Freshers Fair

My first day off from lectures and it's so nice to have Wednesdays to myself again. Last year, Wednesday afternoons meant Spanish lessons and whilst everyone else was enjoying their time off, I was stuck in the Arts Tower overlooking Sheffield from the eighth floor and not being able to enjoy the magnificent view. I was woken up by a phone call from my friend who was in the queue for the freshers fair, trying to find out where I was - expecting me to be around the university somewhere. I have gained a reputation, along with him, for liking freebies and bargains but I had completely forgotten that today was the day of the fair. He had been queuing since 10am when it opened and was still queuing at 11am when he phoned. After that I decided that it was probably time to get up and that I would go down after breakfast and hope that the queue had died down a bit.

Soooo Tired

Today got off to a pretty rubbish start, after going out last night and forcing myself to not drink anything remotely stimulating - something quite difficult when my beverage of choice is usually Coca Cola. Yes I know I'll rot my teeth, but it tastes pretty damn good and as I don't drink tea or coffee, I need some form of caffeine to keep me going late into the night. Well that bit wasn't so much of a problem, I managed to stay awake fine, despite only having about four hours sleep the night before. On mentioning my terrible nights sleep, it would seem that the whole household was affected by some sort of localised insomnia outbreak that night as well with all of my co-habitants reporting a sleepless night. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, so after managing to avoid stimulating drinks all night, a quick stop at the local takeaway forced me to buy a chicken burger on the way home. It didn't even taste that brilliant and I wasn't even that hungry!

Day 1

And so it begins. Today marks the first day of university and I still can't believe that I'm actually in my third year already! I'm also counting my blessings that I decided on a four year course because at the moment, especially with the economic climate as it is, the prospect of going out into the real world and having to find a job frankly frightens the life out of me. So far the only way I've found to deal with it is... well not to really, I just try not to think about it because it doesn't accomplish anything more than scaring me.

Now on a lighter note, despite having three hour lectures in a row, the last of the trio was probably the best lecture I have had in my two years. I know it was only an introductory lecture so it is probably downhill from here but from what I have experienced so far, this year might not be so bad after all. I sort of knew what to expect from the first two lectures and they could have easily fitted into the first or second years courses but the third lecture was different. It is a fourth year module and fourth years outweighed third years significantly which was a shock at first. I thought I'd got the wrong lecture theatre because I didn't see any familiar faces but I was in the right place. After about ten minutes of the lecture however, I felt much better and the lecturer really seemed to know what he was doing. Unlike any other lecturers he also records the whole thing onto mp3 and uploads it to the course web page. It was almost as if he was trying to encourage us all not to come to the actual lectures and just pretend we are there at home - obviously that's not the case but I wish more people followed his lead. It's often very difficult to concentrate and even stay awake sometimes in lectures and being able to go through the whole thing again at home and make sure that you didn't miss anything is a fantastic idea.

This evening, we had an impromptu visit to Bar One, the bar in our student union. What was supposed to be a quick visit turned into a really good evening and despite wasting somewhere in the region of about £20 between us on the itbox style machines.

Seeing as I forgot yesterday, it's single of the week time again and this week it's Deadmau5 featuring Rob Swire (the frontman from Pendulum). I have been waiting for this track to come out for ages, and all I've been able to find are the previous versions without the vocals. I've no idea why I like it so much, possibly because I like pendulum and Rob's vocals give it a lovely haunting overtone. It's out as of today and as seems to be the norm for singles at the moment, the b-sides consist of several remixes and includes the original instrumental only version too.

NME Radar Tour

Today was the day of the NME Radar tour at the University's Student Union. I hadn't really heard of three of the bands playing but I really like Marina and the Diamonds so I was going to see them primarily. I think that they have great potential to be a huge success in the not too distant future and with the backing of NME, that is almost the equivalent of getting investment from a Dragon's Den dragon in the business world and you are likely to shoot to fame very quickly. She also revealed during the gig that her first single is coming out in about a months time (just found out it's November 2nd) and it will be Mowgli's Road which is one of my favourites. She was definitely the best performer of the night and kept the crowd entertained between songs and during the inevitable technical difficulties when the keyboard refused to make a noise. Also the crowd really seemed to enjoy her cover of Late of the Piers' Space & the Woods and it was nice to see her covering someone else's songs as well as just her own stuff.

I actually quite enjoyed the set from Yes Giantess and they sounded quite a bit like Passion Pit, a similar style using synths and all of the tunes they performed were really easy to get into even if you hadn't heard them before. The only shame was that they started about 5 minutes after the doors opened, hardly giving us enough time to get drinks before the performance. It was a good start to the evening though and the simple but clever drum beats just made you want to start tapping and bouncing along to the songs.

Next up was Local Natives, another band from across the pond and whilst they had a couple of nice songs it seemed very samey and not especially unique. Golden Silvers were the last on the bill and were the ones headlining the event. By the reaction of the crowd, it would appear that these were the band they had most come to see. Seeing as that was the case, I was slightly disappointed. Most of the songs seemed to be very unpolished and tuneless, more akin to a group of people just banging on their instruments. There were a couple of songs towards the end which I recognised and the final song was by far their best and actually quite catchy - Arrows of Eros.

On a more technical note, the lighting for the event was superb. I'm not sure whether this was university property or belonged to the tour but it gave off very little heat whilst providing light equally as bright as it's hotter counterparts. The main problem at events like this, especially ones in such small venues is that heat can build up from the lights really quickly and make the whole event rather unpleasant and sticky.

The evening ended with the latest episode of Waking the Dead and *spoiler alert* it would seem that they could be writing Sue Johnston (Grace Foley) out of the series after it is revealed that she has cancer. I really like her character in the series and it would be quite weird without her in it, I'm still trying to get used to the departure of Stella at the beginning of the series but am just about getting used to her replacement Katrina.

Spoke Too Soon

Just yesterday I was saying how nice it would be to go without Sky for a whole year and that my housemates probably wouldn't be organised enough to get it set up. Well they certainly proved me wrong, as yesterday they did exactly that. I now have just four days to enjoy the TV with something other than football constantly stuck on its screen. I'm pretty sure that they don't read this blog but it does seem rather coincidently timed. If they do then "Hello, hope you enjoy it" but I have no idea how they would have found out about it short of Googling, the only people I have told are 3 friends from Birmingham for the specific reason that I am likely to say something unpleasant about most people at some point on there and I trust those people not to take great offence to it.

