Shoulder Angel's Deadjournal [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
Shoulder Angel

[ website | my calendar ]
[ userinfo | deadjournal userinfo ]
[ archive | journal archive ]

If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, I will follow you into the dark... [Nov. 2nd, 2007|10:10 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , , , ]
[mood | tired]
[music |Lonely At The Top, The Ordinary Boys]

This may (read: will) be a little disjointed. I don't really feel up to making it cohesive; it's been a long couple of days. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff (there were some quotes that Thomas wanted me to note down that escaped, if nothing else); but hey, that's what the "Edit" button's for.


Tuesday:
* Church sign at All Souls church: Love your enemies; it messes with their heads
* Bumper sticker that I don't know quite what to make of: "Poverty" is owning a horse
* Work from nine till five. Every time he tells me to do something, I can't, either because it hasn't been set up yet or because I don't know how. Sigh...
* CompSoc AGM. Nobody really wanted a role, but an enthusiastic first year put her hand up for President, and the rest of us more or less fell in line. I wound up with Vice President. Whatever.
* We cleaned out the CompSoc room. With Rob twitching, saying "Stop taking stuff". Except we weren't really taking stuff. Though we did throw out things like the biscuits that were probably at least a year old.
* The bus I caught home claimed it was going to The City. I pointed this out to the driver, and he was bemused, given that the bus was full up.


Wednesday:
* Had a craving for muffins for breakfast, but didn't have time to make them.
* Work from nine till one. Managed to get lost on the way to picking up lunch.
* Headed back to the room, to discover Adam furiously trying to complete re-affiliation for CompSoc. With his blessing, I went through and threw out a bunch of extra stuff; like the expired Microsoft Office trial CDs.
* Cisco newbies dropped by, and waited around expectantly for me to help them; when I didn't, they wandered off again.
* Headed over to the Union with Chris, to drop off the re-affiliation documents for ProgSoc, CompSoc, and UCATSA.
* Ran into SDP teammates, who said something like "Please haave the doc finished by Thursday 6PM".
* Spent the rest of the evening trying to finish off the doc. Borrowed Chris' laptop and Office 2007, because Tristian was being retarded. Enlisted Chris and Brinton's help in coming up with creative lies for the sections I couldn't find content for.


Thursday:
* Baked Wednesday's muffins. Shared a few with Dad, before taking the rest to Uni.
* Spent most of the day in the CompSoc room, attempting to complete IAJ. In between procrastinating. Actually did fairly well; finished around 10:30.
* Watched Thomas and Chris play car crash video games on their laptops. Thomas was in a particularly good mood.
* Visited EGG, briefly, to give away the remaining muffins. Hung around for ten to fifteen minutes, before I took Brinton's hint to go home: "I can't surf 4Chan if people are trying to talk to me!"
* Ended up catching the same bus as my father, who'd gone out to dinner with his work cronies. We discussed my IAJ assignment, and how it felt too simple for something worth sixty percent of a subject.
* Printed out various documents, then crashed.

Today:
* Got to Building 10 around eight thirty, which was just enough time to pick up a few bits and pieces before I had to head over to Building 5.
* Met up with teammates. Discovered that one of the documents was missing a couple of vital appendices. Quickly set them up and saved them... Only to have the files vanish. Like, literally, "You made a change? Fine! I will eat your file!" So, the version we handed in? It doesn't have those vital appendices. Argh!
* Attended the presentation. It was a little more stumbling than the mid-semester one, but still quite acceptable.
* Reviewed another team. They seemed to skip over most of the criteria, and ramble about whatever the Hell they wanted; which didn't help us give them marks.
* Chatted with the team about the review, and handed in my verdict.
* Hurried back to Building 10. Made the necessary grammar edits to my IAJ report, and then headed over to the room to demonstrate my assignment and "Ooh" and "Ahh" over other people's. I was really impressed by Kris' almost production-level product recommender; but I'll probably do my minor on one of the other guys' ones: it had a fair level of polish about it, but still had improvements that could be made (which is more or less what the minor is supposed to cover - "How this could be improved with extra time").
* At three o'clock, sent a flame to Rob saying "You were supposed to be here at two o'clock, you moron", before heading to the ProgSoc room.
* Chris and Will were right behind me. We all needed to go shopping, so I grabbed ProgSoc's cash along with the trolley and luggage straps, and we headed over to Broadway.
* There are far too many birthdays in (/around) November. I ended up buying gifts for:
- Leena (belated, split with Chris)
- Matt (belated)
- Liz (split with Chris)
- Lucy
- Nora (split with Chris)
- Justin (split with Chris)
I tried to get Chris' birthday present, as well, but they didn't have them anywhere. I also bought some chocolates for Andrew, because he deserves them; and some powerboards for ProgSoc, because searching for them had driven me crazy. Once we'd got the rest of it, we headed to Coles to buy drinks.
* Lugged the lot back to the room. By the time I'd sorted out the cash and stuff like that, it was time to head back and watch more IAJ presentations. I dragged Chris along.
* Nora and Hagan demonstrated their Robocode assignment; it was apparently the wrong version of Hagan's code, because it actually locked onto and shot at Nora's bot. The newer version "only shoots hers if it gets in the way".
* We watched a few more presentations, and then headed over to visit EGG. We took a slight detour to the computer lab to show him the Wikipedia page about John Hartigan.
* Hung out at EGG for a while. Chris and I played a few rounds of Super Smash Bros Melee. Two Kirbys was a miserable failure, but did more or less put us onto the same level; especially given how out of practice I am at that game.
* When Nora and Hagan left IAJ, we went with them and Will to dinner. Will was barracking for a Korean place he was a fan of; but after we'd stood in line for something like half an hour, we gave up and went elsewhere.
* We wound up at a Thai place in World Square. I looked at the menu, and just ordered a Coke. The rest had various things.
* The waitress managed to knock my glass of water over me; and kept apologising, even as I told her that it was fine and not to worry about it. Sigh...
* Chris and I headed out around nine o'clock. We walked to George Street, and started walking towards Central so that he could catch a bus to Newtown (he was attending a party this evening as well). However, a 438 pulled up just as I was at a bus stop, so I hopped on.


