Chip's Place

I wanted to post this yesterday, but my net connection was playing up. Ho hum.

Birthdays are always strange days. This one was definitely one of the better ones though.

Lowlights

1. This one was a big one - my 10-minute argument, halfway through a 3.5 hour meeting, with the chairman of the meeting. I could have done without that.
2. My old manager finding out my work e-mail address and bombarding me with e-mails. OK, 2 is not bombardment, but when I've not spoken to him for 12 months, and I get 2 e-mails within an hour, it's not normal conversation either!
3. My last birthday beginning with a 2. Probably (but not absolutely definitely) ever. I can hope that AM(C=2050) will have a whole lot more rows in than AM 92 does!

Highlights

1. Goodlife singing in Marzano's.
2. The singer she took over from screeching like a strangled cat.
3. Giraffes.
4. The aforementioned singer arguing over the barman about how basic arithmetic was beneath her ("I'm not adding up our stock, that's not my job"), but being perfectly comfortable with collecting glasses and sweeping the floor.
5. My "29 today" cup.
6. Spending an idle 5 minutes trying to work out how many helium balloons it would take to fly me over the Minster.
7. Mojitos, and the significant labour costs of making them.
8. Springboks, and wondering (once again) how Baileys can be so nice but virtually anything else with alcohol in is foul.
9. Two meals in Pastiche.

and finally,

10. The poem written by Bertie, Goodlife, Flissy-loo, Badfriend and possibly someone else (update on 31/12/2004 - it was Jimbobjo). Reproduced here by kind permission of the authors (well, except for Mr or Mrs Someone Else)

There was a guy named Chris
Who went out on the piss.
Some girl wanted a kiss
She found a boy and it was bliss
She regretted to end it with a kiss

The dream faltered, the record stopped
The woman undressed and got on top
But poor old Chris was such a slop
He fell asleep inside the shop

And didn't wake until the cock sounded
(There's nothing else that rhymes around it)

Garlic breath and a beer-stained towel
Overflowing ashtray and smelly fowl

But Chris wasn't like that!

He wanted to eat like Jack Sprat
But he enjoyed his meat
And two vegetables floated in the sky
A cabbage and a carrot coloured orange

An orange, like the other serviette
Was found inside his neck
Beside his Adam's Apple

The Lord's work was done, but Satan had won!
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2 hours of badminton this evening. My thighs are certainly noticing it. If I could just work out how to hit the shuttle properly and make it go where I wanted, I'd be excellent - I certainly seem to have an uncanny ability to be in the right place to take the next shot, I just screw that next shot up most of the time!

I got heckled on the way home - I walked past a car being driven by a small child (I'm sure he wasn't old enough to have a driving licence yet), who poked his head out the window and shouted "Oy mate, did you win?" I just nodded and carried on walking, and he shouted something else that I didn't really hear. York is a strange place.

Keane were excellent on Saturday. Started up with my current favourite by them, "Can't Stop Now," which the more astute of you will have noticed a reference to in an earlier post's title. Actually recognised and could sing along with most of the songs - now just need the album to come out so I can find out who publishes the sheet music! Didn't get much of a glowing write-up in the Telegraph today - they were called "samey" - but I enjoyed them.

The two support bands were good too - Bell X1 were nothing special, but perfectly listenable to. Stephen Fretwell reminded me of the lead singer of my favourite band, Puressence. This might be something any guitar player can manage, but I was quite impressed by his use of the bottom E string to play a separate bass line at the same time as strumming the melody with the rest of the strings. It looked and sounded impressive!
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I blame Lint for this (as usual).

I think I'm right in saying that there are now 7 of us playing CNPS (I think I managed to get P hooked last night!) It's unreasonably addictive. Here's a few variations I've come up with :

898. OCNPS (O = obvious) - this is based on my observation that everyone, with but a single unsurprising exception, has started off with their own car numberplate, rather than starting at 1.
1. RCNPS (R = reverse) - counting from 999 downwards.
2. PCNPS (P = prime) - spotting prime numbers. Fun once it gets into the high ones and you have to work out primality in your head!
3. SCNPS (S = square) - as per PCNPS, but perfect squares.
4. ANPS (A = alphabetical) - this would take a long time! Spot all the possible three-letter combinations starting from AAA. It's only about 17 times as big a problem space as CNPS.
5. RNPS (R = random) - have a computer generate the next number to be spotted, and make it a race between several people to get it. Extend to sequences of random numbers of length N.
6. CMIBNPS (CMIB = continuous mortality investigation) - spot number plates corresponding to the last 3 digits of q(x) for increasing ages on AM92. Repeat for AF92. Repeat for d(x), l(x) and mu(x).
7. RCCNPS (RC = restricted colour) - only allow spots from cars of a particular colour. (NB - could be construed to be politically incorrect, as men are more commonly colour-blind than women.) Other variants of this might be to pick specific makes of car, or registration years.

I should really be outside playing tennis or something. I thought I'd finished with exams!
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Badfriend and I tried to have a bit of fun with GMail yesterday, at Lint's expense. It produces text adverts for the recipient of any e-mail, based on keywords it spots in the e-mail. So of course we had to try this out by including such choice items as "koi carp and how to fellate them", "male escort service", "vibrators" and "Vernon Kaye" - we thought he might like to know about them!

Off to see Keane this evening - really looking forward to it. I missed the last gig as I was depressed, owing to a curious chain of events involving my cam belt, the Thrills and a certain Welshman's AA membership card. I hope the car makes it all the way to Leeds this time.

One thing that is annoying me is that I can find very little sheet music from this band. They don't have a guitarist, so the main instrument is a keyboard, which I can (sort of) play. But only with music! I've spotted the score for the last single on a website, and have ordered it, but I'd really like to try my hands at quite a few of the other songs.
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At some point, this was bound to happen!

Signed up for GMail today, Google's new e-mail service that's been talked about so much recently. Not sure I'll actually use it much, as I have a pretty decent mail program already (Mozilla) that's all stored locally, but I might change my mind.
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...must start posting again at some point.
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