On the plus, I’ve discovered Smashing Magazine and it’s a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to design or develop websites. I’m really enjoying messing with some of the new HTML5 and CSS3 features.

So yeah, I’ve been playing a hell of a lot of cricket this week. Essentially from when I get home until when it gets dark every day after work, it’s great. Except we keep losing all of the windies and we broke the ball that swings. Darn. Tennis balls are rubbish to bowl with >_>

My bowling has been good though, I’m in really decent form. And bowling fast really needs some level of fitness. At the moment, I struggle to bowl more than a spell of four or five overs at full pace. And the last couple of such a spell would be pretty inconsistent anyway.

I ordered a DVI-I Male to VGA Female adapter the other day, and it arrived while I was at work today – using two monitors is brilliant. I’ve been asked why, and having used two monitors previously it’s almost impossible to go back: You just don’t have enough space on one monitor!

I mean, look at it – If you’re coding, you can’t have your code up and your preview up at the same time (this applies to both programs and webpages) and if you need two bits of code open at the same time it’s just awkward. Then we can consider that I’m currently trying to learn XNA Game Studio stuff from tutorials, and now I can have the tutorial open and my code open at the same time and not have to alt-tab between them.

Anyway, I intend to go sort out my music (I’ve bought five albums recently that I’ve still not stored on my pc haha), I know this is quite a short entry but I’ve really not got a lot to say.

~ Godders

So yeah, I started a job today. Full-time temporary, for four weeks. Making websites / updating websites / styling websites… you get the idea. It’s quite good, I like the environment muchly – mostly because everyone that I’m directly working with is really geeky. It’s fantastic.

While I’m on the topic of work: I’m using a Mac (The dual-core G5, a tad outdated but still nice) and the more I use OS X, the more I come to realise that I really, really want a Mac. I’m thinking either 18th birthday or leaving for University present, and probably a MacBook(or MacBook Pro). The only thing is, I detest the Mighty Mouse and their shitty small keyboard with half the useful buttons missing.

Also, while at work today, I’ve been listening to lots of Prog Metal and remembering just why I love Progressive Music. Opeth, Porcupine Tree and Ayreon were the bands I listened to today: Opeth’s soft album, Damnation, is absolutely brilliant – Windowpane is one of the best songs I’ve heard in ages. More of the same tomorrow, I reckon. Maybe some Dream Theater thrown in there too.

Had a fantastic sandwich for lunch, from a café called Breads (in Huddersfield) – Roast Vegetables and Feta Cheese, with Sweet Chilli Sauce. I’m not normally a fan of Feta, but the combination of the veg and the sweet chilli with the sour cheese was just fantastic. The pricetag, however, wasn’t quite so great – £4.73 for a sandwich and a bottle of coke is a bit excessive. Payday’s not going to be until next Wednesday either, so I think that’ll have to be my culinary indulgence for the week haha. Still, it was good.

Downloading Visual Studio is pissing me off – the download (which is 3.3GB) has died on me twice thus far, at 56% and 77% respectively. Am about to set it going again, cross your fingers for me! And I may or may not have played a little of a certain online game this evening. Still, I’m not playing it now so we can safely say that I’m not addicted again… yet.

Also, England won the second test of the Ashes thanks to some inspired bowling by one Freddie Flintoff. He can’t claim anything like all of the credit – it is, after all, a team game – but he certainly contributed his share to the victory. I played some cricket yesterday, too, but I don’t have that much time to play a lot of it.

That’ll do for the moment, and I doubt I’ll have anything interesting to say tomorrow unless someone spontaneously combusts at work or something.

~ Godders.

I was gutted for Lewis Hamilton, he got off to a cracking start and if it wasn’t for Webber weaving all over the track up to the first corner he would have been in the top three with no trouble. As it is, Webber bounced off of Barrichello and then caught Hamilton’s right-rear tire. The puncture took him out of the race completely.

Which is mostly down to the rules being crap. Admittedly, the blue-flagging of people who are being lapped and going slowly is perfectly fine, but Hamilton was going at the same pace as everyone else until he started getting blue-flagged. I think that if he didn’t have to slow down to let everybody else past, he may well have been able to unlap himself.

Nextly, Massa holding up everyone else bugged me. Just because it’s boring. I know he eventually got a podium out of it, but it was dull to watch. It cost Barrichello a chance of a race victory too because right when he needed to be doing his best, he was stuck behind some red car that’s going two seconds a lap off of the pace.

And if I were Adrian Sutil, I’d have waited for Raikonnen after the race with a metal pole and beat him into a coma. Seriously. After coming out of the pits, he was between the Ferraris of Massa and Raikonnen. He had the racing line going into Turn One, and Raikonnen came around the outside and crashed straight into Sutil, who then had to pit again and had his race essentially finished there.

He cost Sutil the chance of getting his first-ever championship points, and he did it in a way that was against the rules. Sutil had the line, he should have yielded and let him through. And it appears that because Raikonnen then retired from the race, he’s not going to be punished at all. This is complete and utter bull.

Other than getting angry at the Formula One, I’ve not really been doing a lot over the past two days. The reason that you’ve not had an update is because there’s been nothing to write about. England are doing poorly in the cricket and apparently because my brother’s not allowed on the Xbox 360, I’m not either because it’s ‘unfair’. This is why it shouldn’t be in my brother’s room.

I’ve just done a revision of my Personal Statement, but it’s still too long. I’ve cut it down from 56 to 52 lines, but the space limit is 4000 characters or 47 lines, whichever comes first. Also, I have Maths Coursework to work on (yawn.) and Mechanics homework to do (which I can’t remember the specifics of) so yeah, fun times ensue.

~ Godders.

Now, the English cricket team has frankly been a shambles of late. Our performance in the T20 World Cup begs the question “Why do we not have a specialised one-day/T20 team?” because our Test cricketers are clearly not cut out for the faster pace of the limited-overs version of the sport.

Still, I think we might have a chance of posting a good score if our tail-enders aren’t caught sleeping in the morning. And I’m not sure if starting it in Cardiff was a fantastic idea, but the fans seemed enthusiastic enough even if they are Welsh.

Of course, today wasn’t just about the cricket starting. I went to visit the University of York, and I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere there. It had that ‘place of learning’ buzz, but depending on if Warwick’s CompSci department wows me or not I might not be applying.

Visiting York’s Computer Science department was essentially useless other than finding out that they do a 4-year BSc with Industrial Placement, because they’re busy building a whole new section of the University for 2010 which will include a brand-new set of facilities for CompSci.

However, the fact that they have a course with a placement is interesting news indeed. I definitely want to do a year in industry (whether that’s planned with the university or just via a gap year) and they have links with companies such as Intel, IBM and QinetiQ.

Thirdly and lastly, I am absolutely loving the new mini-series spectacular that is Torchwood: Children of Earth. It’s only getting more dramatic and I am really looking forward to tomorrow and Friday’s episodes.

~ Godders.

PS: If you’re reading this, please feel free to comment – I’d love to hear your thoughts and have a conversation.