And that's pretty much the last four days. Feel inspired? Whatever, I'm going to bed.
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

Who in the what now? [Oct. 29th, 2007|04:45 pm]
[Tags|, , , , ]
[mood | busy]
[music |Trolleywood, Eisley]

"QA process revels flaws in document"

Whoo! Document flaws! Party on!
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

Just so slightly ironic that it goes completely over your head... [Oct. 28th, 2007|03:34 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , , , ]
[mood | amused]
[music |I'm A Genius, John Frazier]

We apparently have an 'indented' audience for one of our documents.
-Mmaster

EDIT: Is it bad that I'm tempted to start writing about Interpretive Dance as an alternative method for "Document an implementation plan"? I mean, what the Hell am I supposed to say for that?
Task 7: Document an Implementation Plan
Candidate Technique: Interpretive Dance
Description: The steps required for implementation are elicited, before being converted to an interpretive dance performed by team members on presentation day.
Reason for non-use: No-one in the team is a particularly skilled choreographer. Lack of permanency, accompanied by difficulty of conversion to paper form. Blatant insanity of idea.
link

Okay, I might be a little overtired. But why am I supposed to care about this subject? [Oct. 27th, 2007|01:48 pm]
[Tags|, , , , ]
[mood | frustrated]
[music |All Fired Up, Interpol]

*stares blankly at partially filled document*

Why don't they believe me when I tell them I'm terrible at making stuff up?

*fury*

-Mmaster
link7 Divine Judgements|Be an Angel

Cool blue reason wraps around your throat; the minutes change like seasons, only 8 more hours to go. [Oct. 26th, 2007|01:36 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[mood | knowledgeable]
[music |Cool Blue Reason, Cake]

I got to use 'cessation' in a sentence. :D!
-Mmaster
link

Rob asked. [Oct. 23rd, 2007|09:29 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , ]
[mood | busy]
[music |Sleepy Tigers, XOXO Panda]

Today was marking time.

* Plugging in my computer. It's got twice the RAM of Tristian, but still lags almost as much.
* Setting up an account in my name on it - I booted it up initially, to see some guy's Outlook open, etc
* Installing TortiseSVN, Skype, Delta SQL... Various FireFox extensions... And once he found the discs, Visual Studio and SQL Server.
* Reading the C# coding standards
* In a moment of downtime, sorting out the MSDN discs into a semi-logical order, so they can be found again
* Reading about how the place works
* Lunch - his treat, being my first day
* Setting up an SQL Database on my machine
* Setting up an SVN'd folder on my machine
* Finding information about various documentation tools


...And that more or less took me to five o'clock. Then I went to the ProgSoc room and sorted out the mass of emails that had piled up while I was semi-out-of-the-loop - I'd responded to the quick ones, but the complicated ones had been put aside. Yay for yet another SDP database restructure!

At around seven, I'd finished that. I went with Liz and Rob as they got food, and then Rob and I visited EGG.


Tomorrow's schedule:
* Get in to Uni around 08:00. Drag trolley, folder, and trolley straps with me.
* Head over to work for 09:00. It took me the best part of 25 minutes this morning, which is odd, because it really isn't that far. I suppose I walk slowly, though.
* Leave at 13:00. Take laptop bag.
* Head back to Uni.
* Pick up cheque from Penny, and confirm the second table for trivia.
* SDP team meetup - work on some combination of the Implementation Plan and SC Management doc.
* Buy drinks.
* Start IAJ report.
* Visit EGG.
* Go home.
* Collapse.


