Pile of Dross

Phew, one bumper work update that was. (Or is, if you’re reading these reverse chronologically, you freak you)

So what have I done that’s not work related? I’ve joined the e-Science Department Recreational Society, which sounds more formal than it really is – playing Halo on networked x-boxes using multiple data projectors.

Also, I was in the pub with some people from work and we stumbled upon a pub quiz, we were there again this week, but didn’t win anything either time – though my apparent encyclopediac knowledge of tv and film does appear to be worrying some people – particularly me :-)!

I’ve bought my first piece of furniture in 3.5 years – a 2m tall dvd storage tower, freeing up much needed bookcase space for… books. The stack on top of my main bookcase is now down to one deep instead of 3 deep.

So Serenity. Good film, go see.

(Yes even you philstine, sceptical Cambridge-dwelling folk – Go. See.)

It stands reasonably well on its own if you haven’t seen the tv series, I think.

But did they *have* to do *that* and at that point? I mean…

Anyway, also picked up the remaining two books in the Baroque cycle while I was in Reading and also the Lord of the Rings trilogy soundtrack. and then back home for pizza.

Very nearly bought a set of playing cards of 52 stag night pranks, but didn’t; relax Graeme (you too Annabel).

Its strange, it seems that writing a few lines each day summarising my activites at work seems to drain my blogging energy to such an extent that I can’t be bothered writing about anything else. So what have I been up to since the last non-work, non-meta post on the 12th? Well i got older – quietly and without fuss, I’ve finished all 3 three of the books I was “reading”, been playing the new Sims 2 expansion pack and DOA 2 Ultimate, managing to get past 50 for the first time ever in Survival mode. I’ve transferred my dns and mail hosting from ProjectColo/Caladan to Dreamhost. I ‘ve (re-)watched all of Season 1 of the West Wing and I’m working my way through Season 2 and I fought my way past what seemed like half of Didcot exploring the new Woolworth’s in the town centre while attempting to find a suitably insulting card for my brother’s birthday. Really doesn’t seem much for over a fortnight.

[Edit - Bollocks, tack Scrubs 2 onto the start of the recently watched dvds list as well]

Oh dear, this blog does seem to have descended into acronym soup somewhat – Grid Acronym Soup to be precise. Still it does make slightly more sense if you know that C.M.S. here normally means the LHC experiment Compact Muon Solenoid, rather than Content Management System, but not much more.

I’ve bought the fifth Harry Potter (Audio)book off iTunes to listen to on my ipod on the way to work. I didn’t listen to it today due to a disagreement with iTunes about what the words

iPod Sync Complete

actually mean, so instead listened to a loop of Tori Amos’ cover of I don’t like Mondays, something that may possibly concern my fellow commuters if they knew :-). So no opinion on it so far, other than if the intention is to stop people buying unofficial then they may want to consider lowering the price to something a little less extortionate;I mean for 50ukp I could probably buy all the sodding paper books and still have at least tenner left over.

This means I’ll be “reading” 3 books:

Annotated DragonLance Chronicles, amusing if only for the attempts to claim that spelling differences were intentional

Quicksilver, picked this up before I left for DESY along with Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet and didn’t manage to finish it before I came back, which is the first time on a work trip that I haven’t finished all my reading material by halfway through. Indeed even reading it throughout the train journeys up north and back again I’m still only 4/5s of the way through

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as mentioned above