Seriously Chocolatey!!!

Hurrah for half price Ferrero Rocher! Hopefully these will turn into reasonably sized pyramid soon! :-)

Er... yeah... I've been revising hard... 

short one

Just a quick update so people don't think I'm dead... :)

Not much been going on really - life at the moment is pretty much taken over by revision for finals... well, the lack of, depending on who you've been talking to... I've been getting high on LOTS of sugar in plastic tubes, sounds dodgy no? Also taking advantage of the half price Ferrero Rocher from Sainsburys in attempt to make a reasonably sized chocolate pyramid but I need more and they've been out of stock for the last 3 days, grr, I shall have to go again in the morning. But for now it's bed time.

P.S. still happy, just not as much so as I was few days ago, for reason(s) you may or may not know about... :)

happy

Haven't really got anything to blog about, but I'd just like to say that I'm rather happy at the moment, due to several good things that happened within the last 24 hours :-D

hope everyone else is happy too!

Birthday and Anime

As some of you already know, I turned 21 on Sunday! I think 21 is old enough to be adult but I'm really not ready (if you know me well you'd know how childish I am!)... apparently 21 is also when your superpowers get activated, haven't discovered any new abilities yet though, how disappointing!

Anyway, as I previously mentioned, most of the weekend was spent at home in London: had lovely time with parents, made up for the lack of meat in my meals here, and also acquired few more scratches from the cat :)

Came back to Cambridge late afternoon on Sunday, with no definite plan of what to do in the evening, as I rarely plan things in advance... however I did know that Toby baked a "surprise" cake for me. Despite knowing this in advanced I was still surprised, mainly by the shape of the cake!



So a simple plan of Cake - Dojo - Pub was formed, involving rather small number of people, mainly friend on corridor, as it was too late (and too much trouble) to gather more people. We ate the fantastic cake in Toby's room, had drinks, before moving off to Dojo for some noodles. I noticed this interesting cloud on the way...



Anyway, so we arrived at Dojo and chose to sit outside as the weather seemed rather pleasant at the time. Ultra fast service and very generous portions just as expected, I had some sort of spicy soup noodles with lots of random seafood, very yummy! Rain did start to drop a little halfway through the dinner but luckily didn't really start until we finished :)

We then spent the next two hours in a pub closeby, the Mill, where I didn't get very drunk, mainly because that my stomach was soooo full from the noodles and 1/3 of the cake I was unable to drink much liquid... which I guess was a good thing.



A few of us returned to my room afterward to drink wine, while Hane had fun showing off his dance moves and crushing random boxes in my room by landing on them, which was fun! :)

So that was the birthday, a great day indeed, lots of fun without getting too drunk! Thanks to everyone for their company, and especially to Toby for the wonderful cake! :) Some of the presents I got:



You may be wondering what's anime got to do with this, well, that's pretty much what I did yesterday. After the dissertation deadline last week Toby and I agreed to limit ourselves to only 2 episodes of anime per day - well, that plan went down the drain yesterday when we failed to control ourselves and finished off ALL the remaining Full Metal Alchemist we had, that's 15 episodes... Ah well, at least we won't be thinking about it too much now it's out of the way... It's a brilliant series, fully deserve to be in the top 3! The ending was quite emotional - I almost cried! :'( Random quote from last episode of FMA: "Why don't you contact Einstein?", "I don't trust him."

Anyway, I should probably go to bed now... Random game for your entertainment - Need for Madness. :)

random quiz

OK, I said I'd do this while drunk, so I will...