So I guess I'd best go have dinner, so I can have a bath, go to sleep, and then wake up at 06:30 tomorrow morning. Whee!
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

Um... What? [Oct. 6th, 2007|03:17 pm]
[Tags|, , , , ]
[mood | confused]
[music |Some track from Chris' laptop; sounds like it's R.E.M.]

Email from one of my SDP teammates:
btw, so do we need to do all 15 points of 12?
That's the entire text, aside from the copious other quoted emails he didn't delete.

...Huh?
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

My head hurts. So do my eyes. [Sep. 29th, 2007|02:49 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[mood | overworked, underpaid]
[music |(That Spells) DNA, Jonathan Coulton]

I've been squinting at Tristian's screen continuously since before 8am, minus a ten minute break for breakfast.

I only missed my deadline by half an hour.

Six and a half hours of solid SQL (even if repetitive "Create Table" statements) does very odd things to your brain. I think I might go take the dog for a walk while it's still daylight.
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

You know I love you but you try and kill me; gotta hold your head up in the Year of the Rat... [Sep. 21st, 2007|11:42 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , ]
[mood | cheerful]
[music |Fondness Makes The Heart Absent, The Whitlams`]

Before I launch into the account of today, have some sterling moments from one of my SDP team-mates yesterday:
Him to me: Are you married?
Admittedly, this one did have a little justification. I wear a ring on the ring finger of each hand. But to put it bluntly, anyone who knows me knows there isn't a chance I'm married. My response was something like "No. My other ring actually says that." but I was tempted by "No, but it keeps the creeps that are delusional enough to consider me attractive away..."

His other shining moment was this one:
Mm: I'm going to ProgSoc tonight!
Him: What's "ProgSoc"?
Mm: The Programmers' Society.
Him: You're a member of the Programmers' Society?
Mm: ...Yes? I'm Exec.
Him: You program?
Mm: Yes? I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it when it's working for me.
Him: There are girls that program?
Mm: ... ... ...Oh dear.


So, to today:

Got to Uni around 8:15, maybe. Checked my email, read the Internet, then headed over to Building 5. Tim was already there; the rest of the group dribbled in gradually.

The team we were reviewing made the mistake of more or less putting their first speaker on the spot and expecting him to extrapolate. It didn't really work, and he then went overtime, meaning that several of their end slides got skipped entirely.

Our presentation went really well. Andrew was beating himself up for "dropping the ball" on one point (he misinterpreted the question they were asking), but I don't think it'll be that bad. Aside from that, we were able to answer all of the questions they had time to ask.

Trying to mark the other team was excrutiating. Not just due to lack of experience (though that was probably a large part of it), but also because I couldn't figure out the answer to one question before they'd skipped ahead to the next one. This is the case for both the presentation session (I wound up taking notes), and the meeting afterwards where we discussed how well things were covered. I was in one of my "If you'd all shut up, maybe I could think long enough to do the task!" private tantrums. It was made worse because Alex borrowed my second copy of the sheets, that I'd used for the notes, because he'd lost his sheet. *sigh* It got done; the justifications were severely incoherent, but whatever.

Afterwards, I messaged Chris and suggested escaping for our respective Uni works; we visited E.G.G. and he grabbed a bite to eat. We then returned to visiting E.G.G. and stared blankly at the screens until he had to go to class. Will went and bought Super Paper Mario, which is awesome and I want (but don't have time to play at the moment).

Chris and I went and grabbed some dinner, and then I got on a bus to Circular Quay. It was deadlocked for like three blocks, then freed up enough for motion. I walked over to the Opera House; despite the transport delays, I somehow managed to get there just in time for the first alarm, regardless.

It was an interestingly different atmosphere to other concerts I've been to. It's highly unsuprising, since the typical audience of The Whitlams is quite a lot older than The Offspring or Green Day, but notable nonetheless. It was very much a "We're going to the Symphony" atmosphere, rather than a "We're going to dance up a storm" atmosphere. To the point where Tim was like "You are allowed to move your head, people!".

( The setlist )

I particularly liked Melbourne, Year Of The Rat, You Sound Like Louie Burdett, and Thank You (For Loving Me At My Worst); they had an energy that the others lacked - which is not strictly a criticism, since part of The Whitlams' appeal are their soft songs. But those are the ones that achieved a response from the audience. Gough also got a response, but I don't know the song, so my ability to follow along was reduced.

