I seal this circle

Apart from evicting a pathological liar, life plods on.

I'm still temping in a call centre, being paid (tho barely!) to read the prices of Sky Broadband out loud. Interviews are happening - few and far between - but they're there.

Had one last week in a small educational games company that I would be perfectly suited to and firmly believe I have all the skills and talents they're looking for. If I don't, I can learn in the next month or two before they actually need someone. Plus did I mention the guy who invited me for the interview was very dashing and is someone I've always admired. Oh, and Dick Britton was the best LRP event I've ever been to.

(Okay, the last paragraph aimed to be mildy humourous, but it really DID look like a cool place to work and Dick Britton really WAS the best LRP event.)

Only one person from my course has got a decent job so far and he's had to move to London. All rather disheartening but I'm determined to get there.

Away from work and ex-housemates things are going well and I'm generally having fun. I must remember to post here more often - only came back today 'cause I'm prevaricating before having to unblock a thoroughly unpleasant toilet.

I haven't been on LJ for a while, but since I'm passing through here's a fun and thrilling update for yous.

I'm still temping in a call centre, which isn't great, but I have a few more interviews lined up. One for an ASP web developer job and another as an IT Consultant for Cardiff Council. I haven't done huge amounts of ASP but I'm sure I can pick things up quickly enough.

Jo's job at the uni finished a week ago but her agency rang her a day or two later and she started work in a crappy call centre. The same one as me, infact. So far we've had different shifts and days off, but it's cool to see her in the days. Her PGCE is going well and she gets to start her teaching hours soon, provided the temp place stop screwing her around over the time off she needs for it.

I'm going to start looking into a masters/PhD/Something as a backup plan in case I don't find a real job in the next few months. If nobody'll pay me to do what I want to do, then I'd love to delve deeper into Artificial Intelligence instead. I don't mind working in dead-end jobs so long as there's a goal at the end of it that's more than just getting me a regular supply of chocolate.

But more important than all of that - what do I wear to Bogiez for halloween this year? Last time I just wore a suit and painted myself red (the temporary red dye has *almost* washed out of my hair from then - I'm starting to suspect I picked up the wrong bottle...)

I'll finish with a link - http://upsidedowndogs.com/.

Ah, yes, LJ. I remember this.

Job: No luck finding any grown-up work that actually uses my degree, so I'm falling back on the 'student-graduates-to-call-centre' cliche. It's just a few weeks temping at 118 while I carry on looking for something decent, so apart from it being a pain in the ass to travel to it shouldn't be totally evil.

Larp: Jo seems keener to go to the Dragon event than I am. I'd rather spend my money on a proper event rather than a parliament, but we'll probably be there time permitting. Hope to take her to monster some events in Candleston too. I'm hoping I can make Eos at the end of the month, but I'll be working some weekends so I'm not sure I'll have the time free.

Everything else: Seems to be going well, tho slowly. Not having uni or work stretches the days out somewhat. Sure, I could go and do something productive with my time, but where's the fun in that? :)

One of my Flash games has been sponsored and is now released - Word Search 50 - catchy name, eh? 50 levels of hot word searching action! Level 7 is called "factions" plus there's a "Josh Whedon" level. Yeah, well, have YOU tried to come up with 50 groups of themed words in 10 mins without resorting to swearing or binary?

But apart from trinkets like that, which has paid for my Gathering at least, I'm still unemployed.


So. Do I take an fun job (coding for a small PBM game business that's starting a very interesting new project) for basically minimum wage, or keep trying for something more grown-up? They originally wanted to tie me there for 3 months before I could hand in notice, but after walking away from that they are make some better offers.

I had an interview Thursday with a cool looking web development place and hope to hear back Monday but there's very little time to decide about the games job.

Another day, another interview.

This one was for a cool little company running from the front 2 rooms of someone's house. They moderate PBeM games and have a few nice new projects coming up which would be awesome to be part of. It's yet another wait and see since I'm not sure if I have the coding skills they need. The money's low but it'd be a great place to work.

Interview was at 2, so I've been killing time in Cardiff since. Watched Mummy 3, which is fun pulp nonsense and, like the last two, makes me want to GM a game. Now I'm sitting in an internet cafe waiting for 8pm. Hence the rarity of an LJ update.

Thanks to CJ and others for info on getting my data back from my irritating PC - it worked, tho my sister had to look away as I started fiddling around inside her machine without much of a clue what I was looking for - when in comes to computing I'm a psychiatrist not a surgeon.

Here's one of the Flash games I've been playing with - PipeTwister. Any feedback?

Starting to get into Larp mode for the Gathering now. Jo, my GF, will be coming to her first event so if everyone can pretend I'm actually really cool and stuff, that'd be appreciated :D

So there was a brief powercut today while I was using my PC, and now it freezes at mup.sys when trying to boot and just keeps rebooting from there. It won't start in safe mode or any other mode it offers for that matter.

