Pizza and Good TV

Well I managed to survive the horrific two hour lecture this morning, still suffering from last nights disturbance. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it was going to be and I think I managed to take in some of the information. I found myself daydreaming rather a lot though and it seems to be happening more and more often recently. One minute I will be paying attention and then the next minute my mind will have gone off on a tangent and I will be thinking about something completely unrelated like pizza or tigers. At some point during this daydream I regain control and realise that for the past goodness knows how long I have been in another world and have missed everything the lecturer has said. Thinking about it, that's probably why this lecture didn't seem so bad; I spent most of the time daydreaming without any conscious perception of time so it seemed a lot shorter.

I managed to waste away the rest of the day filling it with trivial tasks like adding release dates to my music collection. Thankfully only about thirty or so needed adding otherwise I could have been there for ages. I managed to get most of my machine learning assignment done with just a few tweaks needed tomorrow so that I can hand it in this week.

Tonight marked the start of the new series James May's Toy Stories and this week centred on AirFix models. I don't really know a lot about these and never really played with them as a child. I remember getting something similar for my birthday / Christmas once and the only real memory of it I have is that I got green paint all over the chair, carpet and me! I seem to remember I didn't have much problem making it but when it comes to painting I am certainly no artist and don't have the control needed to keep in the lines and paint the fiddly little bits. I also seem to remember not having the right colours as I don't think they were included with the sets. The only place you used to be able to buy that sort of paint was Beatties (now House of Frasier) and if I remember correctly was quite expensive. Since watching the show however I could realistically see myself enjoying making them - maybe not the paining so much and probably not the history bit. I am rubbish when it comes to humanities subjects and event he most important historical events have no place in my memory. I couldn't even name the years of the world wars - that's how bad it is but history has never interested me much. I guess that's one reason why I became interested in computers because they are rooted in the future. It was however, nice to see a program based around my home town as the challenges were set in and around Castle Bromwich - not more than a couple of miles from my house and I have regularly driven past the Jaguar factory and Spitfire Island. Another thing that I believe is peculiar to Birmingham is that we often refer to roundabouts as islands - especially when they have designated names (whether official or not) such as being named after a pub (the Tyburn Island) or the decoration at its centre (as with Spitfire Island).

It was also nice to see the younger generation interested in a pass time that doesn't involve being stuck to the computer or games console. I am a great believer in letting children play outside and was lucky enough to grow up in an area with access to a garden and plenty of local parks and green spaces but I know that some parents can be very over protective of their children these days and wrap them up in cotton wool so much that they don't get a chance to develop all of the skills that we got the chance to. I really enjoyed climbing trees and playing in the woods as a kid but I know that times have changed and plenty of nasty strange people will hide in these sorts of places and prey on young children. One thing I really like about James May is that he never admits defeat, he will come up with an idea and stick to it and this has seen him go to the edge of space in his programme for the anniversary of the lunar landing and now has seen him build a life size replica of the spitfire AirFix model. He must be one of the luckiest presenters on TV at the moment and it almost seems as though he is able to fulfil all of his childhood dreams whilst being funded by the BBC. Not that I have a problem with this because they have been some of the most entertaining programmes on the TV of that genre for a long time. I can't wait to see how his plasticine garden comes about next week; I have a particular interest in plasticine and stop motion and although this doesn't cover the latter, it should still be very very good.

To top it all off, the evening ended with a Dominoes pizza - so far the best commercially available pizzas in my opinion and with 50% off thanks to a student discount voucher, they come down to a reasonable, respectable price as well! I'm fairly boring when it comes to choosing toppings for pizza and always tend to go with the traditional Margherita flavour. The main problem is that I don't like pepperoni which is the most common pizza topping and I am always disappointed when asking for chicken or other meats because it is usually very low quality and doesn't taste all that nice. I don't mind the Hawaiian style ham and pineapple and occasionally go for mushroom but my favourite topping is four cheese (if it is done right) but unfortunately, the only major pizza delivery chain to do this topping (Pizza Hut) have discontinued it and I haven't seen it anywhere else for a long time. When it did finally arrive however, it was very nice as usual and I have enough left for lunch tomorrow.