Pictures had an interesting backstory. Apparently Tim met a rapper at an anti-war protest, and liked the guy's rapping so much that they agreed to write a song together. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand what the rapper was saying, so it was more or less white noise. That isn't really a comment on the rapper; I couldn't figure out what Tim was singing in Gough, either.

I never realised that the other guys in the band have such girly voices. I literally spent ten minutes staring at the stage, trying to find the (female) backup singers. When that failed, I assumed a backing tape. It was only after an extended period of "Okay, there's that feminine singing, and he's at the mic again" that I put two and two together to make five.


All up, it was a lovely antidote to the long and stressful week that's been SDP. Thank you Chris, thank you Nora.

And it's now quarter to one, so I'd be best heading in the direction of bed.
-Mmaster
link2 Divine Judgements|Be an Angel

We've cracked. This is common knowledge. [Sep. 20th, 2007|02:04 pm]
[Tags|, , , , ]
[mood | amused]
[music |I'll Do Whatever You Want, Memphis]

*Mm is reading a document Andrew has given to her to edit.
Mm: The first sentence: The development of the Teleponre Order Placement Ssystem was a lanong and arduous process that life of assisting developers. Andrew, your typing is interesting at 4am.
Andrew: What'd I do?
Mm: You spelled "arduous" correctly, but managed to mess up the word "long".
Andrew: Yes! I am the winner!
*Andrew does a victory lap of the room, then sits back down.
Andrew: What just happened?
James: You just had a blackout, didn't you?


Well I know it’s wrong to create a song
In the ashes of what we believe in
But I have a war to fight
And wrong or right
I’ll escape from what I was deceived in
-Mmaster
link2 Divine Judgements|Be an Angel

Random tidbits. [Sep. 19th, 2007|05:19 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , ]
[mood | busy]
[music |Only One, The Goo Goo Dolls]

* SDP mid-semester hand-in is due this Friday. *wibbles*

* Seeing The Whitlams (with Sydney Symphony) in concert this Friday. *glee*

* Coles Broadway (and presumably other places; probably BiLo as well, though I didn't check) is selling cheap Coke till Sunday - $9.99 for 24 cans.

* The ProgSoc room is not an answering machine, and neither are the people in it.

* If Nathan complains that the ProgSoc webcam was unplugged (for all of two minutes): it was acting oddly (no refresh on the webpage - and I checked on two different machines), so I power cycle'd it.

* I still have The Goo Goo Dolls and Elmo singing Pride stuck in my head.

* There are guys in my SDP team that don't know what styles are. Including the Documents Coordinator - who was manually re-numbering the requirements every time a change was made to the SRS. *shakes head* So I volunteered to convert the documents to styles. Whee...

* It's Talk Like A Pirate Day. Yarr.

* Rob claimed he was going to be around, but I haven't seen him. Admittedly, I haven't been around the room too much myself today, so he may have been past in the times I was elsewhere.

* My schedule for the next few days:
-Thursday morning: Probably meet up with SDP team mates, help them polish whatever needs it.
-Thursday 12 o'clock: Attend SDP presentation rehearsal.
-Thursday 1 o'clock: Go and try and scam free food from The Union.
-Thursday evening: ProgSoc.
-Friday morning: Probably another SDP presentation rehearsal.
-Friday 10:15: Reviewing another team's SDP presentation.
-Friday 11:45: Giving SDP presentation.
-Friday afternoon: Some combination of "collapse/nap" and "visiting E.G.G"
-Friday evening: The Whitlams concert.
-Saturday morning: Sleep in (hopefully).
-Saturday day: Visit the E.G.G. LAN.
-Saturday night: Doctor Who.
-Sunday morning: Dog training.
-Sunday day: Visit the E.G.G. LAN.
-Sunday evening: Go to Hailey's birthday party.
Yay. Busy.

* Yesterday was Dan's birthday, and I forgot to mention it. Not that he reads this, but sometimes I think I'm the only one who remembers it's on. :P.

* Rob, in case you'd forgotten, the IAJ lecture isn't on this week because the lecturer's in Athens.


I have to leave in just over half an hour, and I want to try and get today's meeting minutes (such as they are) completed, so that I can send them out. So I guess I'd better get to it. *sigh*
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

Elmo, whisper in my ear: I really want to hear the things you did today that satisfied you... [Sep. 19th, 2007|11:43 am]
[Tags|, , , , , , ]
[mood | whiiiine]
[music |Pride, Elmo and The Goo Goo Dolls]

Two short whines:

* Muhhhhhhmy, I don't want to do work...

