Megan + garden pond + bounding jumpyjumpyness = one hell of a mess
UPDATE: Hmm, her bedraggled state didn’t really come through in this shot. Later today she lay down on some wet paint. So she’s in something of a state currently.

Done. Phew. It could have been better, but it could have been worse too. There was one particularly awkward question, as well as a couple of silly mistakes, but I don’t think it went too badly. I now have a week and a half’s hiatus! Wheeeeeee. A couple of packages arrived for me this morning, so I’m off to indulge myself.

Grissom and I use the same multi-tool. Woo.

I’m so very, very nervous about tomorrow’s practical exam. I’ve just gone over the Physics A2 topics and there are a hell of a lot of equations in there. It’s also more complicated than the AS in terms of physical equipment, too. While I’d played around with resistors and LEDs at school, I’ve never plugged in a capacitor or examined magnetic fields using anything more complicated than iron filings. I just want the exam to be over.

I don’t like banks very much. I’m not a “I’m going to keep all my money under the mattress” loony, but I agree with the Radio 2 financial adviser who said that banks are the enemy and should be treated as such. Aside from the whole you-clearly-don’t-have-as-much-money-as-you-thought-you-did-so-we’re-going-to-charge-you businesswank, it’s the completely archaic systems of money transfer that gets me the most. Four days to clear a cheque? Four days? How stupid do you think I am? You put the two account numbers, both of which can be read automatically, into the computer, which then checks to see whether funds are available. If they are, money is transferred. If not, it isn’t. Exactly which part of this takes four days? Physically moving the cheque to the correct bank, I suppose. Because that’s necessary, I’m sure. Similarly money transfers via the internet. They can’t even use the paper-confuses-us excuse there, since it’s all electronic anyway. And don’t pretend the computers can’t take it, because if I use my debit card the money’s gone instantly. So there.

Who got me started? Who did it? Bad person! Ah yes, I remember now. It was this article, which says that the Office of Fair Trading has told banks to speed up money transfers to within one day. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. Sorry. Actually, I’m not. And the following is delightful news, too:

Later this year the OFT will investigate the amount of time it takes banks to clear cheques.

Consumer groups are hoping that the OFT will decide that the three to five days it takes to clear a cheque is too long.

“Cheques must not become the Cinderella of the bank payments system,” Ed Mayo, National Consumer Council chief executive said.

“A donkey could deliver cheques faster than banks can put money into customers’ accounts.”

It’s not often I agree with consumer groups, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. If I could cackle, I would.

I’ve just added a BlogMap to the blogroll - it’s right down at the bottom if you want to have a look. It’s quite an interesting idea that uses GPS coordinates to locate blogs, and displays them on a map so that you can see nearby bloggers. There aren’t very many around here, apparently…Closest is in Acocks Green (no apostrophe). The site uses Microsoft MapPoint instead of the wonderful Google Maps, so isn’t quite so versatile as the GeoBlogging system, for example. Also when I first added my site using GPS co-ordinates it located me in the centre of Yorkshire, which was chilly, and I had to email to get it set up correctly. Still, I like the concept. I imagine there’ll be people who wouldn’t want to put their GPS location on their blog, and I thought twice before realising I was heading down the well-worn path of privacy paranoia (don’t get me started.)

It’s entertaining to see Terry Wogan getting praised at Slashdot, of all places. I’m not so sure about the article being linked to, however…Surely a report on Eurovision and its associated voting tactics would be compiled by sociologists or psychologists rather than physicists?

Just looking at replacing my phone. I don’t need 500 texts per month any more, and, as ever, it’s cheaper to get a whole new package than attempt to change price plan. Orange and Vodafone have some decent plans (if anybody even thinks about suggesting O2 I will force them to read through my many many posts from last year detailing the reasons behind my dislike of said company), but I’m hoping that this page is wrong, or the deal isn’t so great after all:

I’m not sure whether I want to sign up for an 18 month contract…Given that I don’t even know what I’ll be doing this time in July, it may not be wise to change now.

Back in October, I planned to study for my 2 A-levels and be completely prepared by this May. It didn’t really work that way. With computing work, my lack of willpower and the newly found distractions of flickr, bloglines, eBay etc. (I’m not claiming these are valid excuses, just reasons), I haven’t been as diligent as I would have liked. I got through all the work, but revision has been lacking, to say the least. Pure 3 was my biggest worry as first time round it was my big spectacular failure, and I was hoping to walk out of the exam having found it reasonably easy. I didn’t, but it could have been worse.