The only real event of today was a horribly unsuccessful shopping trip. The first mistake was probably taking so many people but at least if I did that then it might make the whole trip a bit quicker - or so I thought. I spent the first 20 minutes trying to keep up with the trolley that was speeding off wherever its controller felt rather than waiting for me to try and remember what was on the shopping list that we had left at home. When I eventually got hold of the trolley, I was the only one putting in the stuff we actually needed. Everyone else was running around finding stuff for themselves. When we checked against the list on arrival back to the house, it would seem that we had forgotten quite a few things and we will probably end up going back again next week to get them.

The End Of The Week

Just when I thought it couldn't get much worse, the night I had been looking most forward to didn't happen. It hadn't even sold out but everyone had decided that they couldn't be arsed any more and so we stayed in. I suppose the disappointment from the previous few nights would have got to them by now but union nights are different. I have never queued to get in, the drinks are all sold at very reasonable prices and its close enough to home for us not to need expensive taxis there and back. Tonight was even going to be a night where (I was hoping) I would enjoy all of the music which is the make or break part of the night for me.

So as I'm sure you can imagine, I was a little bit cheesed off with everyone and decided to hide in my room and sulk for the rest of the night, catching up with the every increasing missed TV from the week. Thankfully there were enough comedy gems to cheer me up slightly and after a couple of episodes of the Hairy Bikers and The Big Food Fight, I was feeling much better. I know I'm an easy person to please but sometimes it's the little things in life that bring happiness to us all.

Slept like a log this time and even found out (when I eventually crawled out of bed) that the aerial had been installed and that the banging that I thought I dreamt was actually the man on the roof hammering the cable in place. So we now had TV which meant that I could watch Derren Brown this evening and Peep Show afterwards.

Despite being overjoyed that I can now watch TV, it seems to somehow have got stuck on Sky Sports News, brining back bad memories of the last year. The other four housemates want to get Sky but thankfully no one has been bothered to do anything about it yet. It's not just the cost that puts me off but I could manage quite happily with BBC channels and Channel 4. I rarely watch ITV and the only reason I watch channel 5 is for The Gadget Show. Other than that I don't even watch other freeview channels and I know that if we do end up getting Sky then the TV - my TV - downstairs will end up showing the football constantly. It's bad enough them talking about it all the time without having to actually watch it, my only hope is that they will all be too disorganised to get it sorted.

Disappointing... Again

This week seems to be developing a recurring theme, disappointment. I don't know why I was expecting so much from this freshers week, as if it would be different to that of the past two years, but I'd got my hopes up and they are now slowly being crushed. I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for this blog allowing me a vessel on which to let out all of my pent up rage I would probably attempt to injure someone - which wouldn't be good.

The reason for the latest spate of disappointment comes from last night and as with most of these disappointing events, it was in the evening. We all were ready and dressed in our school uniform, looking mildly forward to a night out in one of Sheffield's dirtiest nightclubs where the vodka resembles watered down white spirit and you fear that you may contract some sort of disease by touching the walls.

We knew it was going to be busy but nothing could have prepared us for the queue that we met outside. Never in my life have I seen anything that comes close to that sort of sized queue for a nightclub. It had more in common with the sort of queues that you see at Wembley Stadium when a huge band are playing. We had even decided to go early to avoid this sort of thing but obviously the rest of Sheffield had the same idea. After an hour and a half of queueing, we gave up and it almost felt kinda good to have been released from the grasp of the building and escape. I felt free and full of energy, watching as the other students continued to wait in a fruitless quest. Rumours of a one in one out system were making their way down the line and it felt satisfying knowing that they were unlikely to ever get in.

We moved on to another bar and despite looking slightly silly being one of only a few people dressed in white shirt and school tie, managed to whittle away the hours until we were bored and the bar was shutting up. It was nice to see a few more school uniformers come in shortly after us - either having been turned away or given up like we had.

All of this and the day hadn't even started yet! The highlight of the night was the chicken and chips on the way home. Proper chicken which I was amazed to find a decent amount of meat on and some garlic and mint yoghurt on the top as they did not have any garlic mayonnaise - my topping of choice. I was surprised at how nice it was and I may decide to return to that takeaway in the near future.

After a fairly decent nights sleep (finally) the only thing planned for the day was my tutor meeting to discuss my dissertation project for the coming year. I even managed to get into the building this time after having my swipe card registered with security. Last time I had to sneak in behind the postman only to find that the meeting had been cancelled. This time it went ahead and I now feel much more confident about the task in hand. My project is about creating teaching aids for the more difficult concepts in computer science; specifically looping and arrays. I'm really looking forward to it now and even though it will mean investing a lot of time and effort, I'm hoping it will be enjoyable.

Disappointing

What was supposed to be the best night out of the week turned into... well the opposite really. The highlight of the night was stopping off at McDonalds before we reached the O2 academy and scoffing a couple of double cheeseburgers. Several of my friends didn't make it out, still plagued by the effects of the previous nights beverages. That sort of defeated the point of the bar crawl before hand, if no one is wanting to drink too much then it's pretty pointless just walking round a load of bars.

The other disappointment of the night was the headphones. The basic premise of a headphone disco for those of you who aren't familiar with the concept is that you each receive a pair of wireless headphones with a switch that lets you chose between two different wireless channels. There are two DJs - one on each channel - and they compete for your attention, each playing different genres of music so that everyone's taste is met and everyone is happy. The other thing is that as the music is coming from the headphones, there is nothing audible without them and so if you take the headphones off, all you can hear is the rest of the crowd singing along (often not in tune) to the song or songs that are playing, which can also be quite amusing.

Anyway, for most of the bars, there was only one channel playing and therefore no choice of music which was a shame but bearable I suppose, logistically it would have been fairly difficult to put two lots of transmitters and two DJs in each of the four pre-bars. Then we reached Varsity. Someone obviously hadn't told them that it was a silent disco as they had the loudest music blearing out and someone had tuned the acoustics in such a way as to make it almost painful to listen to. It was kind of sharp sounding and the music that he was playing wasn't brilliant either. From what I managed to hear through the headphones, they were broadcasting outside (where they could smoke) but the signal was appalling and if you moved your head even slightly, it was lost. It did create some rather amusing remixes however, mostly pop tunes in a drum 'n' bass style due to the mixed signals. We were all hoping for everything to improve when we reached the O2 and were expecting great things from the 3D side of it as well. Turns out the 3D bit was just some graphical visualisations that you would expect to find on Windows Media Player but in 3D and wearing the glasses meant that you couldn't really see where you were going in the darkened room. We managed to stay for about an hour before giving up through sheer boredom, lets hope tonight brings better things.