* The bus driver made me throw away my Coke. And I still had most of it left. *pouts*


SDP team meeting soon. No motivation, and I'm feeling the lack of said Coke. I'm also not sure if I actually did everything I was expected to, because I sent it to them and got no response. Whee...
-Mmaster

PS: I have this song stuck in my head on repeat. Though I guess it's better than Good Charlotte's Dance Floor Anthem, which is what it's warring with...
linkBe an Angel

I turn to her, I turn to her, and in the end we all get burned... [Sep. 17th, 2007|04:46 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[mood | amused]
[music |The Weight Of The World, Her Space Holiday]

One of my team-mates just sent out an email regarding the plans for the next couple of days; we have four out of seven deliverables due on Friday, so we're trying to make sure everything will be ready for then. After listing the task allocations in an entire screen full of bolded text, here's the final lines (which have no bold, even in the original email):
please take this email seriously. LOL.
thanks
I probably shouldn't be as amused at his expense as I am.


We are the victims of warped expectations;
If people can't save us, we suddenly hate them...
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

The Lucksmiths have a new double CD coming out. Awesome! [Sep. 14th, 2007|11:41 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ]
[mood | sleepy]
[music |The Fog Of Trujillo, The Lucksmiths]

Today was long. Amusing, yes. But long. Did I mention long?

I woke up at OMGWTH o'clock, despite going to bed at twelve thirty. I stumbled out of bed, and spent an hour or so in front of the Internet, trying to wake up. Then I printed out the SDP things I needed, and wandered off to make myself breakfast.

Packed up, headed in to Uni and got there before nine. Was intending on doing some work, but got distracted by shiny objects or something.

At ten thirty, I headed over to Building 5 for the SDP Formal Meeting. Andrew was in "ramble" mode, blaming the only four hours of sleep he'd received. Also in his "Talk before thought" mode, though that's starting to seem almost standard.
*People are reading out their timesheets
Andrew: Okay, now that that's done, on to the Project Leader's report...
Mm: Hang on, I didn't get a chance to read mine.
Andrew: Yeah, well, you should expect that, being a woman in I.T. Glass ceiling, and all that.
Mm: ... ...Don't make me hurt you.
Tutor: ...Now you're going to get it...

After the Formal Meeting, the team had a ten minute chat in one of the seminar rooms nearby. Then we drifted back to Building 10. I ran into Julia Prior, and stopped to chat to her. I went to the room to pick up my laptop, and chatted to Chris and Brian while I was there.

There was then a moderately epic journey to figure out where the Hell my teammates had vanished to; they'd hidden themselves in one of the obscure labs. *shakes head* I edited the Semantic Mapping in line with a couple of minor changes suggested by Andrew. We then had to shift labs, because the one we were in had a class. We when got to the alternate, I typed out and formatted the meeting minutes, and answered occasional questions from Andrew and Jefry who were doing normalisation.

At three o'clock, I shot through. Again, with intent to do work, but that didn't really happen. By four, I'd got bored, and decided to visit the E.G.G. boys. The Wii was on WarioWare. So much love. Except I'm realy bad at it, but who's counting?

At around five, I returned to the ProgSoc room to get changed and other such inanities. When I'd done so, Chris wandered in, so I packed up my IAJ stuff and we both went back to visit E.G.G.
Chris: What's this game involve?
Brinton: You run a race, and you get points. Then you get tied up and suspended over crocodile infested water, and the idea is to be the last one left.
Chris: You make it sound so appealing...

At quarter to six, I headed over to the IAJ lecture. Chris kept me company till the lecturer turned up, then wandered off to the ProgSoc room. The lecture was okay, but I was probably more focused on my watch than what the guy was saying. At quater to seven, I packed up and left.

I headed over to the room and dropped my bag. Chris headed over to Thomas' hidey hole to tell him that everyone had turned up. When they returned, we walked over to Building 1. Thomas, Chris, Nora, and I were attending the Annual Union Dinner or whatever - "Hey, presidents of clubs +1, turn up, listen to us blather, and we'll give you a meal!"


They had a set seating plan for the evening, which we carefully disrupted. On two separate tables, no less. Yeah, I thought it was an accomplishment as well.
Thomas: So, Margaret, am I going to be able to convince you to drink alcohol?
Mm: No.
Thomas: Come on, you don't even have to pay for it!
Mm: ...
Thomas: You can't tell me you think a single sip will kill you...
Mm: No. But I'd still rather not.

Brinton, for some reason that I can't even begin to fathom, had brought a syringe of thermal paste. To a formal sit down dinner. Yes.

The speeches mostly went on too long. But speeches generally do, I suppose.

Mm: What did the grape say when it got stepped on?
Chris: Did you say "The Granny got stepped on"?
Mm: No. The GRAPE.
Chris: I think I preferred my version.
Mm: ... ... ... I can't believe you just said that!
Yes, he was a little tipsy. Not excessively, but still.

ProgSoc didn't win Club Of The Year; big surprise there. The honour, such as it is, went to the Red Cross Society. As I pointed out to the others, ProgSoc didn't stand a chance; we're not "cuddly" enough. Oh well.

