dragonhell-steff : my life in two parts

WoW Down

2006-06-28T12:59:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say: extended maintenance sucks.

No WoW? Argh!

That is all.

--- dragonhell.

Final Farewell

2006-06-27T01:29:00.000+01:00

Although this should have been done a few days ago, I've not had the time to write anything! The reason for this will become apparent as I write.

Last Friday night my University halls of residence had their summer ball. This had promised to be a great night and, fortunately, it lived up to all expectations! The Duryard Summer Ball was going to be the last party ever held for Duryard, as this is the final year students will be staying there. At the end of this year, Duryard is to be knocked down.

When I started the year I hated Duryard. The rooms are small, cramped and cell-like, the majority of which are unplastered. Moving into this place was a shock compared to my life back at home. The food is awful, the showers smell and toilets are one between a corridor of seven or eight. Yet, amazingly, by the end of this night I loved it.

The essence of Duryard isn't the place itself, it's the people. The atmosphere is incredible. No matter who you have around you, everyone just seems to get on. It makes for an incredible experience, especially when all these people get together for one huge goodbye party. I would quote just how many people there were, but the information has been removed from Exeter's webpages. Still.. there's a good few hundred.

The four houses Moberly, Hetherington, Murray and Jessie Montgomery (where I lived) all came together for this, with the actual ball being held on the grass area in the centre of them. On that grass area was a large marquee, bouncy boxing, bouncy bungee, a cocktail bar (one free cocktail each) and trampoline's (with bungee rope which attaches to you to bounce higher). The marquee was home to another bar and bands which played throughout the night. These 'bands' included a Michael Jackson tribute band (who constantly plugged their website) and a DJ which played until around 1am. The bouncy boxing was just a big boxing-ring style bouncy castle for two people to bounce around and hit each other with big boxing gloves (provided, obviously). The bouncy bungee was similar, but you were attached to bungee cord and two people could race each other and see if they could reach the other side of the bouncy castle.. thing.

On another grass area, near the food hall, was another large bouncy castle and a bucking bronco ride. All the cars from the student car park were removed for a large dodge 'ems bumper car setup. Well worth moving my car for.

Within the food hall, they had decorated the bar, put a lovely chocolate fountain (with selection of dips) in the side room, a casino in the front room and upstairs was a amazing buffet. The amount of food at the buffet was one thing but after the horrid food I'd had all year at this place, it was amazing (yes, I use this word alot -- but it's the best way to describe it!) to have so much and so good. To top that off there was free wine and a magician, what more could you want?

At half ten there was a fireworks display. Even though they were nice to watch, it's what came after that was impressive. As the last firework died down chanting from the entire crowd started up, "Oh Duryard! ... Is Wonderful! ... Oh Duryard is wonderful!". It was such overwhelming experience to be surrounded by hundreds of people all shouting and cheering for this place; even I got caught up in it. University is not about the degree, it's not about the place.. it's all about the people.

After the fireworks, a DJ played out until 1am(ish) playing some good things and some cheesy things. It was during this that the dodge 'ems turned into a death trap -- with the roof falling off and nearly hitting people. The funny thing was, this happened three times in around five minutes and they were still admitting people on to the ride and the ambulance people didn't even seem to care. I only managed to ride it once before the roof started caving in but it was so much fun! I'd not been on them for many, many years so playing on them now was even more fun.

The night could not have been better. It was such a wonderful experience! It trully was a great, final cheer for Duryard Halls.

--- Steff

[PS: We all rode the bucking bronco and fell off way too quickly, with the winner being Suzy (yes, well done). The chocolate fountain had a number of dips including strawberries, pink wafers and other lovely things. Oh, yes.. and I did beat up my girlfriend Becca on the bouncy boxing -- she asked for it!]

We're going to the zoo, zoo.. zoo..

2006-06-23T17:15:00.000+01:00

Or at least, I was yesterday! Yep, my girlfriend and a friend of ours (Pip!) decided they wanted to go to the zoo. So we did! Relatively early, for me, we set out to Paingon Zoo, which is not far from where we are at Uni. We've had nothing else to do for the last week or so, so this made a change!