On a lighter note, all the paperwork regarding module swaps has now been sorted and we finally received the new vacuum cleaner - a blue Henry vacuum which we are hoping will be a lot better than the previous upright Panasonic one. They are well known for being hard wearing types and any domestic appliance with a smiley face on the front will want to make you use it more often.

Another Busy Day

You'd have thought that in this information age, they'd have found a more efficient way of sorting out this whole module swapping lark. It almost seems as though they have made a deliberate effort to make the whole process as confusing and time consuming as possible - possibly to deter students from using it as a quick get out clause or perhaps to encourage them to take the time over their initial choice.

The day started with another trip into town to collect my signed form, only to find that they couldn't sign the whole form off without the signature from the other department. Thankfully it would appear that the computer science department are just a particularly awkward department to deal with and the philosophy department (whose module I am dropping) are much more organised and were able to sign the form there and then. Off back to the CS department to drop my form off overnight again. Perhaps whoever signs the form only works nights? Either way that means another trek into town tomorrow to hopefully finish off this saga.

One thing I've noticed since being back at university is that there seem to be far fewer hours in the day. It's probably just because I'm doing more but I'm finding it more and more difficult to fit everything that I've been doing in the holidays into university life. I know that freshers week is an anomaly and that most weeks I won't be going out every day and perhaps it will settle down when the term starts. My iPlayer library currently has about three hours of programmes to catch up on, some from the weekend which I probably won't get round to watching until Friday which is the next day in the calendar that I don't have anything planned for yet. It doesn't help that during the holidays I had to actively go looking for things to occupy the time and now I can't fit them all in! Most of this time filling seemed to revolve around cookery programmes but I started to quite enjoy them. I even found the hidden gem of Just a Minute and have been listening to it religiously since then (and enjoying every last minute of it - pardon the pun).

On a more important note, today marks the return of Heroes! I will promise upfront not to post any spoilers without sufficient warning or text disguise just in case you were worried. What annoys me on this front is that America always get it way in advance of the UK and at the moment I have no idea when the BBC are planning to showing it again. Rumours are that they will start in October and prevent us having the season break that they have in America. I will be watching it as soon as I get the time, which I will probably make tomorrow afternoon/early evening. I'd really like to try out the new DVD player that plays MPEGs but I HATE being interrupted when I'm watching that kind of thing and the likelihood of having the lounge to myself for an hour and a half is practically non-existent.

On a final note, I didn't sleep a wink last night. I was hoping that the duvet would sort out all of my problems and to begin with I was amazed. It is wonderfully soft and very comfortable but I just couldn't nod off. I'm hoping it was just a one off and that I'd had too much caffeine so my fingers are crossed for tomorrow night.

Tonight's event is a 3D Headphones Disco bar crawl and as headphones discos are my absolute favourite nights out in Sheffield, I have high hopes that this will be the event of the week.

And Then There Were Five

We are now all officially here! The house is full now that the final two have arrived and finally we can get everything sorted. Today has been a particularly busy day what with chasing bits of paper and trying to make sure that everything is sorted. As expected, we still have a broken vacuum cleaner, no one has phoned re my deposit cheque and the letting agency is being generally awkward about doing anything.

One of my housemates went down this morning to collect his key only to find that there was no one there to give it to him (other than a receptionist who "didn't have the authority" to sign out keys). This means that he now has to go back later on this afternoon to collect it so that he doesn't have to rely on someone being in the house in order to get in - which seems like a fairly reasonable request in my opinion. I phoned them this morning re my deposit cheque and was told that he would have to check with his colleague before he could let me have it, this being the colleague that I spoke to on Friday by the way. As usual, he said he would ring me back when I could collect it and as usual, I heard nothing however, luckily they gave it to my house mate when he went back to collect his key so at least I have it now. They also promised to personally pick up the vacuum cleaner if it hadn't been picked up by the end of tomorrow.

A reminder for the gas bill arrived on the doorstep this morning, much to my surprise because as far as I was aware, we had set up a direct debit to cover the gas and electric and money had been taken from my account in respect of this. I had arranged this over the phone on the day that I first set foot in the house - having learned from last year when we were fined for late payment (owing to the fact that no one was living in the property at the time). After checking online, it turns out that the direct debit only covers electricity and that gas had been given a separate account. I subsequently set up the direct debit and was horrified to find out that they are going to charge us £90 a month! Hastily, I phoned the company in question and asked them to review it but of course as I had set it up only minutes before hand, it hadn't 'filtered' down onto their systems yet and I now have to wait a week before phoning back.

The next thing on the agenda for the day was an eye test. Another shock followed shortly after my arrival at the opticians at being charged nearly £20 for the test - something I expected to be included in my contact lens care package. Then as my prescription had changed, I was stung for another £70 for new lenses. That's without a new frame - just changing the lenses in the existing one. I was horrified, especially as up until now I have been young enough to have and NHS voucher to cover the cost of my everything. Now I know how the rest of you feel!

Whilst I was in town, I had decided to buy a new duvet. The mattress in this new house is the most uncomfortable mattress I have ever had the displeasure of sleeping on. I woke up the other morning with spring marks in my back and decided that something had to be done. After looking online for mattress toppers, I quickly decided that they are ridiculously expensive and decided that a thick duvet would probably do just as good a job. I will let you know the outcome tomorrow.

The rest of the jobs that were on my to-do list have failed to be crossed off. I'm not allowed to collect my Spanish results from last semester until next week because they are "too busy" despite sitting around drinking tea when I saw them. I have also had to leave my module add/drop form with my department over night to be signed so I will then have to take that to the other department tomorrow when I collect my glasses.

We decided to sell the tickets that we'd bought for the Union event tonight as it has sold out and the new arrivals are unable to get tickets. Instead we are going to Leadmill in town which is cheap and cheerful and therefore a good time should be had by all.

No-one could be bothered to cook tonight and we have decided to treat ourselves to a Chinese. The local one is shut on Mondays so we made our way into Crookes and came across Little China. I decided on a red Thai pork curry (I know its not Chinese but it sounded nice!) and as an added bonus, the woman in front gave us her prawn crackers as she "doesn't eat them".