At the end of the last of the presentations, we shot through. Chris and I went to visit N.E.G.G. with Brinton and Amy, briefly. I confused Amy by laughing at her. We then left; Chris and I needed to pick up things from the ProgSoc room, and Brinton needed to pick up something from his place before he went to Amy's.

When we got to the room, we discovered Nora and Thomas still present, accompanied by Liz who was in vague states of fury; her laptop's hard drive had made a serious effort to die, and she didn't know how much was recoverable. We watched her run chkdisk for a while, then left her to it; Thomas and Nora to go home, Chris and myself to visit N.E.G.G. (again) then go to the buses. Chris managed to walk into the door on his way through it.

Subfuture (who's requested to be referred to by name; therefore, Will) is a confirmed sceptic of an engineer, who's obsessed with things like tarot cards and predicting things with a pendulum.
Will: Would you be willing to take part in an experiment?
Mm: He's drunk; would that make a difference?
Will: Probably make it easier... Opens the mind, and all that...
It turned out to be a mind-reading exercise: "Choose a memory from among the ones on this card, focus on it, project it to me, and I'll try and work out what it is."
Will: ...A fairly recent memory... Not too recent, though... Let me see... You were stung by a bee?
Chris: It was my first dog, actually.
Will: Right, well, that was a miserable failure. Note to self: Don't try to read the minds of drunk people, it doesn't work.
Chris: See, I was looking at Margaret, trying to give you a hint.
Mm: ...
Chris: Well, she likes dogs, and...
Mm: ...Except that he doesn't know that.
Chris: ...Oh.

We left. On our way out of the building, I gave in to temptation, and wrote some Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go) lyrics on one of the election posters. Hey, polls finished like two days ago, they aren't using them any more. I also showed Chris another one that I was tempted to edit, except they'd made it inaccessible to mortals.

Chris needed a bus ticket, so we headed up to the ATM, before he bought some at the 7-11. A punk with a massive mohawk had his hairstyle admired by some random in the convenience store:
Guy: How'd you get your hair to do that?
Punk: Hairspray.
Guy: What, six, seven cans?
Punk: No, just the one.
Guy: Can I touch it?

Then to the bus.

And now, it's quarter to one. And I have to get up at ungodly hours tomorrow, to go to Uni, to spend my weekend doing SDP. *sigh* Regardless, it's bed time. See you on the other side of morning.
-Mmaster
link

I like your old stuff better than your new stuff... [Sep. 12th, 2007|09:31 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[mood | amused]
[music |Song Formerly Known As, Regurgitator]

Two moments of amusement from today's SDP team meeting:

"Sorry for my English bad..." -Tim (To make it worse, he didn't actually realise until we pointed it out to him)

"I was going for my pen, not your crotch..." -Andrew to Rick


...Yes...
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

You should come 'round, if you're not too busy; come 'round, and we'll throw the frisbee... [Sep. 9th, 2007|10:43 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , ]
[mood | good]
[music |Over My Head (Cable Car), The Fray]

Today the sun is shining and I feel a million dollars
And I don’t need reminding that I own eleven cents
The winter of my discount tent when we first met each other
Became the summer of the seventeenth dole payment
And we became best friends

Today was nice.

Dog training in the morning. Washed out enough that we didn't take money (so I didn't have to do anything), but dry enough that we could stick around for the full time plus coffee.

Afterwards, Chris swung past for a visit (after he got lost on the way, anyway). We watched an episode of Spooks, and Chicken Run, and last night's episode of Dr Who, and the "Regeneration" scene of the first season (so he had a better understanding of the episode). Then played video games until dinner time. :D! After dinner, I made a new pair of earrings to replace the one I lost.

Once I got on MSN, I had a conversation with Andrew about SDP tasks and where we're up to, and people who've done the wrong thing. I re-assured him that he was doing a good job, etc etc, and that his only mistake was "Assuming people would actually do the tasks they're expected to".

And now? It's eleven PM, and I have to do somebody else's SDP work in the morning. (Actually, I'm not bitter about it. Yet. Perhaps unusual.) So I'd best be heading to bed, I guess.

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind

-Mmaster
link2 Divine Judgements|Be an Angel

*winces* [Sep. 7th, 2007|11:16 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , ]
[mood | overworked, underpaid]
[music |Disclaimer, The Offspring]

Copy-pasted from my SDP time log:

06/09/07
10:25-10:35 : Converting the Class Diagram into a version I could read
10:40-11:25 : Building UCDD
01:00-01:25 : Typing out Meeting minutes
02:45-03:00 : Formatting meeting minutes
03:35-04:10 : Building UCDD
04:30-05:05 : Building UCDD

07/09/07
11:20-12:30 : Building UCDD
12:45-01:20 : Building UCDD
02:35-03:35 : Building UCDD
04:00-05:00 : Building UCDD
05:50-06:30 : Building UCDD (DONE! - 0.1)
09:30-10:20 : Editing UCDD (0.2)


That was my last two days. In case you were wondering, Yes I have a deadline, and Yes I am now feeling fried.