<<*******SIMPLE QUESTIONS*******>>
1. NAME: Fan
2. NICKNAMES: randomfan, I guess - after all, I am random...
3. EYES: blackish greyish black
4. HEIGHT: 6'1 last time I checked
5. HAIR: I think I have some...
6. SIBLINGS: nope, just me getting all the attention, muahahahaha!
7. DO YOU LIKE TO SING IN THE SHOWER? Afraid not
8. DO YOU HAVE A GOOD VOICE? well I've never liked it, but I don't think many people like their own voice
9. BIRTHDATE: 22nd May 1984, i.e. TODAY!
10. SIGN: Gemini
13. RIGHTY OR LEFTY: righty
14. WHAT DO YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP?: lots of laughter, all the time! but I have that already :)
<< *******FAVORITE QUESTIONS******* >>
19. MOVIE: first three that came to my mind... Spirited Away, LoTR trilogy, The Mask
20. SONG:
21. BAND/SINGER: Reel Big Fish, R.E.M., Green Day, Queen, Tom Lehrer, Blink 182, No Doubt
22. TV SHOW: Family Guy, Coupling, Black Books, Look Around You, Futurama, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers, Frasier
23. ACTOR: what are they...?
24. ACTRESS: what are they...?
25. FOOD: anything with meat!
26. NUMBER: 7, 7, 7!!!
27. CARTOON: does Family Guy count? if not, Tom and Jerry!
<<******LOVE LIFE ETC*******>>
30. DO YOU PLAN ON HAVING CHILDREN: yes, I love children, when they aren't crying :)
31. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED? yes, 24th November 2005
32. HOW OLD DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR FIRST CHILD: sometime before 30 I think
33. HOW OLD DO YOU WANNA BE WHEN YOU GET MARRIED?: 21
34. SEX: moving on...
35. DO YOU HAVE A BF/GF?: engaged, so yes I guess :)
37. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH?: See above.
<<*********EITHER-OR (PICK WHICH ONE YOU PREFER)*********>>
38. MUSIC/TV: TV, although I do have more hours of music than Tv on my computer
39. GUYS/GIRLS: girls
40. GREEN/BLUE: Blue - it's my favourite colour :)
41. PINK/PURPLE: purple - it's closer to blue!
42. SUMMER/WINTER: summer every time, I really hate wearing too many layers of clothes.
43. NIGHT/DAY: night... "we like the moon..."
44. HANGIN OUT/CHILLIN: hangin' out
45. DOPEY/FUNNY: hahahaha
<<*******ALL ABOUT YOU*******>>
46. WEIRD SAYING YOU HAVE: "I not dwunk", "It wasn't me", "Arghhhhh"
47. WHAT SCHOOL DO YOU GO TO?: King's College Cambridge, before that Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, before that St Thomas The Apostle College
48. HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN DRUGS?: just alcohol
49. WHAT'S A MAJOR TURN-ON FOR YOU?: someone who takes interest in me
50. HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO ON A FIRST DATE?: normally within this country...
51. THE PERSON WHO IS....
MOST BLONDE: can't think right now, I'm drunk...
BEST PERSON: music teacher at my old school - John Skinner
NICEST: evil question!
FUNNIEST: Jeff from Coupling
HAPPIEST: myself obviously, and Helen, and "Happy John" and "Happy Tom" for obvious reasons...
LOUDEST: Brett
STRANGEST: James Harbin (sorry James :p)
MOST CARING: boring answer, but parents?
SMARTEST: me, obviously :p
BEST PERSONALITY: *falls asleep....*
BEST ALL-AROUND PERSON: I could choose one most amazing person but I won't :)
BEST MATE(S): I don’t do best friends, I love you all too much.
52. WHICH 5 PEOPLE ARE YOU OPEN WITH AND TRUST THE MOST?: Toby, Hane, James, Helen, Emmy
53. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SOUL MATES? they have souls?
54. IS IT RIGHT TO FLIRT IF YOU HAVE A BF/GF? I don't think I do anyway.
55. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU CRIED OR GOT TEARY ABOUT? wouldn't you like to know...
56. WHAT'S SOMETHING ABOUT GUYS/GIRLS YOU JUST DONT GET?: why some of them are vegetarians... :-s