A New Arrival

And then there were three. After a late night yesterday, we were hoping that the next house mate to arrive wouldn't get here too soon and thankfully he was considerate enough to arrive at 5pm allowing us the time for a nice lie-in.

Other than that, it was a fairly uneventful day, a chance for everyone to give the liver a rest before freshers week gets off to a proper start on Monday and time to just sit back and chill.

I did get one thing done today and that was the arduous task of picking two new modules to study after finding out last week that my free-choice module clashed with my departmental modules. I knew it was going to be too good to be true but had forgotten how difficult it is picking them. The first couple of years were easy because most of the modules were compulsory but now there are no compulsory modules and we have to make the decision as to what to study. Normally this isn't a problem, you just pick the subjects that you are most interested in except the way I try and choose is as follows: which modules require the least amount of maths, and which modules have no essay type coursework. This leaves me with a rather large problem, owing to the fact that pretty much every module involves some sort of maths and the ones with the least maths have essay style coursework.

In the end I resigned myself to the fact that whilst I hate any sort of maths, I'm not actually that bad at it and I'm significantly worse at writing essays (as proven by my previous results and GCSE English results). Now that I've chosen my new modules I have to fill in a form and get several people to sign it to confirm my choice change, which is another pain in the backside. I wouldn't mind so much just having to get my home department to sign it, confirming that they have room on the new module to fit me in but I really cannot see the point in getting the other department to sign it - effectively confirming that I can leave.

Single of the week time again, and this week it is the turn of what is probably my favourite band of all times, Muse! with Undisclosed Desires This hadn't been released as a single yet although I have heard rumours that it is due to be the next single from the album and it is already available to listen to and download therefore making it eligible for this feature.

This has quickly become my favourite song from the album and I particularly like the inclusion of the slap bass and background strings. It is quite different from their usual style and many have said it has an urban element.

The Start

Apologies in advance if these postings are a bit of a mess this week, it is the start of freshers week as of 23:00 today and apart from tomorrow and Friday (at the moment) every night has an event attached to it. This means that I will be blogging the day after and as such may not be able to recall all of the exciting events that happen.

Today is also the return of one of my favourite BBC dramas, Merlin. Not quite sure why I like it so much really - maybe because I have always been fascinated by magic and the like. At least I will have something to watch on a Saturday night, assuming we ever get an aerial that is otherwise I'll have to wait a whole 10 minutes after it has finished being broadcast to watch it on the iPlayer!

Now onto the main event of the day, Pop Tarts. This is Sheffield's longest running nightclub / union event (apparently) and is themed around music of the past and tonight was a 90's special. It would appear however, that someone forgot to tell the DJ what year the music he was playing was released in. Every other song he would get on the microphone and announce that it was a 90's themed night and then proceed to play a tune from the early noughties. There were a few nineties classics thrown in there and the occasional eighties song too but this new DJ doesn't seem to be as good as the previous resident.

Not long to go now!

Less than 24 hours left before the official start of freshers week and I'm starting to get very excited. I don't get the chance to go to clubs etc when I'm in Brum, partly because my home town friends aren't really into that sort of thing and partly becuse they seem to be in a constant state if debt. It will also be nice to go out with uni friends as well as I always seem to have fun with them - providing nothing bad happens and the music is bearable.

Despite the promises from the letting agency, no-one came to pick up the vacuum cleaner and when I went to the office to collect my deposit cheque (something that I should have done about three months ago) they couldn't find it and told me that they would give me a ring later to let me know when I can come and collect it. Guess what... no one rang. I'm still optimistic that they have booked us in for an aerial but perhaps that is just getting my hopes up. I had to go round to my friends house to watch Derren Brown as only the BBC are ITV are good enough to stream their channels online and Channel 4 haven't quite caught up yet.

It was a bit of a struggle getting there in the first place, because it is a new road, it wasn't on the satnav and to add to the difficulty, the Sheffield football derby was being held that night at Bramall Lane, right next to where she lives. After dodging several police cars and ambulances, I finally found it and then had to spend the next 20 minutes or so helping her find her keys. Thankfully they turned up just as Derren was starting but the noise from the next room meant that I didn't really end up watching most of it. We tried to participate with the experiment but we were sitting on a bed and were distracted by the noise so I'm not sure they were ideal surroundings for it. I was expecting to go home shortly afterwards but ended up having a tour of the house and then sitting in the lounge with her housemates and one of their mums talking until the early hours. It's just as well my car isn't still on daylight insurance!

I seem to be on some sort of spending spree lately, I went to the shops three times today and keep buying things from the net. I really must find another way to waste my time rather than online shopping otherwise it could end up getting quite expensive. I should probably set myself some sort of weekly budget but I'd probably just think "oh well this is just a one off", or "I can make an exception for this" so that sort of defeats the object of the whole exercise.

An Unexpected Visit

I was only planning to pop into town today to grab tickets for the various freshers events, but as luck had it, the postman arrived before we were ready to go. Why is this significant you may be asking. Well, with it he delivered a very important letter from the National Blood Service detailing that I was now able to give a donation again - slightly early because of their dwindling blood stocks. Today seemed like the perfect day and would give me time to recover before the freshers fun begins on Saturday night.

I do find it amazing the number of excuses people find for not giving blood and I am of the opinion that anyone who is physically able to donate should be made to do so short of severe phobias or psychological issues etc. I wasn't able to give for the first couple of years after I turned 17 because I'd had several vaccinations to go to Brazil with the school and that requires 6 months grace period and then my parents took me to Phuket which is considered to be an area at risk from Malaria and thus required another 6 months. Once I had finally got over all of these hurdles, I was in Sheffield and promptly visited the central donor centre and have been going religiously every 4 months since then.

I don't really enjoy it, in fact the process is frankly horrible and my body really doesn't like bleeding apparently. The first five minutes, the nurses spend fiddling about with the needle trying to find the optimum position to get the blood out. The whole thing has to be done within a small time span - something around about fifteen minutes I think otherwise it cannot be used. I spend the rest of the time shivering and squeezing a ball of kitchen roll to help the blood run faster. Eventually the torment is over and I can have a nice hot drink and some biscuits before deciding that I'm now too weak to walk up the steep hill back home and that I am allowed to catch the bus.

I tried to convince my housemates to come with me last year and the excuses were:
"I need my blood"
"I'm scared of needles"
"I don't want to"
The last one of that list is frankly pathetic and the first one simply isn't true but a year later and I still haven't convinced them. I did manage to convince one co-habitant however and I've persuaded him to go twice now and he doesn't seem to mind it at all.