Great.

Irritating at the best of times, but especially as I'm in the middle trying to get sponsorship for a couple of Flash games. The Internet suggests using the recovery console on the Windows disk, except I don't have one. (I dl'd Windows from the Microsoft student thingumy.)

Any suggestions on how to recover the data, folks of LJ land?

Well, I'm can't claim to be a student by ANY stretch of the imagination now, so I guess I've joined the ranks of the unemployed. Another batch of applications sent off yesterday, so time will tell.

May have to bite the bullet and start temping very shortly. I *really* didn't want to end up doing that, but needs must. I've been playing with Flash as a little hobby recently, so I'll be able to make a little side money from ads and sponsorship and the like, but sadly that's only gonna be enough for a couple of pints rather than an opulent palacial home.

Thanks for the congrats, folks.

A letter turned up this morning - the prize is just "BCS runner up student prize for software engineering", which gets me a certificate. So I've still no idea what it's for, but it's an extra line on the CV at least.

Had my degree results yesterday - I got me a first, so three years of work has paid off! Well, 2 and half years of doing sod all and 3 months of work anyway.

I was woken up this morning by a phonecall from the uni - someone asking if I'd had my results yet, what I thought about them, and stuff. In my mildly hungover, mind-fogged state I started to worry that there'd been a mistake and they'd sent the wrong letter.

But no, she told me I'd won a prize and would I be attending the prizegiving an hour before my graduation. I said I wasn't planning on attending graduation anyway, and then my battery died and the phone went dead. Which left me looking like an arrogant cock who just hung up on her. Hey ho.

No idea what the prize is for. Best hair on a software engineer? Contributions to Geek Hygiene? Most obscure references in a computer dissertation?


It was a huge gamble 3 years ago, me quitting work and moving back from Devon and everything else. But it paid off. Now I have to make sure I put it to good use - I refuse to end up in a generic office job again. My CV is floating round a few places and now I have the result I can whore myself out easier.

Anyone want to hire a kick-ass software engineer?

So. The GEF. (A larp event last weekend, for the more normal amongst my audience.)

Overall, I enjoyed it. I was unsure about going, but came away glad I'd been. Running the sideshow stuff was mostly fun - hard when there was only me doing the games and Jenny selling sweets for real cash, but people were great about helping out on the Sunday. It also kept me out of the rain unlike a lot of the bedraggled sports game refs.

Felt like I missed the entire weekends worth of plot, though, which was a shame as there was plenty of ritual stuff floating around and quite a few things I would have liked to stick my nose into. I managed to run round and get most of the High Ritualist stuff sorted at least, since that affects other people too. I'll catch up at the Moot I hope.

Was cool seeing a lot of people ooc, although the Thursday is a bit of a blur...I only called in for a pint or two, but the mead caught my eye and it all went downhill from there. My XKCD tshirt got me plenty of hugs and alcohol, which may have contributed. Passing Pentagrams ftw.

Sorry to the people I was grouchy at (OOC, that is. If I was grouchy IC I'm sure you deserved it :) ) I know I fell into my bad habbit of talking over other people at times too. I was tired and my mind was kinda frazzled by small children, plastic toys, and the minor detail of what the hell I do with my life now uni's over. I should be back on form by the moot, and if not, well, just tell me to sod off.

So.

Anyone want to hire a Software Engineer?

Three years ago I quit work and gambled on going back to uni. I've had a lot of fun, and it turns out I'm actually pretty good at this computer stuff, but my planning never really extended to what I do next.

I had my last exam Monday morning, followed by drunken hijinxs for the rest of the day and night, Tuesday to recover. Was surprisingly un-hungover - the cocktails must have been mostly water.

I should get a 2:1, hopefully a first, but it depends on the exam results. Most of it came down to essay style answers and it's hard to judge how they went.

Now there's a real world looming over me again...wonder what to do next? I get to hide from it for a while at GEF, but next week? Who knows.

Vague ideas include:
Jumping on a cheap flight to Europe and pissing about in hostels for a month or two.
Random work til I officially graduate, then apply for more teaching English jobs in Japan.
Build a moon base.
Go on to masters/phd/whatever, hopefully in AI.
Get a job. Somewhere. Doing something.

I don't want to stay in this area much longer, but that all comes down to what I do next.

Maybe I'll just make a chart with all the options on and roll some percentiles...

Gave in my final piece of coursework yesterday - 4100 words on the Ariane 5 unmanned rocket disaster, which I started at around midnight and handed in at 3.

