Only one single lamp do show me this way.

11:43am: I'm getting a "DNS query failed" error when I try to connect to IRC. It is rather lame. I assume that's a problem on my end, not a server issue?

10:11pm: Yes, it's a bloody meme.
I stole this from kbkarma because it seemed kind of interesting.

If you saw ME in a police car, what would you think I got arrested for? Answer me, then if you want, post to your own journal and see how many crimes you get accused of.

10:22pm: Thingy
Memetic thing, yoinked shamelessly from Starpants:

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next few sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

So it makes me very happy that I wasn't sitting reading a textbook or something when I saw that. I have a bookshelf thing in front/above where I am sitting so it's a little unclear as to which is closest but I am going with The Witches of Chiswick by Robert Rankin. My English-French dictionary is actually closer, but that would be no fun.

"I could have simply refused to answer the door."
"But you didn't."
"You're my best friend, Will. You're a bit of a weirdo, but I like you. I don't want to see you get into trouble, let alone get killed."
"But I don't understand any of it."

...and neither do I. It has been a long time since I read this one, and Rankin plots tend to be somewhat off-the-wall to start with! I need to read it again soon, but I have kind of a pile at the moment, as I am still catching up on the books I got in the states, and I bought the new Pratchett also.

3:12pm: Waiter Rant
I thought that this was quite a touching sentiment: (link)

That is all. I am getting tea now.

3:44pm: For the legions of one of you actually following my sleep schedule, I got to bed a little while after 9 PM last night. I feel pretty okay today. Maybe a slight touch of sleepy around the edges, but I'm pretty alert and awake, very good by my own recent standards.

8:53am: Eyes do not function
I think that between going to bed later than is good, not being able to sleep, and waking up a lot, I got around three or four hours' sleep or so last night. All my sleeping hard work at the weekend is ruined!

It's gonna be a long day.

7:57pm: That's my flight to California booked.

4:54pm: Guh

12:44pm: Man made "God" in the likeness of his sickness.
It should be the main aim of the wise to rid humankind
of the insolence of self-sacrifice, of the calamity of chastity.
Faith must be slain by certainty; and chastity, by ecstasy!

Aarni are awesome.

In other news, 2 down, 4 to go.

12:27am: All sexy ladies to send me pictures of their boobies and butts, please. I'll make puppy dog eyes at ya until you do!

1:02pm: Regarding the controversy surrounding the Large Hadron Collider:

Guys the real reason people are actually worked up about this is Dan Brown. Seriously. The book "Angels and Demons". I don't advocate reading it or anything, by the way. But it involves CERN, the LHC, and an antiparticle bomb (which they don't have the ability to actually make, by the way). That's all people need to put it firmly in the BAD mental category, along with other ill-understood bugbears like global warming and communists.

Personally I feel that this experiment should be allowed to proceed. The potential for a deeper understanding of the fundamentals our universe is incredible. Honestly, I feel it's worth the risk, which I'm fairly confident has been grossly inflated by sensationalist reports anyhow. If you check out some of the less dry descriptions of the chances of such a disaster, such as "like you winning the major prize on the lottery 3 weeks in succession" (Prof. Frank Close, acc. Wikipedia), then you'll see just how vanishingly small the chances are. I LIKE those odds.

Thoughts, anyone?

12:46am: The other day in lectures we learned that money CAN, indeed, buy happiness; the cost is about $1,000 per month and is available with a doctor's prescription. Price is expected to come down as the patent's expiry causes generics to saturate the market.

10:13pm: ( Exams &c. )

2:47am: I resolve to eat more pies.

I saw a stage version of Sweeney Todd last night and ate a mystery pie containing probably-meat and unknown sauce and it was awesome.

7:36pm: Home. Food good, weather bad. Snooker, hills.

Yiss.

2:03am: Tá Starrah agam!

Tá áthas orm!

5:33pm: 104; 16; 25.

:(

1:26am: I am home!

6:51pm: They serve beer by the liter in Budapest.

11:49pm: Prague is pretty damn awesome. It's cheap (except for in the tourist trap parts of town), the beer is good, and the city is fucking beautiful. I am having all kinds of fun.

Tomorrow evening I take the night train to Kraków, to arrive just before 6AM the following morning. Because it saves on accomodation and gives an extra day in Praha, that is why. Wish me luck!

I can't belive that I have only been away for ten days; it already feels like it's been an eternity. I do really miss people though.

In other, even more deeply depressing news: I have the sniffles. :(

10:23pm: So, today I finally stumbled upon and bought a legitimate copy of Sleep's Dopesmoker. I am also in Amsterdam. How... appropriate.

Anyway I am having fun! Stayed up all night drinking the first night because we had nowhere to sleep, until I passed out by the side of a canal. Other things that we have done include renting bikes and terrorising pedestrians and motorised vehicles (I am a dodgy fucker visiting museums and such, getting utterly intoxicated, pretty much what you'd expect really. I'm having a great time! We move to Berlin tomorrow, we actually have a hostel booked this time though. Perhaps a wise move on our part...

1:39pm: Just an update.
Last night I had to go drinking with co-workers because one of my team is quitting today. It was pretty awkward, as I had feared it would be, but it wasn't too bad once we were all full of booze. One excellent aspect of the night, though, was that I didn't spend a cent-- people just kept buying me beer. I was kind of tempted to do the whole "Martina-- are you trying to get me drun'?" thing to my boss but luckily I thought better of it and just drank up. The fact that I hadn't eaten all day made drunky a fairly easy thing to achieve, which is why I was less together than usual on IRC last night. Fun times, indeed.

Dinner with Ciara tonight. Ought to be fun. Haven't seen her in a long time. Also last night Ellen told me that she was in hospital the last few days-- major anaemic attack, and her haemoglobin was at a serious deficit. She's okay now but it was a scary thing to learn! She has had it very much under control the last few years so this is surprising. I assume she stopped taking her tablets or something.

Now, show me your boobies.

10:38am: Wist
So, Starrah is gone. Already her absence leaves a void that brooks filling but lacks an adequate filler.

Shit one.

It was a fucking great week though.

It was chocolate day on Friday, though, and while I was too busy hiding from the sky and cooing at fluffy animals with Starling to actually go and do my job, the precious chocolate was left on my desk over the weekend. So now I am sitting here and eating a Snickers bar and drinking Earl Grey and wondering if the two hours of solid work I did this morning is enough for the whole day. I really miss Star and that's not going to change but right now I am oddly calm and content. I can't guarantee that I will remain so for any substantial period but it is lovely for now.

I think if I can work out how to trick her into getting on a plane to Ireland like right now, and Moosey also, for awesome++;, this might actually turn out to be a really good day.

4:44pm: Exams are over!

...and I have absolutely no desire to celebrate.

1:55pm: It is exam time now! Woo!

Go-go MATLAB.