Had a brilliant reply to my second email to the letting agents and after sending it to everyone I have email addresses for in the company, I received a reply. A new vacuum cleaner is supposed to be arriving tomorrow - the current one apparently makes an horrendous noise and spits sparks everywhere (not good!). Also we have been booked in to get an aerial fitted so we can finally watch telly! It might not be until next week but at least they have agreed to fit one.

The eBay daily deals caught my eye again this morning and I am soon to be the proud owner of a DVD player with USB port and support for most movie types and the best bit, it was all of £20! I'm well chuffed because I have so far failed to connect my laptop to the TV and have been wanting to watch movies on the big screen for ages. I'm hoping it will arrive in the next couple of days then even if we have no aerial, the TV will be put to some use.

Sheffield

I've arrived! Haven't quite finished unpacking yet - still got both suitcases to do - but I've done four out of the five boxes which isn't too bad. Very tired now though and it doesn't help being on the top floor of the house either. I've already managed to hit my head three times on the ceiling coming up the stairs and if it carries on like this then I'm going to have to install some form of cushioning system before I lose all of my braincells.

Managed to get the internet working, no thanks to O2, the problem turned out to be a dodgy filter that seems to only allow telephone calls and not DSL which is most peculiar as my initial thought to test the line and the filter was to plug a telephone in - which I did and it worked! I decided to try a different filter as a last resort before calling them and thankfully it worked. My housemate is now very happy that he doesn't have to walk all the way down to the library to get his daily fix now although still no sign of the TV working.

I've been really enjoying driving up the A38 to Sheffield and I always seem to make much better time going that way than all the way on the M1 and after today, I'm not surprised. The A38 was bliss until I had to join the M1 when it was bombarded with lorries in all lanes! I think the government should introduce a rule banning lorries from the outside lane - it isn't fair on everyone else, especially when they are trying to overtake each other when one is going at 59mph and the other 60mph, it takes forever and you know that they are only going to go and do it again another mile down the road.

Finished compiling a provisional list of evening entertainment for freshers week this evening and am getting quite excited about it now. I'm going to have to get my skates on to get the tickets though as come Saturday all of the freshers will have arrived and they'll go like hot cakes.

Packing

The time has come when I have to have to shove all of my stuff into a box and perform the miracle of somehow fitting it all into the car. So far I've only managed to pack two crates and dump them in the car and the other three are on my bedroom floor waiting for last minute packing things tomorrow morning. I thought I could get away with only having one left but because of the way I've packed them I'm waiting for my headphone - a necessity in this house when I go to bed several hours after everyone else and I like my music far too much to go without for the night. One of the others is waiting for toiletries and the final one for anything else that I've forgotten that needs last minute packing. Then I have 2 suitcases - one large and one small, waiting for last minute washing before I go that is currently drying (well I might as well make the most of it whilst I'm here). The rest of the stuff is in a pile downstairs by the front door waiting to go in the car on top of the boxes, I think that's the only way to fit them in and it will be a pretty tight squeeze.

I've already started to make a sort of mental list prioritising what needs to be taken now and what can wait until I come back in November. I'm convinced that it won't all fit in my tiny Corsa but I'll do my damnedest to get it there in one run.

I'm really looking forward to getting there and settling down in the new house, It always takes a while for everything to find a home and find all of the unique eccentricities of the new abode but hopefully that shouldn't take too long. As long as I've got the internet (which currently isn't working - something I hope to remedy fairly sharpish upon my arrival) then I should be okay!

Mr Fix It Returns

I think the word must have spread that I am shortly due to depart for Sheffield as an influx of requests for various IT related tasks have been heading my way recently. Today was a particularly unusual request as I have never met the person in question before. It was a wireless network issue which are particularly common and many people seem to have trouble getting them set up, usually it is when trying to mix technologies of varying age such as an old modem with a new router etc and this was true in this case. The issue was eventually resolved to a particularly stubborn piece of hardware, the ADSL modem router which refused to perform only its routing duties and insisted that it should have to connect to the internet itself the problem here being that I was dealing with a cable internet connection, they are very popular in Birmingham as one of the absorbed companies now controlled by Virgin Media was Birmingham Cable and they seem to have done a very good job at getting a decent coverage.

One thing that I haven't yet encountered - which on reflection is quite surprising - is attempting to fit a phone cable into a network socket, they do look very similar, same shape, same locking mechanism and seeing as they are commonly used with the same devices, whomever designed them could have done a much better job. In this case the first problem came when I discovered that he was attempting to connect the cable modem and wireless router with a phone cable, with one end in the network socket of the modem. After finding this and thinking the problem was solved, I then discovered the aforementioned problem of the stubborn modem/routers and thus had to leave it at that much to his disappointment of having to buy a new router.

In other news, the new Muse album - The Resistance was released today, much to my surprise as I hadn't clocked the release date previously. It's times like this when I wonder what I did before twitter constantly reminding me of these little things, which in turn reminds me of an article I read the other day about how twitter may have an adverse affect on memory and I'm only now thinking that perhaps there is something in it. Anyway, that's besides the point. After a couple of listens to the album, I can confirm that it is superb. You wouldn't expect any less from Muse of course but it's reassuring that they can keep making wonderful music and taking it to new and undiscovered directions time and time again. As mentioned previously, I loved Uprising and wasn't too keen on United States of Eurasia but as usual, the more I listen, the more I love and USOE is now a firm favourite. The title of favourite track however, falls to the newest (and current at time of writing) single - Undisclosed Desires which some have said has a hint of urban style R'n'B to it. I can sort of see where they are coming from with this but whatever it is that they've done I like it... a lot. The oddest track definitely goes to I Belong To You with its bizarre French lyrics mean that I probably won't be singing along to those sections of the track any time soon. I also love the Exogenesis trio of tracks with part III being my favourite as I love Matt's piano tinkling, one of the reasons why I love Butterflies and Hurricanes from the Absolution album.

Single of the Week

The DJ's on the radio do it so I thought I'd start too. This week, I have a choice of several so I might start have to save them up for future weeks in the hope that no good new songs come out in the mean time.

I will try to only list songs that have actually been released as a single so that everyone has access to them and this week and I'll also try to embed the YouTube video and link to the artists LastFM page. This week it's a fairly new artist who goes by the name of MPHO and the track is called Box N Locks. It's been going round and round in my head since I heard it on the radio and it's a brilliantly simple very catchy pop tune. Check her out on LastFM or play the video below.