57. ARE YOU HAPPY? you should know this... see name of this blog if you don't...
58. WHY? just the way I am I guess. also frequent laughter makes me live longer and see more of the future :)
59. WHAT'S AN OBJECT YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT?: computer - spot the compsci...
60. LOVE OR LUST?: lost?
61. SILVER OR GOLD?: gold - easier to pronounce
62. DIAMOND OR PEARL?: diamond - useful for self-protection too!
6. SUNSET OR SUNRISE: sunset, I love taking photos of them; I probably would love sunrise too but I'm never awake early enough...
64. HAVE YOU EVER GONE SKINNY-DIPPING?: *makes blank face*
65. DO YOU SLEEP WITH STUFFED ANIMALS?: does stuffed turkey stuffed inside my stomach count?
66. DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING PIERCED?: nope
67. WHAT COLOR UNDIES ARE YOU WEARING RIGHT NOW?: grey
68. WHAT SONG ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?: Ravel - La Valse
69. WHAT ARE THE LAST 4 DIGITS OF YOUR PHONE NUMBER?: 9821
70. WHERE WOULD YOU WANT TO GO ON YOUR HONEYMOON?: details all been planned, but it's supposed to be a surprise so I can't tell :)
71. WHO DO YOU WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITH? I am getting married in just over 6 months...
72. WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?: face, unless they are REALLY tall, in which case legs
73. FAVOURITE SPORT?: table-football? if that counts at sport... otherwise cycling?
74. WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?: friends, music, the sun, funny stuff
75. NEXT CD YOU GONNA GET?: possibly some Dvorak Symphony
76. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS OR GLASSES?: glasses, yay for the extra visionary powers!
77. WHAT'S THE BEST ADVICE GIVEN TO YOU? uninstall MSN...
78. HAVE YOU EVER WON ANY SPECIAL AWARDS?: does random scholarship from old school count?
79.WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE GOALS?: isn't it obvious? - take over the world! failing that, get rich, live long and keep wife happy 24/7 :)
80.THE WORST ILLNESS YOU EVER HAD?: running into lorry isn't really an illness is it?
81. DO YOU LIKE FUNNY OR SCARY MOVIES BETTER?: Funny, I tend to refuse watching anything scary
82. ON THE PHONE OR IN PERSON?: In person, something bad tends to happy when I phone people, often involving snakes...
83. HUGS OR KISSES?? can I say both?
84. WHAT SONG SEEMS TO REFLECT YOU THE MOST?: It'd have to be something written by me, which will never happen...
85. IF YOU DIED TOMORROW- WHO WOULD YOU LEAVE EVERYTHING TO?: Fred
86.DO YOU HAVE ANY ENEMIES?: I don't know, but no one has tried to kill me yet
87. WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR?: Being betrayed by friends
88. WOULD YOU RATHER BE RICH OR FAMOUS?: money everytime!
89. WHAT TIME IS IT IN ALBANIA NOW?: random guess, 3:00am?
90. WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US?: God? who's he? my new neighbour?
92. IF E.T. KNOCKED ON YOUR DOOR HOLDING UP A PEACE SIGN ASKING TO USE YOUR PHONE WAT WOULD YOU DO?: say hello
93. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU TALKED TO THE GUY/GIRL YOU LIKED: within the last 30 mins
94. WHAT IS YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS?: if you are reading this you should know...
95. LAST TIME YOU WERE DEPRESSED?: last thursday, 24 hours before dissertation deadline
96. ARE YOU AN ALCOHOLIC?: not really, I only really drink when there's some sort of special event
97. WHO SENT THIS EMAIL TO YOU? Helen
98. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT PERSON?: well I'm marrying her in six months... you figure it out...
99. DO YOU WANT YOUR FRIENDS/FAMILY TO WRITE BACK? don't mind really, but I can always do with more distraction :)

