minus zero

So much has happened since I last blogged - here are some of the highlights:

Chris visited for a week or so, which was lots of fun. We played what we thought was free pool then got charged 31.50EUR for the privilege, enjoyed ++cheap beer, saw Death Proof, climbed huge rock formations while laughing hysterically, and sunk into a waist-deep container of wet cement (note - this only happened to one of us, and it wasn't me).

A third flatmate moved in - one Philip Van Hoof, who's in Helsinki working on Tinymail. He's here for another couple of weeks, and after he's gone a second third flatmate is joining us for the next five months - a Californian by the name of John Solis.

I got my digital camera back from Chris, so I'm more likely to get some photos uploaded at some point. In the meantime, here are a few snaps:

Work itself is going really well - I've been learning a lot, enjoying the work, and am starting to really get my teeth into the project now. It's a lot of fun!

I bought a new camera at the weekend, a Praktica MTL 5 from eBay. I spent the weekend taking photos with Dad's LTL 3 and I realised how much more fun a Real Camera is than my Lumix digital camera. The Prakticas are by no means top of the range, but there's something satisfying about the clunkiness of the shutter release and fiddling with loading a film into the back.

I'm a bit late to the party, but Enter Shikari are fantastic - a fun blend of post-hardcore + trance that sounds like it's going to take them into orbit. And they've shunned major label interest to release their debut album themselves, a bold move indeed.

SUCS has organised a lightning talks session next Tuesday, and I've been coerced into giving a talk... I guess I ought to work out WTF I'm going to fill 10 minutes with now.

Swansea was blanketed in snow overnight, and the sight that greeted me when I peeped out from the curtains at 7:30 this morning prompted me to brave the cold to take some photos.

Walking across the crisp and unmolested snow in the almost deserted park was a nice way to start the day, rather than the drudgery of having to haul myself onto campus for lectures.

Click a thumbnail for the full-size view:

The whole gallery is here (generated by the Rather Good f-spot). Comments and critique are both welcome!

The SUCS beach party was a blast; I ended up staying all night. It was pretty cool to watch the sky get darker only to be replaced by light from the bonfire, and then watch the fire die out as the sun rose behind the clouds again. I'm sure there's some technical term for that contrast, but hey I'm a computer science student and as such not expected to know such things.

The best bits of the party are innumerable (uncountable? ;) ) but there were unfortunately a few things which did create a bit of a bad atmosphere. There were a couple of 3rd years (non-members, as it happens) who really got on everyone's nerves. Overall though, a fantastic evening.

Photos from the night: rollercow's, FireFury's, Arthur's, psycodom's, Steve's (with a few by me).

I'm back home in Trowbridge now - so far I've done next to nothing and it's been fantastic. I discovered a new rowing machine in the shed, so there's no excuse not to do some exercise now (damn!).

Oh, and I talked Mummy into cutting my hair for me:

Jen's home in just under 5 weeks! I can't wait to see her, we've been apart way too long.

I'm looking forward to the summer, we've got all kinds of cool stuff planned. :)

Update - That reminds me, I've uploaded our photos from Lisbon.