Special Chicken Curry Recipe

Trying to decide what to have for dinner always seems like a constant struggle and I usually end up making something random with whatever I can find in the cupboard. I thought it might be nice to document some of the more palatable experiments in the kitchen and therefore, this is the first recipe I have decided to share after tonight's culinary experiment.

Ingredients Serves 1
1 tsp Tandoori spice blend (or similar)
Lemon juice
1 Chicken portion
1 Clove of garlic
1 Small onion
Coriander (Dried or Fresh)
1 Red pepper
1 small pot of natural yoghurt
Dessicated coconut (optional)
Oil
1 portion of rice or noodles

Method
Cook the rice or noodles according to the instructions on the packet.
Finely chop the onion and garlic and dice the pepper and chicken.
Heat a small amount of oil in a pan, add the onion and gently fry on a low heat for 5-10 minutes until they become translucent. Add the garlic and pepper and heat cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the chicken, the tandoori spice blend and a generous splash of lemon juice and cook on a high heat until the chicken is browned on the outside. Add the yoghurt, coriander and optional coconut and simmer on a low heat for approximately 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

My dinner was slightly different to the above because I didn't have any natural yoghurt I used the top layer from a layered strawberry yoghurt hoping that it would be plain. It was plainish but was sweetened yoghurt and had a small hint of strawberry to it but it still tasted pretty good.

Damn You Derren!

I suppose it was to be expected but I was perhaps hoping for something a bit more plausible than crowd theory and getting 24 random people to predict it for him. It was an entertaining hour nonetheless and at one point I was almost convinced that the 24 people had a chance of actually predicting the numbers. The only thing that convinces me that the whole thing is a sham is that at no point did he reveal to anyone the prediction before the draw. This is a pretty important fact as it makes the difference between prediction and stunt.

He could easily have locked it in a safe or something and then revealed it to that group after the live draw but we didn't even get to see the calculations the group made or any of the automatic writing they produced. This suggests that what they wrote is likely to be completely random and he probably calculated the previous results and influenced their decisions. It also seems far too coincidental that the set before the live draw were predicted in exactly the right order bar the first two that were very close, did he have to swap digits on the night? Who knows.

It might be nice to form a group of 20 or so people and attempt to predict the Euromillions though, the advert came on during one of the breaks and this weeks jackpot is a tidy £83 million and I certainly wouldn't mind sharing that with 20 people. I guess we will never find out how it was actually done unless one of the producers or cameramen (or camera persons to be politically correct) break their silence which I'm pretty sure also won't happen for fear of death (or maybe just some form of Channel 4 based secrets act).

6 Days To Go

It has come to counting down the days until I return to university and the city of Sheffield. I will be a bit sad to see the Royal Town go but I'm getting a little bit bored and fed up of it now, Sheffield isn't that much exciting in reality but the people are what make the difference. I'm sure this is true of most people but sometimes I feel that I'm leading two separate lives, my life in Birmingham and my life in Sheffield.

The two sides of me are not so different so as to call myself schizophrenic but they are defiantly two distinct sides of my personality. The younger inner child side of me seems to shine and me most prevalent in Birmingham whereas in Sheffield, I'm slightly more mature in some respects but act my age in others. I'm sure as I cross the border into my home town I lose five years or so which might be why I seem to get bored so easily, I need constant entertainment like a child.

The Genius That Is...

I kinda knew he would do it but seeing it happen live makes a million and one questions pop to the top of your head, how on earth did he do it?

I am referring, of course, to Derren Brown and his successful prediction of tonight's lottery numbers. From what I have seen of his previous programmes and illusions, there will be a trick to the whole thing and although he promises to explain all on Friday, my guess is that some information, namely the most important bit, will be omitted. My current train of thought is that it is similar to The System, the show about how to win on the horses as the logical part of my brain is telling me that it is impossible to predict the lottery results. The other logical part of my brain also tells me that there must be a trick to it - unless Channel 4 are paying him upwards of £2.4 million, something I very much doubt. I guess it's just a case of waiting for Friday and hoping that it's something a bit more impressive than a frozen screen or something like that.

My first treat of the night was somewhat unexpected but cam e about from getting round to watching The Big Food Fight on 4OD. This has to be the funniest cookery based programme I've ever seen and I can only describe it as Ready Steady Cook meets Have I Got News For You crossed with a bit of It's A Knockout. Hosted by Sue Perkins who is quickly becoming one of my favourite broadcasters appearing in several of my current favourite shows including Just a Minute and the Supersizers. I was laughing out loud at least a few times every minute, something most modern day sitcoms don't even manage and it takes something fairly funny to make me laugh or chuckle audibly.

I'm just glad I'm living in the digital age with access to the wonderful services like the iPlayer, 4OD and ITV player because I'm hopeless at watching programmes live and at the moment there is no working TV in Sheffield as far as I'm aware and being able to watch all of these programmes online is nothing short of a godsend.

Muse and the Mercury Music Awards

I'm writing this blog a bit earlier than usual as I have a period of several hours whilst I am attached to the PC via my headphones. I'm catching up on Radio 1's Muse Night that I missed yesterday and so far, it's pretty damn good!

I've got tickets to see them in November so this is a good chance to hear some of the new album and hear their performance at their homecoming gig. I've heard three of the tracks from the album now and only the fist single, Uprising was an instant hit. I found this with the previous album as well, the first few times I listened to the tracks I wasn't convinced, but the more I listen to them the more I love them. Notably I remember having to force myself to listen to Invincible and Soldier's Poem and not really enjoying them, as soon as Invincible was released on the radio however, I grew to love it so I'm hoping that will happen again this time. Uprising didn't follow this trend however and I have fallen completely in love with it, its bizarre and wonderful in so many ways which all adds to it's beauty.

From that to the Mercury music prize and I'm really spoiled for choice this year. I was so pleased last year when Elbow won as it opened me up to their music, having never even heard of the band let alone any of their songs meant that from the initial performance on the night of the awards of Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver made me fall instantly in love. I'm not so fond of the earlier stuff but the Seldom Seen Kid (the winning album) is simply perfect and is totally different to anything I'd ever heard before.