After some randomness of getting there and bus-drivers who don't actually like you because you don't know where you are, we finally got there. Student rate to enter and even cheaper because we took a bus! Mwahaha.

I can't actually remember what animals we saw, not because it was boring or because I've mentally blocked everything, but because I was taken by some lemurs. In the lemur enclosure (which is a huge area), they are set loose to roam around the area. Well, they just couldn't get enough of me! After surrounding me on a wobbly bridge, one decided to completely chill out and lie back next to my foot. He did look incredibly relaxed -- or high, I couldn't quite tell. Either way, we had some great photos of that little guy.

Everything else, bar the monkies which were just absolutely fantastic and so cute, was pretty much a blur. I remember ranting about the lack of giraffe-thingies.. but we later found out that due to an electrical fault, they had actually died. Which isn't good.

Pip took a good few photos, but they missed actual rhinos.. so we have a photo of her and Becca next to a fake one.
"..You've got to love the horn, don't you?" -- my darling girlfriend, Becca.

Anyway! From KFC, to the train (where I slept, with Spank on my head) to bed!

Oh yes.. Spank. Umm.. Pip bought a cuddly toy monkey called Spank. Very imaginative and creative name.

Good day.

--- Steff.

Foamy Goodness!

2006-06-20T02:53:00.000+01:00

I've just got back from a Foam Party at Warehouse, here in Exeter. Well, maybe not just got back; I've just got out of the, much needed, shower. My ears are ringing, I can still taste me cheese burger and I swear I still have some confetti stuck to me somewhere. Not a bad night, all in all!

Chris (Nick's brother) has come back for a bit to visit as he's finished Uni for this year. Been as everyone was being incredibly miserable and moody, it was really nice to have someone has bloody happy as that with us. -grins-

It was weird, today, despite the fact that some people acted like total arses, I honestly forgot that Chris and Nick were brothers. I suppose it was due to the fact I spent more of the evening talking with Chris than anyone else, it was just nice to speak to him. If he were in this Uni, I'm sure we would have been mates.. he's a good lad.

I have no idea what everyone's problem actually is, but everything kinda fell through and it ended up with just me, Becca, Pip and Chris still going out. Oh well - we had some fun! Foamy fun for everyone. I'm sure I must have looked like an arse for the majority of the evening, been as I ended up completely drenched. The foam didn't taste that nice either.

Oh well! I'm orf to bed.

--- Steff.

The Lemmy!

2006-06-19T12:09:00.000+01:00

Right, very quick post this one, basically The Lemmy (or Lemon Grove) is a club here at Exeter University for us students. On Friday night they were holding something known as 'Bar FooTsie', which is where the drink prices are affected by demand. If people keep buying pints of Carling, other things such as Grolsch fall in price and Carling goes up. It works out that you can get a good few cheap drinks! Oh, and there are 'Stock Market Crashes' were selected drinks fall dramatically in price - great stuff.

Anyway, this was brought to a rather quick end when the program crashed to reveal a lovely Windows desktop, I couldn't help but laugh. After this, before we were heading home for the night, me and Becca went to the bar for a final drink. When the barman came over and asked Becca what she wanted, she replied "Nine tequila slammers please.." which was met by a lovely "Sorry.... how many?" -- Well, I thought it was funny anyway! And then he forgot the salt.

Anyway, twas a good night!

(But it does bring me on to another complaint as to why this was posted so late! My network has been down for two days! Grr!)

--- Steff.

HoudahSpot and macZOT -- Your files at your fingertips, for free!

2006-06-16T20:01:00.000+01:00

My review of HoudahSpot as seen on MacZOT.com

Before I get started on the actual application itself, can I just say it's nice to see that a link to my 'Applications' folder is included in the .dmg file! I don't know whether it's because I'm lazy, or what, but I love having that. Right, yes, on to the thing itself!