OK it's not as random as I'd hoped... I'm not too drunk I guess... ah well...

Happiness

Woo, I'm so happy! The noon deadline for my dissertation has just gone; having kept my dissertation progress in the dark for the past few months, I can now confirm that I did manage to get it all written up, printed, bound, and handed in before noon. I know it's seriously crap (seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if my dissertation gets the lowest mark in the year!), but at least it's all over now, and the exams in two weeks time carry far more weight anyway, so they are the things I really ought to concentrate on.

But first, I'm taking the weekend off, 1. to catch up on sleep; 2. to celebrate the end of dissertation; 3. because it's my 21st birthday this Sunday (oh dear I'm old...)! The only definite plan is that I'll be going home tomorrow morning, for a day. Something might happen Sunday evening when I get back to Cambridge but I really haven't got round to organise anything. Something might also happen tonight, possibly involving alcohol, but again no thoughts have gone into it yet... Oh, Toby and I were also planning on burning the project briefing booklet on our balcony, possibly stealing Helen's idea... :)

Unless you live on my corridor, it's extremely unlikely that you'll see me at all after the weekend until 9th June, when my exams end! I think it works out to be roughly 2 days I have to revise each course...

In other news, I've set up my MSN Space yesterday whilst getting irritated by dissertation. As far as I know it will never replace this blog as the templates are not as flexible, but it is a great place to dump photos. So I did just that - uploaded over 100 photos of my friends - I think they actaully cover pretty much ALL my friends (who I've met face to face since buying camera in August 2003). Feel free to check it out - you can find out what they all look like :)

http://www.randomfan.com/msn/

And lastly, Star Wars: I hear that the new movie is out and there may be plan for a cinema trip within the next week. Despite not having seen any of the previous movies, I'll probably go anyway just to get confused (which is actually quite fun - I watched the 2nd LoTR film before the 1st one...). But if you have seen any of it before you may find this amusing:

Star Wars goes organic...

Anyway, enough of this, I should probably disappear...

*disappears*

Countdown

11 hours to go...

Just one little thing I'd like to say...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!"

Sorry about that... I'll be in much happier mood in exactly 36 hours :-)

I lied

Yes that's right, I lied to you all, there was no post yesterday, mainly due to the fact that I forgot about it...

So what have I been up to in the past week? Well I can't really remember most of them - even Friday seems like aaaaaages ago, and of the things I can remember I can't seem to remember when each one happened...

Having read many people's blogs, exams seem to be the thing on everyone's mind at the moment... I seem to have made lots of exciting arrangements for stuff after my exams - visiting friends, concerts, anime, parties, and even getting married (24th November), but I do have to get through the next few weeks first... Dissertation deadline is this Friday, I'm going home for the weekend immediately after for my birthday (going to be 21 in 7 days, how scary!), and exams two weeks later. At least they only take 3 days and are all in the afternoon, so no chance of me over-sleeping :)

For most of the week I've been quite anti-social, turning down a New Hall formal on Tuesday and missing UCPO rehearsal on Wednesday with the one dissertation excuse, although not really sure whether I managed to make productive use of the extra time acquired... ah well... Friday was bit more exciting, with a formal hall at Jesus for all the Askeans (HAHC was my old school) at Cambridge - all nine of us (well, one didn't turn up because he had mocks the following day, pathetic excuse...)! Very fun evening it was indeed, with slightly excessive amount of wine; we even won money from random Jesus guys who challenged us for games of table-football! :D

In other news, Toby discovered his Worms Armageddon CD last night which naturally resulted in 2 hours of wormage, including one game with unlimited super sheeps being the only weapon! The second episode of the new reality show Fan and the Badger was aired earlier today, where the badger attempted to drink some milk and failed...

If you want distraction here's a random game.

Anyway, back to work/"work"...

Guess Who

Apologies for the lack of posts this week, I promise that one will come tomorrow... But in the mean time, here's a random photo from March to confuse you :-) 

a random list

A random list of little things that happened over the weekend, in no particular order...

• discovered the meaning of ^H
• missed the opportunity to take photos of really exciting cloud and rainbow
• caught a fly single-handedly
• found out that people at Fidelity don't like me
• went to Mill road twice
• found cute kittens at kittenwar.com
• decided that in a fight between Hane and I, Hane would probably win as long as he can dodge my right fist...
• learning that the perfect route for getting rich is McKinseys -> MBA @ Harvard -> Goldman Sachs
• realising that it's probably not something for me...
• drinking "Coconut Juice Drink with Pulp"
• finding out about graduation arrangement -> realising that graduation is in less than 2 months -> searching for PANIC button
• hugging my boring pillows
• discovering my extraordinary ability to remember all the little things about other people
• solved the problem with falling asleep on keyboard - just hug a pillow when using computer
• had mix kebabs from Gardies for breakfast
• being accused of having cheese fetish...
• decided not to use DC for the next few weeks
• used my umbrella for the first time ever this year - took 5 minutes trying to open it...