At 0930 I was pretty much ready to give up on life and go live in a forested kennel. P3 was very, very hard, and to make it worse there were questions I knew I’d once understood, but couldn’t remember. About 20mins later I had a bit of a breakthrough, thankfully, and in the end I managed to complete four questions and attempt three, out of a total of eight. The other question was on vectors and wasn’t worth too many points. The last time I took P3 resulted in a U, but this time definitely went much better - hopefully at least a D. If I work on the other maths exams I’ll hopefully be able to deag my overall score up somewhat.

P1 was far, far easier, and I’m hoping I did quite well. I got stuck for 10mins on the final question due to muppetry on factorising (don’t ask) and didn’t quite finish, but that’s only a couple of points lost.

I’m very, very relieved that P3’s done. So very relieved. Very, very, very relieved.

ARGH! Found via Metafilter.

Cause: Andrew’s not-yet-patented Eurovision Song Contest Decision Making Tally Counting Act Judging Generator Machine triumphs in spectacular style.

Effect: Much consternation and deriviative comments from the, what’s the word - ah yes: losers.

You see, that’s two years in a row that I’ve correctly predicted the result of the contest using the aforementioned Document of Destiny, and much bitterness did this cause. Not adoration, or wonder, or tongue-based cleaning of boots, but insult. I was accused of being biased towards chesticular vibration and general prettiness over other virtues of performance. Let us examine those claims in more detail. Greece, the winners, received the following scores:

Dance Routine - Energy: 8
Dance Routine - Inneundo: 8
Overall Campage: 8
Catchiness: 9
Singing Ability: 8
General Clothing Style: 7
Cringeworthiness: 7

These results bettered every other act. In debating circles, this method of winning an argument is known as the In Your Face technique.

It will likely be pointed out that other people using the sheet did not award Greece the highest score. I suggest that a bad tool always blames its workman. There was also a minor revolt in which certain people subverted the Sheet of Seer into their own crude marking system, which consisted of the following standards, in ascending order: Shit, Shite, Ok, Banging. This method, unsurprisingly, was as effective as twiglets in a crisis.

So, to conclude: I win.

Excellent Doctor Who just now, I thought. If you haven’t seen it (episode set in the blitz), don’t read any more.

Continue reading ‘“Am I ok?! You can talk, you’re not even in focus.”’

IT’S HERE! I present to you the Eurovision Song Contest Decision Making Tally Counting Act Judging Generator Machine! This astonishing chart will enable you to judge this evening’s Eurovision acts with previously unheard of clarity! Carefully chosen criteria will allow you to decide on your ideal winner, ensuring less stress, a fuller life, general happiness, sexual fulfillment and your choice of Caribbean islands! And you know what? It’s free. Yes, I have chosen to supply this incredible piece of spreadsheet perfection for no material gain.

A crack-squad of impervious monkeys have analysed every act in Eurovision history, and before hurling themselves into the nearest blast furnace produced the following categories:

• Originality (based on what you’ve seen before, not including this year)
• Amusingnessness
• Dance Routine - Energy
• Dance Routine - Innuendo
• Overall Campage
• Catchiness
• Level of Irritation
• Size of Chesticles / Package of main singers
• Visibility of Chesticles / Package of main singers
• General Exposed Flesh
• General Clothing Style
• Croonage
• Cheesy Smiles
• Lyrics
• Cringeworthiness
• Singing Ability of main singers

This nigh-on miraculous generator also takes account of the proclivities of the public. If you are a massive fan of croonage, for example, you may award 10 points for a Michael Bolton wannabee. If you are not, however, you may award only one point and what is more remember which standard you have used for all 24 acts of the evening. Stunning. Or. What.

Excel Version
OpenOffice.Org Version

Enjoy.

One day, and it will be a good day, it will be possible for me to install a computer game and, you know, have it work first time. This day is not yet here. Both Doom3 and Half-Life 2 took me at least 2 days to get working, and now Trackmania’s being a pain, too. I played the demo last week and it ran pretty much fine (one graphical glitch that went away), but the full game had major graphical corruption, and the demo has now developed a similar problem. It’s not like I’m a l33t hacker who spends all his time messing about with drivers, either. I’m going to go buy an xbox.

All the photos from the Circus last night are finally up on flickr - editing and uploading took a while. Direct link to the entire set.