(Was actually kinda interesting. A component that measured the speed and direction of the rocket reused a couple of lines of code from the Ariane 4, but nobody noticed that the Ariane 5 went faster so 36.7 seconds after launch it tried to cram a 64 bit number into 16 bit integer, got confused and sent an error message. The onboard computer parsed the error message as a direction change, tried to correct its course, which led to a genuine change of direction, and...boom. Big boom. Destroyed $500 million (uninsured) research satellites setting that mission back 4 years and, since this was the Ariane 5's maiden flight, cost the company a fair bit in extra research and PR and all that. That bit was fun. Writing about the risk and hazard assessments and corporate standards and stuff...less so.)

Anyway. All done, just 4 exams through May and I'm finished with my degree. I've been getting decent marks for coursework, so if I can get my act together and actually do some revision I should get a decent grade. Annoyingly, two of the exams sandwich the Eos event - one finished 5pm on the friday and the other starts 9am Monday. I'm tempted to bind my notes into an IC book and go revise IC, but that's probably a daft idea. And I never do anything daft...

The fact that there is nothing new to be taught on my course is kinda a big deal for me. I quit work 3 years ago to come do this thing, and now the real world is just around the corner, lurking in a dark alleyway and waiting to mug me. I'm not really sure where those 3 years went, but I'm not sure where the 30 before that went either, so I suppose it's par of the course and probably shows I should pay more attention.

My first year was novelty and having fun, that summer was filled with Jo and Ponty Park.

Second year and summer was Dublin and Sarah.

This year has been actually working on the course and the summer? well, that's where it falls down. No idea. Prob work in this area, and save like a bitch so I can sod off somewhere more interesting and do a Masters.

Just want to make sure I don't end up in a deadend job somewhere - it turns out I'm pretty good at programing, somewhat to my surprise, so I have to make sure I use my powers for good, not evil.

Anyway wanna hire me? :D

Managed to print my project as the computer labs were kicking out yesterday. Reading through it after a brief detour to the pub I found typos or misplaced illustration labels on over 40 pages. Great. After faff and network problems and other expected last minute hastles it was final fixed, bound, and handed in.

I included a CD with the sourcecode for my predator/prey AI simulation, but forgot to rename the folder to something a bit more professional than "skynet". My favourite line from the whole report is "Carrots cannot move or be intelligent."

So. Done. I have 2 more courseworks, 4 exams, and my studentdom at Glamorgan is over. Three years have vanished. I may have been kidnapped by aliens and have had my mind wiped repeatedly - its the only thing that makes sense.

It was a big gamble for me, three years ago, giving up work and going back to edjumacation, but I'm glad I did it. Not sure the qualification will be worth the time spent getting it, but that's almost secondary - it was great hiding from the real world and being all studenty.

I plan to make the most of the 2 months of it I have left. Well, I would if it wasn't for the exams. urg.

I've *nearly* finished my AI project, which is kinda lucky as it's due in tomorrow and I'm about due some sleep. I'm repeating myself hideously throughout, but there's only so many ways you can say "look, in situation 263, yet again the fox learns to hunt the rabbit."

Very tempted to start my conclusion with "This was a triumph. I'm making a note here, huge success."

Sadly, finishing the project isn't the end of the coursework - have a Perl CGI SQL something to hand in this afternoon, a fiddly UML coursework for Monday, then an essay on exactly why Arianne V exploded due the week after that. Which'll give me a massive week off before the exams start.

Still, I can't complain at all - I've only have to worry about deadlines a couple of times over the last there years of this degree. It's SO much nicer than, you know, working for a living.

Hmm. It's 5:40 am Saturday into Sunday and I'm up working on my final year project that's due to be handed in on Wednesday.

Something tells me I may need to work on my time management skills... ^_^

Well, buggeration.

I didn't get the job in Japan. I've been expecting the rejection letter for a while now, sicne keeping up with things on line seemed to mean they sent them out in accept-alternative-loser order.

I'm disappointed. Not torn apart, not pulling my hair out by the roots with much wailing and gnashing on teeth or anything, but it's something I'd really wanted to do.

Well, I have a plan B!

Unfortunately, it's just "come up with a plan C and do that instead" but it's a start.

I mentioned some ideas in my last post, but I'm also looking into doing a masters in Artificial Intelligence (so I can make new friends. Ho-HO!). Two unis seem most promising -Edinburough and Exeter. Both unis have decent games societies and a circus society, so with the essentials out the way I'll have to look into the courses themselves. It depends if I want to go back to Exeter where I know a lot of people already, or head off somewhere new.

Right now I'm thinking I want new and different, but no rush to decide.


First things first, though. Get this bloody coursework finished so I actually pass the degree which I'll need to do anything else anyway.

Eep! People across the globe are starting to get their JET results. A few who interviewed in London around the same time as me have already heard, so I should be getting a letter in the next few days. It'll be the first time this academic year I've known what I'm doing once uni finishes.

