. I was amazed at how much good tele was actually on; I didn’t have to rely on video too much at all. A fine night, I can assure you.

When I got up at 11:50 AM this morning, I followed yesterday’s example in mooching about until Columbo was on at 1:40 PM. Not that Columbo was on yesterday, but I did mooch for quite a while.

Also, did you notice how it’s scheduled a whopping five minutes earlier than the usual broadcast time? Sneaky, eh? Columbo himself would’ve noticed such a small detail, therefore I’m on par with him.

After Columbo, I thought it best to look into my biographies project for Racodac. Most excellently, it’s not due as soon as I thought. So I’m going to have the whole weekend off of doing work. Yey me.

Who’s up for a game of Monopoly?

This is what I’ve done so far today: Nothing.

Well, technically I’ve grown older. But other than guzzling down some type of elixir, I can’t do anything about that, so I’m not going to include it as an event of the day.

Last night’s excursion was great and after posting my report on this here blog, I settled in bed to watch a video. Didn’t stay awake for long, mind.

This morning I had a bit of a lie-in then mooched about for a couple of hours once up. An idea did come to me though: to watch Attack of the Clones with my father - an idea that was later put to practice.

Bringing the tape back upstairs from the living room, I noticed that the water filter/pump in my aquarium wasn’t functioning properly. So I’ve not long finished an emergency clean of that.

And now I feel a film night coming on.