When I first ran the application and noticed the little red Spotlight-like logo in my menubar I was sure that's exactly what it was going to try to achieve. Well, I was right. It does achieve everything Spotlight does -- and more! To say its a glorified Spotlight is a complete understatement of this application. With the power to search files using logical AND, OR and NOT, which stay live and continue to bring up new files as you create them, you'll never lose a file again. You can filter all these searches by display name, text content, modified date, file type and more.

So far I've been enjoying browsing through my Uni notes (in pdf format), which Spotlight seemed to miss. It would have come in handy earlier this week when I had exams! All in all, this is a great little application. If you like the sound of any of that, go try it out.

NOTE: If you're seeing this on June 16, 2006 head over to MacZOT, you might be able to get a Free copy of HoudahSpot

Search easily in Tiger, Mac OS X, with HoudahSpot

--- dragonhell.

Cos they're cats.

2006-06-12T22:38:00.000+01:00

I just received this email from a friend of mine:

This is a news clipping I found recently:

We have been informed by Downing Street today that the cats are out on the loose and are angry with owners across the country who refuse their demands. Police have said they can't do anything about it though, "They're riding on top of our cop cars. But it's okay, cos they're cats. And they can do anything. Cos they're cats."

If the police can't take out the only animals except swans that seem to be above the law, who can? Veterinary services have refused to comment on the situation, and the fire department say they can't touch the cats, unless they're stuck in trees, in which case they are bound by law to help the cat escape.

If you own a cat, I would suggest giving into the Association of Uncaring Cats, the AUC, demands by providing warm milk and Whiskers packaged food. A quote from the president states "we are tired of generic tinned food and demand a higher quality of food".

Do it soon, the office cat just killed our editor and is slowly taking over the paper. But it's okay. Cos they're cats. And they can do anything. Cos they're cats.

(Story inspired by a concept of Steffan Williams and Daniel Tull)

It's true. Cat's can do anything. Cos they're cats.

The whole thing started with a rather interesting mis-interpretation of the lyrics of an N.E.R.D. song. Mixed together with a bit of Vanilla Sky, we get the fact that 'Cat's can run on top of cop cars, cos they're cats. They can do anything. Cos they're cats.' And thus the power of cats was discovered.

They are, trully, a hidden and incredibly powerful force.

Cos they're cats.
They can do anything.
Cos they're cats.

Remember that.

--- Steff.

Pukka!

2006-06-08T15:54:00.000+01:00

I like to play with new toys! I'm constantly on the look out for nice little applications that I can just download, play with for a bit then probably AppZap, delete and forget about. Most of the time that is exactly what happens, but sometimes you can find hidden gems.

I like applications to look good, do what they are meant to and be relatively simple. I want to do what I want to do in the thing and that be it. The best applications out there do what I want without me telling them to (praise be to Adium, which seems to connect everywhere with or without proxy settings). Today, while browsing macZOT again, I stumbled across Pukka.

So what is it?
"Simple. Delicious. Pukka [...] is a minimalist posting client for del.icio.us."

I'd never actually used del.icio.us before, but what the heck! I downloaded the application to have a little play around with anyway. With a nice logo, minimalist feel and simple to use controls I must say this is a great little application. After adding bookmarklets to your web browser, simply navigate to any page you want, highlight any text description on that page and hit 'Send to Pukka'. Done. Now all you have to do is hit 'Add link' and it's on del.icio.us for you. How's that for delicious?

You can customize the preferences so that it'll hide after you add a link and it even has growl support - so that it'll tell you it has uploaded something after it's done posting in the background.

All in all, worth the $2.50 that macZOT are offering it for - or even the $5 they are offering it for!

--- dragonhell.

iUsed2Scroll

2006-06-08T03:23:00.000+01:00

iScroll2 - the wonderful missing tool on my PowerBook. For months I've taken this great little thing for granted! It was probably one of the first little applications I installed when I bought my Mac. It's incredibly useful as it allows me to - would you believe it - scroll. Well, not anymore.

