Rockin' away

So yesterday was quite an awesome day. I had been saving up all week to go on the Rock Society pub crawl and it all paid off. Amazing night. I'm not exactly sure how much I had to drink, but the good news is that a.) I kept it under £10 (or at ten quid) and b.) that we found a place with cheap tequila! Trillians (the rock bar) is known for its high prices on the lager, but as it turns out it has the cheapest tequila shots in the Newcastle city centre! Niiiiice!!

Anyway, I got home at around 3 (which is quite late for a British night out) and I really can't recall if anything funny happened... but I'll tell you what, it wasn't funny this morning!

Ducky

So today I had the Dutch Guy first thing in the morning. Although this should seem like a good thing (entertainment right from the start), I'd rather have him later on in the day when I'm awake enough to appreciate his eccentricness. But well, it's all goo'.

So the Dutch guy is trying to show us what happens when you try to open an extension in a program that doesn't recognize it. So he opens a .jpeg in notepad to prove his point and starts to tell us what the weird characters are... more or less (whatever "ducky" means...). So then he tries to open that same picture on a browser, so he starts up IE* and opens the file--and it opens in the default MS viewing software. And for some reason the Dutch Guy lets out this "silent" maniac laughter (it wasn't silent because it was clear audiable but it wasn't loud either...) and we're all like "okay... this guy's not right"...

He then goes on talking about the way you go from binary to hexonary to unicode. So he types in the hexonary and presses a couple of keys and comes up with this Arabic character. So he says "so there it is, an arábic charater... or is it arabíc? Well, whatever... here, I'll enlarge it for your viewing pleasure" and we just started laughing. You can't believe the joy we got from looking at that character...

Later on in the lecture someone asks what the difference between Unix and Linux is. So the Dutch Guy starts explaining how Unix was the OS that was used back in the 70's and how it's still used today with servers and that Linux is just a PC version of Unix. So then he concludes "so Unix and Linux are OS's that professionals use. Windows and Mac OS are OS's that grandmas and... students use." Yeah, that's right.

*For your viewing pleasure, use Firefox instead of IE. You won't regret it. Click on the banner on the top of The Black Star.

Een dag met de Dutch

So today's been a good day. Why's that? I had the Dutch Guy. I can see that this is going to be by far my favourite class. Although it's starting to get a bit harder, I think the amusement will keep me well entertained.

First of all I'll start by saying that the most important lecture of all time (the one with the old guy telling us all about the history of computing) was very interesting... well worth the time. So the Dutch Guy was right on something. Guess what. He showed up to that lecture and sat with us to listen to Dr. Randall. (So you see, it was this week, not next week as he first thought).

So we're talking about a bit more of history during class, and then we come to this bloke, Kay. And the Dutch Guy tells us that he pioneered "opiate-oriented programming" and I'm like "eh? what? what the hell!?" and he keeps on saying it and I'm getting all confused (I don't think I was the only one) and then finally this slide comes up that says "object-oriented programming." For a minute there I thought that computers and drugs were more closely knit than I first thought... and that the technology for drugs was invented here in the UK and not in Colombia as I first thought...

So this Kay man, the Dutch Guy tells us he's very interesting. And he also told us that they used to be collegues back in the day when they both worked at the HP Labs. He then adds "... I knew him, but he didn't know me..." and we all just started laughing. So Dutch. But that's not it, when we come to his profile, he goes on to show us that he (Kay) did work at the HP Labs and then he says "so there it is, he worked at the HP Labs until... well, until he got fired" and then we started to laugh again. So bastard. You just had to be there.

We also talked about this technological advance (back in the 70's) that caused "the blood to go out of your hand"... dodgy, eh? Not as dodgy as before the lecture started when he started to fool around with the lights... and he seemed to enjoy himself. It wa like a little kid with... well, lights.

The Dutch Guy rocks, I can't wait until class tomorrow. Oh, and tomorrow he'll tell us more about the upcoming practical (the Linux practical that will take three weeks)... I wonder if he'll tell us "Linux is software... like Powerpoint..."

Randoms

-So I went out to get some stuff in the local, and as I'm passing the uni sports complex (fitness centre... gym... whatever, I don't know what it's called) there's this lot of guys who're standing outside the gym/sports complex/fitness centre all tired and sweaty (and it was cold) and what are they doing? They're smoking.

