Archive for the 'Band' Category

So, yesterday, my computer stopped posting. It was showing the same symptoms as when I’d been overclocking it, and I’d bumped the FSB up without bringing the CPU voltage up with it - there was no response from the screen and the drives weren’t spinning up, just the old system beep. So, I reset the CMOS as one does in such a situation, but it wasn’t having any of it.

After giving up and leaving it unplugged, I went off to Chilton to play at the small festival they had there, with Leila, Alex and Farrar. We had a good time, and we salute the 20 or so brave souls who actually stood outside and watched, despite the gale force winds and blisteringly cold temperatures.

After that, we took advantage of our free drinks, and I drained the pub’s supply of Guinness. Then, Crash Records talked to us about recording a couple of tracks. The problem is we really do need to change our name to something that’s going to be more easily memorable, and stand out. Take for example our myspace - ‘grkloveyou’. That’s not memorable. Annoyingly I just bought the domain to go with that, but never mind. Any suggestions?

So, I got home and got drunk with my dad, and watched Lucky Number Slevin, which I didn’t think was gonna be that good, but really surprised me - it was a brilliant film.

Anyway, back to the post title - I plugged my computer in, hoping it might work after having some time to think about what it was doing, and flipped the switch on the power supply. Bang! And the PSU is fried!

I have a laptop thank god, but I won’t be online nearly as much as I was this term. God knows, I might even get some work done.

I’ve been incredibly neglectful to my blog in the past few weeks - in actual fact it’s been over a month since I wrote anything here, other than to whinge about spam bots. The more observant of you will doubtless have noticed that this post was written in the small hours of a Sunday morning, and I think once again I’ve managed to reset my body clock. Perhaps that, or I’m just going funny in the head. Either way, I’m awake and I don’t like it.

In the last 3 weeks I went on my summer university open day visits (unfortunately limited to 3 by my school), and I’ve changed my opinions on where I want to study quite a lot. Originally I had my heart set on Bristol, a city I consider my hometown, as I spent my first few months of life there, and whenever I’ve visited it, it’s always had a certain charm that other places don’t. Still, I wasn’t very impressed by the university - perhaps my standards had been set high by visiting Imperial the previous week, at which I felt quite at home. Cambridge wasn’t originally on my list, but a look around the city as well as a tour of the computer science department has put it up to my number 1 preference, albeit aiming quite high.

A bit later today I’ll be heading over to Farrar’s for a band practice, as Battle Of The Bands ‘06 will be taking place next Friday, and as usual we haven’t done anywhere near the amount of rehearsal that we should. Still, everything will be fine as usual. Tomorrow, Max and the rest of the Germans are arriving at school around 9am, so with any luck I’ll be able to skip Physics first thing and have a fairly easy day. The Germans will be heading into town to do some lame quiz, and I’m sure that I and Dodge will follow them there in our free periods.

It’s pretty silly really, the number of free periods people have. Some subjects now only have 1 coursework lesson a week, others none at all until next term. Unfortunately, the subjects I’m taking have every single lesson still. I’m rather tempted just to drop German now, as I won’t be carrying it on to A2 - I’m asking myself if it’s even really worth it as there’s only 2 weeks of term left. I envy Dodge in a way because on a Monday he only has 2 lessons in the afternoon, and he’s too poor to get a public bus into school for those. Instead he takes the usual school bus in the morning and bums around school for hours on end.

On Friday I met Caley’s friend Hali, who is pretty cool, and one of the few openly gay people (who aren’t claiming to be for the sake of attention) I’ve ever met. I ended up buying her a Nintendo DS Lite in a rare moment of generosity, and then came home before going out with Lloyd, Jim and Robyn. We had fun, beer and golden syrup cake.

In hindsight, I have an unhealthy amount of meaningless stock photography on this page. Oh well, it looks nice.

It’s been a funny old week, I can certainly say that. I’m glad for having a week off from exams for half term - despite not having all that many of them, the exams certainly take a lot out of me. Most times I’ll come home after an exam feeling completely worn out, I think usually because I try so hard to concentrate (albeit often to no avail).

On the up side I’m pleased to say I got a pay rise last Saturday, along with the opportunity to work every day this half term - although today I took the day off with the intention of visiting my grandparents. Still, my mother saw the state of me this morning and said I was too ill to go and see them. At the moment I would imagine my 80 year old grandfather’s immune system is better than mine - I think I actively welcome viruses to pillage my cells or something. So instead, I spent the day in bed (with Caley) watching Black Books from under my duvet, and felt a whole lot better for it.

On Wednesday my parents received a letter from my Computing teacher, Dr. Bond, stating that he was disappointed in my failure to attend an apparently mandatory revision session last week. It seems that I am not capable of revising successfully on my own a subject which I know pretty damned well through personal interest and experience. Although I’m unlikely to be stating my feelings to him, I’m insulted that he does not feel I can get on top of the material without him to hold my hand, having been joint second score in the year (second to Chris, who breathes C++) in the last assessment.

Leila and Alex also wrote a new song - a happy one! So, in true GRK style I’ve been listening to it non-stop in the hope of learning it properly, and it has become firmly lodged in my head. Listen to it or I’ll tell your mums.

Only 50 days until Amsterdam!