Dean Sas's Weblog

Previously…

// May 20th, 2006 // No Comments » // General

T-Shirts

// May 20th, 2006 // No Comments » // General

I’ve been wanting to buy some new t-shirts for some time, two of the ones I bought pre-holiday were a bit on the large side, which was nice in hot Turkey but I never wear them at home. As I’m back to doing my own washing in a couple of months, I could do with some more clothes. My usual clothing retailers have had nothing that I particularly fancied, but reading Ross Burton‘s blog I came across Threadless. I’ve ordered Undercover Pirate and Nothing Rhymes With Orange, though I’m not sure on cherry and fairy rhyming. Only £20 including shipping from the U.S. Type SUPER TEES in the coupon box and enjoy $3 off.

One Week Off

// May 2nd, 2006 // No Comments » // General

I’ve just had a week off of work, and I’ve spent it catching up on fun things…

Reading the books I picked up at the A515 bookshop a couple of months ago:

• Communism, a Brief History: Sort of interesting, it’s a very quick glance through communism from it’s conception to it’s execution and it’s failings.
• Robert Heinlein – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: Maybe the best of his books I’ve read.

I’ve also flicked through David Allens – Getting Things Done again, and I’m now half way through Buddhism – The Path to Enlightenment.

Playing computer games:

• Call of Duty 2: More of the first basically, still fun though very short.
• Battle For Middle Earth: A Westwood strategy game, with a Lord of the Rings theme, fun, but pretty easy.

I’ve also been playing with Tremulous, a free multiplayer only team based shooter that’s quite innovative and I’ve reinstalled Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory to hopefully play with the Lugradio crowd. I’m not sure which one I’m going to play going forward though.

Watching DVDs:

• Star Wars: Clone Wars Vol2 – More of the first one, this time portraying the events right up to the beginning of episode 3.
• 1984: Uhm, not bad, but vastly inferior to the book for reasons I can’t quite nail down.
• Family Guy Series 4: Like the other three, except the surreal bits are longer.

I’ve also decided to try and organise myself a bit better using Tomboy to make notes and my calendar for time specifc things in a Getting Things Done-esque way.

Have I Got News for You

// April 22nd, 2006 // 3 Comments » // General

I was in the audience of last nights episode of Have I Got News for You with Nick and Jode. Nick had managed to get the free tickets as soon as they were announced, about a month ago. Apparently it takes only a few hours for tickets for a whole series to go, so we were quite fortunate in that respect.

There was just over an hours worth of footage filmed, the first round taking forty minutes of that. This made it quite interesting to see what would be cut. Things I noticed were:

• Trevor McDonald swearing.
• Lots of talk about the “loans for lords” scandal.
• Some commentary on the Lib Dem leadership, and the various paper headlines of the time.

Mainly though, it was just little bits of jokes here and there that went missing.

I’d love to go and watch it again, though it’d be better to make a whole day of being in London and stay in London overnight, rather than driving back in the wee hours of the morning

Lifestyle Changes

// March 30th, 2006 // 1 Comment » // General

I’ve noticed my lifestyle has changed quite a bit since starting my placement, in most ways good, in some bad. I guess starting work is probably the biggest lifestyle disruption you can have, with the exceptions of marriage and kids.

I now get up at a reasonable time, I get up at times that I’d be going to bed at when I was at uni. Obviously I also go to bed a lot earlier. My ‘standard’ day now is waking up at 05:15 and being asleep for 22:00. Weekends are a bit later, but usually not by too much – this Saturday I got up at 07:30 and thought to myself that I’d had a lazy lie in. I quite enjoy the early mornings to myself, tapping away at my keyboard in peace and quiet. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this up when I’m at uni – or at least not have 4 hours of sleep on weeknights and lying in bed till 16:00 at the weekend.

I don’t drink as much, at uni it was alcohol every other day, now it’s likely to be a couple of bottles at the weekend, though driving has quite some impact on this. Rather than an espresso to kick off my day I now have a mug of green tea and drink plenty of water throughout the day.

I don’t have as much time. At the minute I have four Cd’s in their cellophane, seven books and two magazines to read, I’m less than half way through a computer game I bought three months ago, I’ve two programming projects I’ve set myself that I’ve barely started, I’ve got one website to design and another to finish off. This is besides things like finding things to live next year and filling out my student loan form. On the upside I spend less of my time worrying about time and don’t have to feel guilty about my time usage when I am playing games, though I do remember fondly doing things like reading The Da Vinci Code in two sittings over one day.

RSS Addiction

// February 15th, 2006 // No Comments » // General

The Guardian has a slightly humorous article on Internet Derived Lethargic Episode, another term for “internet addiction”, particularly for people who constantly surf for the latest news sources.

I think I’m currently subscribed to 360 RSS feeds and maybe ten mailing lists and get around 30 non-mailing list, non-junk emails per day at home.

I’m some way from the guy quoted in the article who apparently read 3000.

Mondays Express

// February 6th, 2006 // 2 Comments » // General

I’m not sure about who’s the most idiotic, the editor, or the people that continue buying this rag. I’d love to see their sources for this one. Unbelievable.

(Via Mailwatch)