In the breaks today, I went to visit E.G.G. - who were going to have a movie night, except they couldn't get hold of a projector. So instead it wound up being a "Hang out in the Ashmore Smith room" kind of thing. Everybody present thought that a joint event between ProgSoc and E.G.G. would be an awesome idea; I'm thinking a movie night (with a slightly higher level of organisation: primarily, "Use one of the Building 10 seminar rooms") or something. Thomas? Others? Opinions?
-Mmaster

EDIT:
I just received an email from a teammate saying "I'm going to be away on Friday." Isn't it a bit late to be telling me this? *confused*
linkBe an Angel

Sleep tight, grim rite, we have two hundred couches where you can sleep tonight... [Sep. 3rd, 2007|09:51 am]
[Tags|, , , , , , ]
[mood | busy]
[music |PDA, Interpol]

To do today:

SDP:
* Write last week's time sheet
* Edit the Existing Data Sources list to include the Sales database
* Type up and format Friday's meeting minutes
* "Compare the UCDD design to the SRS requirements" (Huh?)
* Help build UCDD
* Write task reflections
* SA task Development Process description

IAJ:
* Learn more Perl
* Work on my project (see the aforementioned list)

Misc:
* Drop Mum's frame off to her before lunchtime
* Figure out whether Chris can take a half day tomorrow or something
* Leave before 6:30

Best hop to it, I suppose...
-Mmaster
linkBe an Angel

It doesn't feel like Friday; don't know what day it DOES feel like, but it sure ain't Friday. [Aug. 31st, 2007|08:10 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ]
[mood | tired]
[music |Factory Girls, Flogging Molly]

Don't fill your mouth with gluttony
For pride will surely swell
But nothing's unforgiven in the four corners of hell!
Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins!

It felt like a long day. It probably wasn't, but it felt like it.

Got to bed at 12:30. Woke up, by force of habit, at 6:30, despite setting my alarm for 8:30. Felt numb but unfatigued.

Printed SDP documents, had breakfast, had a bath, got dressed, put away a few things. The standard "Hey I'm actually home and there's stuff needs doing" kind of thing.

At around 9:00, I headed off to catch a bus. Yay public transport! I'm finally getting close to finishing all the IAJ readings. Though I must admit that by now I'm starting to skim them.

I tinkered on the 'net for a little while before walking over to Building 5. I did a quick loop around the building, but apparently my team-mates were hiding somewhere, so I went and read at the tables outside the room.

The meeting went overtime, and we spent some time chatting after that. And some more time chatting after that. Trying to explain to a business student why I thought having a "Search Query" box, as separate from a "Problem Description" box, took something like an hour. "Well, see, the customer could say they want A blue 1950s coat with purple buttons, and you'd search for blue coat, but it's actually in the database as aqua jacket; so, you need to identify these problems. No, it isn't in the paper-based system; this is a problem that wouldn't exist in the paper system." *sigh* I don't think he understood what we were suggesting, but he said "Yes" to placate us. *shakes head*

After the meeting, Chris and I printed out the nomination for ProgSoc as Club of the Year, and headed over to take it to Penny. She was talking with people, so we chatted to Brinton while we waited. Chris had to head off to class before she'd finished. When we finally presented it to her, the quote was "Yay! Now I have two of them!".

I went and hung out with the E.G.G. boys for a while, before heading back to ProgSoc. Checked the email buildup (when the Hell did I get to be the kind of person that receives like thirty emails a day?), then headed over to the Union to pick up some garlic bread to nibble on before class.

Chatted to Subfuture and co. He was reading some book about mind control or somesuch. At about quarter to, I headed over to the lecture room.

Rob actually turned up, as he'd promised. The lecture was more or less exactly the same as previous ones, but at least he didn't start ranting about how horrible Windows is. Much.

After class, we visited the E.G.G. boys for a little longer. I headed over to the ProgSoc room when the sound effects from BioShock started exacerbating my headache. The webcam was being creepy, but what else is new?

Rob: What is this "Web" you speak of? In my day...
Mm: You only had eighty characters in all the world, and you liked it, dammit!, huh?

-Mmaster
link

He loves the ladders, never gets enough of them... [Aug. 24th, 2007|10:08 pm]
[Tags|, , , , , , , , , , , , ]
[mood | busy]
[music |When He's Gone, Debbie Gray & Andrew Cross]

Well, it felt like a long day. I'm sure I must have had a break or two in there somewhere, but I don't remember. Tomorrow will likely be close to the same length, as well. ...Whee...