This year 80% of the artists I have heard of and actively listen to and enjoy. Usually I may have only heard of one or two of the bands and although this makes a nice change, it makes picking a favourite even harder. At the moment I think I've narrowed it down to two people:- Florence and the Machine, the bookies favourite, and La Roux. A lot of people can't understand La Roux but ever since I heard In For The Kill and soon after Quicksand, I was hooked and I haven't looked back. Added to that the fact that La Roux's performance made the night at the Leeds Festival and she is a very strong contender in my eyes. Florence follows a very similar story and I became obsessed with Dog Days after I'd heard it and Howl is currently one of my favourite songs and seems to be played at least once a day. Both of the artists have very unique styles Florence's amazingly powerful voice and therefore the aptly named album - Lungs whilst La Roux's also amazingly high voice which doesn't sound at all unpleasant and she can recreate it live as well. I was slightly worried about that when I saw her live as I'd heard her playing at the ITunes festival and to be perfectly honest, it sounded slightly rough. Perhaps she was having an off day as she sounded amazing in Leeds.

I think overall, as it is based upon the album my vote has to go to Florence & The Machine. Almost every song on the album could be easily released as a single and there are only a couple of 'album tracks'. La Roux's album on the other hand contains several weaker tracks and therefore seals my vote.

Pogo

My Polaroid pogo printer is here! I managed to get one of these on the cheap through Ebay's daily deals promotion. I had only come across this by chance when I received an email from them and had previously dismissed the scheme as a naff marketing tactic and thought it would be a ploy to try and increase sales of some of the unwanted junk that inevitably ends up on there. Looking back at the RSS feeds of previous deals, I wish I'd paid a bit more attention to it as there have been some real bargains. It might be a good thing however, as having missed them means that the money is still with me rather than being wasted on something that I don't need and won't use.

On that note, I'm now considering when I'll actually use this new gadget, I had a quick look through my camera to try and find a suitable test print but decided I didn't really want to print anything on there so I still haven't tried it yet.

I met my friend in town this afternoon and had a really nice long catch up. We normally meet for a game of cards as a kind of tradition from school days. When we were in sixth form, we shared some lessons with the school opposite; this caused a bit of trouble with timetables as each school had it's own lesson times. This meant that we had a 20 minute or so gap between maths over the road and physics at our school. It became tradition for us to play cards during that time in the school dining room and when we went off to uni, we found that we rather missed the quaint little games that we had taken for granted. This time however, the sun was shining and we just spent the time reminiscing about school and 'our youth'. It sounds weird saying that when I'm still so young, but moving on in life makes you yearn for the simpler times, when there were fewer deadlines and pressures in life. Not that my life is particularly full of those things, but you know what I mean.

This time we went to Costa Coffee, the last few times we've been to Starbucks and I can safely say that I won't be going back there now that I've been to Costa. I'm not a hot drinks fan particularly and don't drink either tea or coffee. I sometimes feel that I'm not actually British because I don't drink tea but I've convinced myself that that doesn't matter, as long as I don't start giving into other cultures, I'm certainly not American if I don't drink coffee so that makes me feel slightly better.

I am however, very partial to a good hot chocolate although outside of my house and a mug of Cadbury's drinking chocolate (with full fat milk and a teaspoon of sugar) I haven't yet found a really good place to get it in the UK. Twice I've had beautiful hot chocolate in Spain of all places, the first time was served in a teapot which I greedily consumed on my own whilst the rest of the family supped on their after dinner coffees. The Costa hot chocolate was a great improvement over the Starbucks attempt though, marshmallows always make me smile more favourably and Costa certainly ticket that box, even if they were a little stale and few in number (3). I've always found that the café varieties are much to watery and much less chocolaty than I would like and that's possibly down to the horrific number of calories and fat that would be present in a decent mug. Which brings me onto another point, the container for the beverage. At least Starbucks got one thing right by serving it in a mug rather than a tall glass, I cannot see any reason why it should be served in a glass, mug - yes, cup - yes glass - no.

I think that's more than enough for tonight, If I have the energy, I may just continue this rant / expression of views tomorrow. You have been warned!

It happened again...

It happened again, I found myself sitting in front of the TV watching Come Dine With Me. It's become a sort of guilty pleasure of mine and I find it strangely addictive. I guess it's one of those things where you watch a programme about other people to sort of laugh at them and mock them secretly in a way that makes you feel better about yourself because of how messed up these people are.

It seems that cookery based programmes have become the replacement for my university lectures during these holidays and I'm now just hoping that I haven't wasted all of this time and have actually picked up some useful tips from them. I don;t think I'll be copying anything from the Come Dine With Me contestants however, especially some of their more extravagant tastes such as luxurious seafood and caviar which one guy paid £125 for! He came last by the way, which just goes to show that money isn't everything.

I had some left over batter from the yorkshire puddings from dinner and decided to put it to good use by making pancakes. I still can't understand how something made from flour, egg and milk can taste so good and create two very different dishes. We sent the boy (my brother) out to the shops to get some ice-cream to put in it but I think it will be a while before I'll be eating that again if the weather carries on the way it is at the moment. Good god! It actually looks like we might have a rather nice week next week and as of the time of writing this, the BBC forecast shows all sunny spells and not a drop of rain. Perhaps the weather will be kind enough to let us have another bike ride before we all depart to uni again.

Speaking of which, most of the day has been spent trying to find room in my boxes to put all of my stuff that has been taken out whilst I've been home. For some reason I seem to have picked the biggest boxes to find new homes for rather than the smaller things that fit in rather more easily.

Sleep

I managed to waste away most of today through sleep - about twelve hours of it which of course did the opposite of what sleep is supposed to do and made me feel really tired. This meant that for the rest of the day I was completely disoriented and particularly dopey although the upside to this is that it took me twice as long to do anything.

Thanks to Derren Brown, I discovered this audio delight on YouTube. It made me squirm whenever the sound appeared to come too close to my ears, much like the reaction you have when a fly flies too close and the buzzing sound sends a shiver down your spine, making you wave your hands around like a lunatic. Make sure you use headphones and shut your eyes for the full effect.