What's the point in that? You go the the gym/sports complex/fitness centre in order to be in shape and healthy, and these guys decide to smoke right after their workout. I bet that as soon as they got home they cracked open a beer and got a bowl of crisps...

-Ercole emailed me an article from Reuters (you know, though the "send this link to some lifeless fuck" feature) and it talked about this weird-ass crazy thing Chavez was doing or planning to do (no kidding), and I decide to reply his email. So I click on "reply" in Gmail and I was going to put "wtf!?", but then I decided I would really stress it out. So I actually write it out, in caps and a letter per line and send it. As soon as it's sent I notice that I actually sent that email to Reuters and not to Ercole... shit. When Reuters check to see what people have to say about its service or something they'll see a particular email:

WHAT
THE
FUCK
!!!
???

X and Y

I would just like to say something about my previous post. I didn't hit the blind guy on purpose, I ran into him. As hard as that's to believe, that's actually what happened. But remember, I'm partially blind too... and colour blind... but yeah, it wasn't the best of things. And I'll say it once again: I didn't do it on purpose, I'm not that bastard...

So today has been sort of a mixed day. I've got a cold (Fresher's Flu, apparently) and I got drunk last night (I know how stupid that is... I've been preaching about it for weeks, but Mondays are my nights, I don't stay sober on Mondays) and because of that I was late to my first lecture (I woke up at 10 sharp and managed to make it into the lecture room, sitting down and all, in 7 mins... applause please). Then I went on to be late to my second lecture (right after the first) because I went to to wrong building (my bloodstream still had alcohol, I guess) and as if to cap it up, it's been a shit day, raining constantly and brutally cold. So right now I'm feeling awful and looking like shit (in the words of my flatmate).

But there's good news. I told you earlier that I might've found my new Psychology class... well, I might've found a new Tiny but in a different sense. My Computer Environments (CE) professor is crazy as fuck. He's Dutch (therefore my mates and I call him "the Dutch Guy") and his English isn't what we'd call the best. So he says a lot of unusual things (hooray!). He's a bit eccentric too, so that just made my year. I'm going to have loads things to write on the blog, I hope!

Anyway, we have three weeks coming up of a Linux tutorial for CE. So what exactly does that mean? Well, this bloke in class asked the Dutch Guy (proper name, you see) what the Linux tutorial was all about, and his response was "Linux is an OS... like Windows..." and we were all like "wtf's that supposed to mean!?" we looked at each other and we started to laugh silently (well, relatively silently). Right now that's the phrase.

Also, we were learning about the history of computing, and he tells us that we're going to have a guest talk to us about the history of computing in another class next week (the guy's apparently 80ish, so he was there). He stresses that it'll be a very good lecture, and that we should really go. Seriously, it's imperative that we go because we might never again get such a historical overview... so he tells us to make sure we know when it's taking place next week because we better go, such a good lecture. And then there's a pause. "or maybe it's this week..." he says.

Back

So it seems that I'm getting back to being my old self. Why? Because odd things are happening to me again. As it turns out, it's me, not the place.

So what have I done now? Just wait for it. No, I didn't bump into a litter bin (although I've been mighty close to doing so many times) and no I didn't hit a post (although I was close to doing so many times)... but... wait for it... I crashed into a blind guy!

So it's not as bad as it sounds... it's not as if I ran towards him and tackled him or anything, I just happened to be talking to someone while I was walking (a normal practice amongst students) and then when I see there's this guy with this long baton moving it from side to side. So I say to myself "either this guy's taking the piss or he's blind... but we're in the UK, so he can't be taking the piss... oh shit!" and I hit him. I apologized, but everyone seemed to think I did it on purpose... why in the bloody hell would I bump into a blind guy on purpose, just to write it on the blog? I'm not that sad.

Well, I apolgized and so did he (English...), and well, he just kept on... and so did I, only that with loads of people staring at me dissaprovingly. Fuck me.

XXXXXL

So what's up with fat guys wearing huge shirts? Isn't it enough that they have to buy shirts that are larger to everyone else's, but they also buy the biggest one they can find. Maybe they think it makes them look thinner, but I've got news for you guys: it doesn't make you look less fat, if anything, they make you look like Jabba the Hut.

Anyway, today I saw a huge guy with an even bigger shirt. Thought I'd post this to see what answers I get.