Surfing

Wasting time cos I'd rather not be working...
VW Camper getting air!
Martial Arts - Monkey Stylie!
Hamster Kung Fu Ad!

Three out of Four

Made it out on Friday...weird night, bit of a disaster all-round but hey! :-s

E-business completed yesterday! Woohoo!! Now just WiMAX on trains. Does this never end??! Well I took yesterday off work (after 2 hours' sleep), though didn't really rest - ended up spending it trying to clear things off the Kung Fu to-do list. Not really helped by the Uni deciding on Thursday to close one of our Fitness Studio training venue so that ECS can build a clean room inside it! We're waging war on that one and involving at least the University papers if not the local ones too! It wouldn't be a problem but they're not intending to relocate our training to anywhere suitable.

• Dave forwarded me an interesting link with an alternative whale story...
• What a crazy-big (contrbass) saxophone!
  

Deadlines and Revelations

Yuk. IT Pro was Tuesday afternoon, Group Design Project was today and Ebusiness was supposed to be tomorrow...then they gave us an extension to Monday which is a massively bad idea as we're all shattered from too much work so can't work without pressure and are supposed to be going out tomorrow night! Grrr.

On the plus side we did have a few revelations this week...

• Si had feelings of "consternation" over the implementation of our project! Bless him he's a worrier...
• Semicolons rule (me)
• So do commas apparently (Si)
• As do huge blocks of unformatted text (Martin)
• And especially autocracies (Joe)
• Alledgedy (Si) rooms in this house were allocated on the basis that levels of homosexuality increase with the further back and up in the house you go, though Graham gets the dubious privilege of being nearest the back entrance...
• Martin still looked great in the pink underwear photos one year on! Rob decided it was necessary to include this photo in the latest Kung Fu email to inspire people to come on the holiday!!
  

Devvo - the real state of the UK?

So is this real or what??! Probably contrived but even so a worrying reflection on our country!

Katie's French Birthday!

Finally there is something interesting to write about! Having made it through probably the dullest week at uni so far - spent almost exclusively sitting in front of a computer - I made it out dressed stripey and in a berret! A French theme for Katie's Birthday - a trip to Paris - check us out outside the Eiffel Tower! Unfortunately my beret blew away before we even made it to the ferry - check the pic of it flying- but hey the cold head was worth it! Well you gotta treat yourself...

Quality effort by Katie and team getting the whole costumes thing sorted! Didn't we look stunning??! About time time we got some credit for that! Thank you so much to Nick for the lovely comment written on the back of my T-Shirt - "je m'appelle Ian et j'adore la bite". We were all in agreement that the best thing about being French for the night is that you can act like a complete c**k, but its ok because everyone is expecting it anyway!

Notable moments of the night:

• Baguette stroking...
  
• Attempting to make double-deep-throat two baguettes!
• General baguette-throwing arguments caused with Fliss and later Pidge almost starting a fight with a random after missing me with a soggy piece of baguette I'd managed to land in his beer! Maturity...
  
• Alice treating Pidge to, well, her!
  

Other stuff:

• Katie says Nick intends to get me my second brown sash by June! Scary thought - a lot of work involved for that one, but would be wicked to get!
• Got a bit further on with Mum's reflexology website today - it's looking almost professional now! A task to finish after exams.
• First Lost of the New Year today! It's good to be back!!
  
• Watched a weird, random, worrying film today - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Can't think what to say - I'm still mulling that one over.
• Played the piano today - need to practice more often.
• Was told by some random dude at ECS about a student who's made over $1 million selling pixels on a webpage! Genius!
  

Menzies is Mingis and Censorship

Well there we go - the one bit of horizon-expanding knowledge I have acquired today! A BBC news article on Sir Menzies Campbell states that Menzies should actually be spelt with a 'yogh' and hence rhymes with "thing is". Madness! A great little poem and audio supplied by John Menzies (Mingis with a soft 'g' like singer) explains all!

Second interesting insight of the day - apparently the UK Government is censoring against the truth...it has banned a poster which links the beer it is advertising to "sexual or social success". I'm sure I've seen worse posters than this! However, earlier this year a study was done which virtually proves this is the case. A study which proposes a formula no less! Now how could that ever be wrong??! Check it out!
Key:
An = number of units of alcohol consumed
S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
L = luminance of 'person of interest' (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
d = distance from 'person of interest' (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

And how it works...! (Striaght from the BBC News article)
A formula rating of less than one means no effect. Between one and 50 the person you would normally find unattractive appears less "visually offensive". Non-appealing people become suddenly attractive between 51 and 100. At more than 100, someone not considered attractive looks like a super model.

Snowboarding and Airhockey

Having hit the harsh reality of work and the UK again with the onslaught of three deadlines and the airy fairy subject of IT Profession to contend with, I'm going to allow myself a little escapism this morning back to the snowboarding of last week!

All-in-all I definitely didn't fit enough snowboarding in - but I definitely had enough to realise its so much better than skiing! Well once you've got the confidence to lean downhill enough anyway! 4 hours of teaching and 7 hours of practicing later and I think I've got this nut cracked - linking up some lovely toeside and heelside manoevers quite quickly by the last day! First day at Sundance there were just two of us in a group, being taught by Sarah - aged 20 from Orem - a wee babbie! We both progressed really quickly apparently and I was feeling condfident by the end, naturally managing to screw up my final decent of the day as I got over zealous! The second day was a personal lesson from Jamie (I think), a guy from Orem this time. He got my holding my coat whilst going down to stop the whole swimming effect which everyone else seemed to be doing! Definitely helped the whole stance thing though and I made my turns link up really well! The final day on the tutorial slopes at Snowbird improved my technique massively - whilst also trying to pose for the camera and teach Dad a few skiing tips - he decided he needed to get a bit of practice in before going back to lessons this year! Unfortunately pics are only from the final day - so no impressive slopes - just impressive edges!!

And then there was the Airhockey - my other vice during the holidays and a great source of entertainment when we had people over to visit. Check out the concentration on our faces - winning is Everything!!

Viva Las Vegas New Year!!

So a trip to Vegas for New Year - my genius plan hatched back in September...and after quite some weeks of nagging Dad booked us up in a hotel on Freemont Street - the heart of old Vegas and the waving cowboy! Here's us pictured infront of it...and here's the cowboy - the American lady I asked to take the photo obviously didn't quite understand what a cowboy was when I asked her to include him in the photo!

So after Mum, Dad and me sharing the lengthy driving to get there...and Tris taking photos of the roadsigns to show just how far we still had to go (about 430 miles in total)...about 6 or 7 hours after leaving Provo we finally made it - though we had stopped off in St Geroge en route for a "wander around" - because as she said in the car, mum specifically wanted to wander around, and did not need to find a loo! The story changed pretty quickly as soon as we got out of the car though - so the wander around developed rapidly into a march - this is my rifle this is my gun...!

Having made it though we took a good look around the Freemont Street Experience - oh the cheesy names - which had a very expensive roof with TV of what was going on on the street - check the pic for a better understanding...and then we headed directly for one of Vegas' many eat-all-you-can buffets! This buffet was in the old station - now called Grand Central or something. Whatever the name - what it did have was a fantastic seafood buffet, located in what must have been the platform area originally - very grand! I got my money's worth eating huge amounts of crab, shrimp, swordfish, octopus (from the water) and sausage and beef (from the grass)!

A much needed stroll to the Strip was needed after this to make us (or at least me) feel better about our gluttony!

to be continued...once I've done some work!