Well, sorta. If I'm shortlisted then that practically guarantees a placement - need doctors notes and police checks and all that. If I'm on the alternatives list then, well, I'm even worse off than I am now in a way. When someone drops off the Shortlist, an Alternative steps up to the plate so they need to go through the whole rigmarole of getting checks etc but...not knowing still. Someone got their Upgrade on August 31 last year, which is only a couple of days short of leaving, so...yeah. That'd be a weird place to be in.

If get rejected it'll be disapointing, obviously, but at least I can start looking into what happens next. There are other ways to get a teaching job in Japan, so I'd be looking into private tuition companies. I might go back to Exeter, or just up and try somewhere new. Maybe look at getting to New Zealand.



In other news (well, okay, in other trivia. Nowt newsworthy going on at the minute) it's been another slow day on the project. At least I'll get out of the house tomorrow - have to get to uni to grab some files from my student drive. On top of the final year project there's 3 other works all due in in April.

It's been pointed out to me that it's a while since I posted. Not since that movie quotes thingy way back when, infact (Which everyone got right, unsuprisingly. Just see the comments there for answers if curious.) So here I am. Ya miss me?

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There's a lot of coursework going on right now. I'm ALOMST on top of things - deadlines are not til after Easter, but there's a LOT due in then so I'm trying to be all organised-like and do the little 'uns so I can focus on my project over the hols. Yay me! It's nice to be writing something like this that doesn't need the be fully referenced. It dozent evan nead 2 b spellt propurlee, witch iz nys.

Look! Look at me! I'm quoting Wikipedia! "Cheapass Games operates on the philosophy that most game owners have plenty of dice, counters, play money, etc., so there is no need to bundle all of these components with every game that requires them."

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I tried WoW, got bored very quickly and didn't bother playing once the pre-paid month had finished. City of Villains will stay my go-to game, but I'll only renew the account when I'm REALLY bored. Perhaps this upcoming MMORPG will be better, but somehow I have my doubts... ^_^

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I've been watching a lot of DVDs lately and realise I haven't seen a lot of classics. I don't but many DVDs, and when I do it tends to be American 22 TV shows, a season at a time. Anything films you lot'd recommend? New, old, obscure, weird, mainstream blockbuster, whatever. Feel free to lend me the DVDs too. :D

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It's nice to have the house to myself again. I'm gradually getting the place tidy - the kitchen is almost hygenic enough to cook in now. Unbelievable as it sounds, I like it when things are clean and neat and organised. I just hate cleaning, neatening and organising so I take the path of least resistance...

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As I'm sat here, ill and bored on a Friday night, have a meme quiz thingy.

Like the music one, here are 15 quotes from some of my favourite films. Not my TOP 15 films, I've no idea how people can categorise that precisely, just 15 I like.

Most should be pretty easy, but can ya name them all?

WITHOUT USING GOOGLE (or other search engine or, you know, cheating.)

1: I'm not trying to change your mind. It's just that... we're talking about somebody's life here. We can't decide it in five minutes. Supposing we're wrong?

2: We're running short on skin. We'll need to harvest more lesbians.

3: a-Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
b-What's has that got to do with it?
a-Back off, man. I'm a scientist.

4: I notice your group has no wizard.

5: You expect me to believe that scantily clad, in the arms of another man, in the middle of the night, inside an elephant you were rehearsing?

6: It's company policy never to imply ownership in the event of a dildo.

7: a-I'm merely a humble butler.
b-What exactly do you do?
a-I buttle, sir.

8: Lame-ass politician rants about gun control, he cries...Switch to this channel with this heavy metal music, he shuts up.

9: Nine companions. So be it. You shall be the fellowship of the ring.
(What? There's no point picking a harder quote - I know my audience, it wouldn't help!)

10: Now that you've got the goldmine, I'm sure you'll be a swell gold digger.

11: Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z'nourrwringmm.

12: Have you ever retired a human by mistake?

13: a-Your boss is quite a card player, Mr. Kelly; how does he do it?
b-He cheats.

14: Twin ceramic rotor drives on each wheel! And these look like computer controlled anti-lock brakes! Wow, 200 horses at 12,000 rpm!

15: For my will is as strong as yours, my kingdom as great... Damn. I can never remember that line.

Everyone else is posting links to the new Indiana Jones trailer, so I don't want to be left out!

But since you have IJatKotCS anyway, try these:

Forbidden Kingdom - Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Haven't heard much about it, but looks like it could be fun.

Desepo Naughty Girls - Korean film based on a webcomic. I've only seen the first episode or two of the TV series, which was weirdly fun. And no, it's not pron.

The Whisperer in Darkness - Second film from the H P Lovecraft Historical Society.