After being bored and putting off some revision, I decided to browse on macupdate.com. I do this now and again, just to see if there's anything interesting for me to play with; putting off more revision and other work. Anyway, I looked and noticed iScroll2 had been updated. Great stuff! Maybe it had finally added right-click hotspots for me? No.. nothing interesting in the update, really. Oh well, may as well have the latest and greatest anyway. Latest - yes. Greatest - far from it. That was an incredibly bad move.

The scrolling is just awful, it varies in speeds for every application and it's so juddery and completely unsmooth it's horrible to watch let alone use. Easy fix, right? Just uninstall it and re-install the old version. Not the case for me! I hunted the version I wanted, 0.25e, and installed it. And installed it. And installed it... restart after restart! It would just crash, the daemon wouldn't run or nothing would happen whatsoever.

Now, if I were a little smarter I'd have tried this a while ago - I have just installed 0.26 (aka 'judder'), deleted it's preferences and installed 0.25e over the top. Tada! It worked. Back to how things were a couple of hours ago. Great, what a pointless waste of time.

Sure as heck beats revision though.

--- Steff.

Big Kids

2006-06-04T01:51:00.000+01:00

I love being home from University. It's nice to be back in my double bed, have my 32" TV and all that nonsense. It's more that nice to be back and have my friends and family around me. I've been back just under a week and unfortunately I've only managed to have enough time to meet up with my friends (all together) just once - but it was great.

We went to PlayZone! The first Friday of every month is adult night and for just £6.25 each we were rolling around in balls, swinging on ropes and throwing ourselves down the slides. I don't care if I'm called a child, it was absolutely fantastic.

Me and two friends had multiple slide races (in sacks), which I won of course and there is photographic proof! There were also two massive vertical slides, which made you feel like you were going to drop on to the people standing at the counter as there was very little barrier to hold you on the actual thing.

Other than that, it involved alot of running around and throwing of balls (I do love the ball pits). It was great though.

When we finally left, at midnight, we headed to a kebab shop back in Bridgend!

I can't think of a better night! -grins-

--- Steff

macZOT's Myztery MegaZOT

2006-05-30T19:44:00.000+01:00

Well, it's passed the fourty eight hours that macZOT asked me to wait, but I've finally got all of my serial numbers for the applications.

For those interested, the final bundle of applications were:

Pzizz Sleep

iClip

Connoisseur

PhotoPrinto

X-Words Deluxe

RadioLover

Ancient Hearts and Spades

FolderBrander

EasyCrop + SnapNDrag

ScreenSaver Menu

And that's it!

The cost of all those applications bundled together came to a total of $168.70. I was so happy to tune in to macZOT at Day 5 and get all of those for just $29.95!

Roight! I'm off to go play with my new apps. Have fun people!

--- dragonhell.

Seeing Double

2006-05-26T02:16:00.000+01:00

I've just got back from a night out with a mate of mine, Nick, and his identical twin, Mick -- or at least, that's what I *was* calling his brother until I realised it actually really quite annoyed him. Chris, therefore, was actually a really nice guy. Despite wanting to seem like individuals and their own person, they shared so many mannerisms and spoke so similarly that it was quite hard not to think 'we have one Nick and another Nick with a wig on!'.

Nick is here in University with me, doing Computer Science in Exeter. His brother opted to do some form of 3D Graphics course in Swansea (Wales!). Despite the fact I've never spoken to Chris before in my life, he seems to be quite a nice lad and very easy to get along with.

I left them in Warehouse (a club here) and left in search of a kebab! I think the club has just closed, so they'll probably be stumbling back home shortly. -grins-

Anyway, cheers to two good lads.

--- Steff.

Help increase the value of the MyzteryZOT! for all Mac users.

2006-05-25T01:31:00.000+01:00

MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because 'According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.' - link to full article

Go! Now! Check it out.

--- dragonhell.

Start of things to blog

2006-05-25T01:22:00.000+01:00

A quick post to announce that I will join those who blog!
I think, anyway.

So, yes. Just a quick note from me to say hello.

--- dragonhell.