I woke up to an email from the IAJ lecturer to the effect of "You can build your agent in whatever you like (so long as it's actually an agent); but the tutors will only help you if it's in Java." Okay. That could be good, since both Thomas and Chris think my project would be best served by being done by bash scripting or something.

I did a whole bunch of printing for SDP, then had breakfast and got ready to leave. I got about four houses away then realised that I'd forgotten to put on a necklace and had to go back and put one on (Yes, sadly enough, I start getting neurotic if I'm not wearing a necklace).

I got to Uni around 9:30. Hung around for a while, waiting for Chris. Just when I was about to give up on him and go and do the chores, he turned up.

We headed to Kinko's, and got another poster printed and all three laminated. It cost something like forty five bucks for the privilege, but hopefully we won't have to do so again in the next couple of years at least.

On the way back, we visited the newsagent and bought the balloons for Nora. When we got back, we stuck some velcro to our newly minted posters then (in my case) headed off to class.

The team meeting was fairly standard. Thanh appears to have quit. Andrew's now paranoid about the System Architecture choice. Etc, etc.

After the formal meeting, we wandered over to Building 10 to have a discussion about a bunch of points brought up in the formal meeting. Two hours later, we'd more or less talked in circles and hadn't really resolved the question. At that point, I was given an out and took it.

I went and watched the robot soccer dogs with Thomas (who was waiting for a meeting to start). The dogs were so cute! But they kept winning, then the guys would abduct the ball to the centre of the field again. Poor dogs. :(. Thomas said that the AIBO was smarter than my dog, particularly as it walked into a wall repeatedly. *pouts*

I then went to do some set up for the stall. I stuck up the posters, before sticky-taping copious numbers of old ProgSoc brochures (at least some of them were the ones that said we were in Building 4...) together and adding them at the sides to add colour. Depending how we feel in the morning, we might abduct the colourful sign from the pinboard as well.

In between doing that, there was helping Jenny try and find a computer capable of playing all the videos she wanted. And helping some annoying and overly-officious man (who I'm assuming is focused on O. H. & S.) move the Faculty stall something like a metre to the left so that it was blocking a doorway instead of a corridor. And signing DCom up to ProgSoc, for the first time in seven years. And fielding questions from random people who apparently thought I knew stuff (which, sadly enough, I generally did), like "Where's the Co-Op bookshop gone?" and "What's ProgSoc?".

By around four thirty or five o'clock, I'd finally finished with the set up; it might have been earlier, I don't remember. I checked my email, then decided to visit the E.G.G. boys. I looked at the $2.10 in my wallet, and chose a Coke over food.

Since the Concourse had been cleared in preparation for Info Day tomorrow, they'd migrated operations to the theatre lounge. Cue lots of wandering around aimlessly, searching for them. Eventually I ran into Rel, and followed him. The game of the day was Bioshock, played on the big screen with the bass up way too high. I wound up hanging around there for ten minutes, wandering out, then returning, repeatedly for most of an hour. Whee...

The lecture was okay. I like the guy; I'm not quite sure of the importance of attending the lecture about "Hey look! Here's something you could do! Here's something else you could do!", having already selected a project, but they're interesting regardless. Rob apparently got distracted in his search for wigs and didn't show; neither did Nora or Hagan. The lecturer is firmly in the Mac camp, and bitterly laments any time that he's forced to use Windows. There was a memorable moment where he was trying to search for his Internet history in QuickTime, because he'd opened the program by mistake and then believed it was FireFox. ...Yes, really.

Midway through the lecture, I'd received an SMS from Chris suggesting dinner; so once the lecture finished, I wandered back. I transferred cash between my accounts, then we headed over to KFC. I was apparently having a 'Fail At Reading The Instructions On The ATM' day, since I tried about four times to insert my card into the one reading "Not In Service" in large letters, and then when I went to the other one, had to try three times before I read closely enough to realise that the reason it wasn't giving me the note I wanted was because it had run out, and I had to select a different denomination.

Dinner was exactly like it is every time at KFC. While we ate, we chatted about tomorrow's To-Do list, amongst other things. After we'd finished, we headed over to Railway Square to catch a bus home.

I read IAJ notes on the bus, getting through one and a half chapters in the time. I got home, described my day to my parents ("Mr. Tigger apparently thought we were all ganging up on him and quit!"), and then got on Connor.

Caught up with what I'd missed, typed this out, and now? Bath then bed. Ungodly hours tomorrow morning, and all that. Whee....
-Mmaster
link

navigation
[ viewing | most recent entries ]
[ go | earlier ]