I spent the evening with catch-up TV, I don't really know how I coped without it because I rarely seem to watch programmes when they are broadcast any more. Dragons Den was the first one and sadly the last one in the series however, there will be a special programme next week showing the aftermath which is usually very interesting. The next show on my list was The Cube; I had been meaning to watch this from the off but never got round to it. It is refreshing to see a totally new type of game show as the last few attempts have been regurgitated oldies with a bit of a twist. The disappointing part however is that all of the 'tasks' the contestants have to complete are all based around red balls of varying size. This means that I would have very little chance of getting past even the first round as my ball skills are practically non-existent. It is funny however to see the - often rather cocky - contestants completely underestimate how difficult the task is going to be 'in the cube' which is the catchphrase of the show. For some reason 'the cube' makes all of these tasks much more difficult but I'm not sure that's entirely true because the tasks all seem pretty darn difficult even without 'the cube'. The other oddity is the Stig like character referred to as 'the body' who is seen to complete all of the tasks in the cube with little or no effort. I don't know how this is presented in the studio but I'm assuming that it is in the form of a video rather than a live demonstration in which case 'the body' has probably had several attempts in order to perfect it which sort of defeats the object. Also, I can;t see the same hype over the identity of said character as much as there is over the Stig but I guess only time will tell.

At least the ITV player is now vastly greater than its previous reincarnation, now using Microsoft's Silverlight technology to stream the video rather than flash. Their inital attempt at the service was hideously flawed and it usually took several attempts in Internet Explorer in order to watch the first few minutes before 'technical issues' occurred and you were kicked out. Channel five's on demand service has also improved and I managed to get 3/4 of the way through the Gadget Show before being kicked off when Outlook failed to complete a send/receive and kicked me out of full screen. It is the worst offering of the terrestrial players and uses flash which is is a little bit heavy on the CPU consumption ensuring that my laptop provides a nice loud fan based backing track to the programme. At least it did work however and in Firefox as well; which is a first as normally I have to switch to IE before it will even admit that the programme is there.

Baking Day

I was dragged around Tamworth this morning something which I wasn't particularly looking forward too. In a bizarre twist of fate however, it didn't turn out to be too bad and we stopped off at the supermarket and picked up the ingredients for the afternoons baking. I also managed to get some heavily discounted petrol and fill the car up before I go back to Sheffield, not only did I have a 5p per litre off voucher but the price was already much lower than the local few stations which were about 4p or 5p more expensive anyway!

I had reached a point of complete and utter boredom yesterday and decided to have a look on stumble upon. I've never used this before but really like the concept of it. To this end, I was immediately disappointed. I guess I was now so bored that I was hoping for this to be some sort of miracle cure, ready to keep every waking moment of my future life filled with wonderful things to keep me occupied. This was not the case however I did find a flickr picture of a cookie monster cake that someone had been given as a present. It was basically a muffin decorated to look like the cookie monster from the muppets. Well that was it, I was determined to make it (or something closely resembling it).

And this is the result:

The original is slightly better and I had to improvise the eyes as I'd forgotten to buy white chocolate buttons (used in the original) but managed to find some liquorice allsorts that did a good enough job (in my opinion)

My Day Off

I have dubbed today to be my day off; not sure exactly how that really works when I don't actually do anything anyway but still that's what I'm calling it.

Actually, seeing as today is my day off, it does seem a bit strange that today of all days is the day I'm actually doing some work. I have finally had a new task for my internship and have already completed the first section of it, now awaiting a response. This managed to take up about three hours - which isn't bad really however, it does mean that I still had another twelve or so waking hours left.

I managed to find the time (from somewhere) to send a grumpy email to the letting agency in charge of the house in Sheffield to check up on the list of snags that we gave them when we moved in. I'm not hoping for a reply any time soon because that would be too easy, I'm expecting quite a long battle over this one actually as it involves them spending some of their money - or that of the landlord. I've noticed that the things that don't cost them very much seem to get done reasonably quickly but we want an aerial in the house so that we can watch TV. Now I don't think this is too much to ask really and it's normally something that comes as a given in most houses. It wasn't a problem last year as we had Sky but there was still an aerial socket in the lounge and yet this year - nothing. Most odd.

Mr Fix It

It seems I have recently acquired an agent for my part-time role as an IT repair man. My mum seems to have told all of her friends that I am available to fix their computers. Whilst I don't mind doing it occasionally, it's often a bit strange visiting someone else's house especially when you don't know them particularly well. The other reason why it feels strange is because I still think of myself as a kid, and being in the position where you are more knowledgeable than someone more than twice your age makes me slightly confused and slightly weird. I suppose it is a testament to me if all of these people are willing to let me fix their computers, and will put their trust in me not to make it worse or break it.

So after fixing two computers, one was for my Granddad which I end up doing every time I see him, it was a quick pizza dinner before me and mum were off to the cinema with my friend from school and her mum. We went to see G-Force and I had heard very mixed reviews about it but have been wanting to see it since I first saw the trailer. There were very few people in the room watching the film, which is surprising for a Wednesday when the majority of people now go to the cinema thanks to Orange. Mind you, the film has been out for several weeks now and I originally wanted to see it in 3D but the latest showing for that was about three o'clock which doesn't really fit in with people who work 9-5. I didn't notice any scenes that seemed particularly designed for the 3D viewing experience which was nice as I have heard that often scenes shot specifically for 3D often look very poor in 2D. I quite enjoyed the film as well and even my friend - who had seen it once already and wasn't impressed) enjoyed it as well and blamed it on being in a bad mood the first time she saw it.

I'm not exactly a film critic but as far as I'm concerned, you cannot really go too far wrong with a film about Guinea Pigs who want to be secret agents. I particularly enjoyed Darwin's brother who was by far the best character in the film and reminded me a lot of the hamster in another Disney film, Bolt which is another must see - even if it is just for the hamster.

Anti climax

What was promising to be a more fun and activity filled day, turned out to be just the opposite. We had decided yesterday to go on another bike ride, this time the other way along the canal and into Birmingham. I was more prepared than I usually am and for once my bike was in working order and I was hoping to get there and back without incident. Well at least I suppose I managed the last bit.

The reason behind the no go was that my friends mum had decided to borrow her keys and inadvertently took the keys to the shed where she kept her bike. This also meant that if she did go out she would have had to have left the house unlocked which isn't such a good idea anyway.

The result was another long boring day, filled up by more episodes of the Hairy Bikers; which has now resulted in an urge to be creative with pastry and make a nice pie and if I can be bothered, might use up the leftover chicken and make one tomorrow.

I'm also a little bit annoyed that GMail is down again, I say again but have thus far never been affected by any of the reported outages and even though it is a completely free service, I feel somehow that I have the right to complain when it doesn't work. I've never had (to my knowledge) a problem with Yahoo!'s mail service so I don't see why GMail should be any different and I am perhaps more disappointed because it was only yesterday when I was singing the universities praises for switching mail providers to GMail.