Told you I like the sky...

Pretty photo of the sky at sunset, taken yesterday evening from my room balcony. The tall building is the University Library.

Don't ask me why I'm up so early, I don't know either... Going straight back to bed... 

Multimedia overload!

Can't think of anything to say today, so take a look at what multimedia stuff I have on my computer instead :-)

Photos

• Started taking photos in August 2003 when I bought my wonderful Sony DSC-P10 with money I earned that summer.
• Most photos are of people, but I do love scenery too, especially colourful sky!
• Current count on my computer indicates that I have 4398 photos in total!! (5.38GB)
• Basically, if you've ever met me in person it's almost certain that you are in at least one photo, possibly doing something embarrasing... :p
• These don't count towards the statatistics at the end, which is for music and video only.

Music

• Two seperate collections for classical music and everything else.
• Music on my computer used to be entirely classical, only started collecting other stuff in December 2003.
• Roughly 215 albums of classical music and 620 albums of non-classical, and also 250 or so songs for which I don't have the complete album.
• There are 11794 tracks in total.
• The total play time of ALL my music is currently 5 weeks, 0 day, 11 hours and 38 minutes!! (50.3GB) - of which classical music take up roughly 10 days.
• I have no idea how much of this I've actually listened to... :-)

Videos

• Mostly TV comedies, some music videos, small number of movies, some cartoons and some anime.
• Current list of TV comedies: American Dad (current series - only two episodes aired so far), Black Books ALL, Blackadder ALL, Brainiac (few random episodes), Brass Eye ALL, Coupling ALL, Family Guy ALL, Father Ted ALL, Fawlty Towers ALL, Frasier ALL (yes, all 11 seasons/264 episodes!), Futurama ALL, Look Around You ALL, My Family (Season 1 & 2), The Day Today ALL, and Yes Prime Minister (Season 1). 82.8GB in total.
• Music videos for 201 songs, covering 46 artists, 9.47GB.
• I don't tend to keep too many movies on computer, currently have 19 including extended editions of the LoTR trilogy. 38 hours 11 minutes is the total time, 17.23GB.
• I also have a fair amount of Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny - 72 episodes in total - this adds up to another 8 hours 35 minutes of video, 3.8GB.
• Finally, as you may have noticed, I've also got into anime fairly recently. I have watched Scryed, Mai HiME, Full Metal Alchemist; currently watching Excel Saga; and planning to watch Cowboy Bebop and Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien in the near future. Unfortunately I don't have enough space to keep everything I've watched, so there isn't that much on my computer at the moment... Only have the entire series of Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien and Excel Saga, and few episode of FMA. They add up to 21 hours 23 minutes, 11.62GB.
• Adding all this up, the total play time for all my videos is 12 days, 14 hours, and 26 minutes!! (124.99GB)

Total Time - 1154 Hours/48 Days/7 Weeks (roughly)!

Total Size - 175.29GB!

Hmm... that is quite a lot, even managed to surprise myself...

Oh well, I guess that's my summer holiday sorted...

I lost

Grr! I lost to Toby this morning - had to be woken up by him...

In other news, I'm going to bed, good night!

P.S. can't leave you without a link, so here's one... Mr. Picassohead - unleash your creativity!

Excel Saga rocks!

Yay, 3 weeks till dissertation deadline and 5 weeks till finals, yet at such crucial time I've managed to get Toby and myself addicted to Excel Saga and Fullmetal Alchemist... We actually spent most of today watching them - 4 episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist (I've watched the entire series already in the holiday, this is the 2nd time) and 7 episodes of Excel Saga, as well as the latest episode of Doctor Who and some Black Books, which added up to over 6 hours! Joined by Oliver and James RIP for some of them. Excel Saga made me laugh so much that I think my stomach muscle is suffering now... So yes, very productive day for us... Large quantity of cheese and milk was also consumed, which probably wasn't very wise...

Anyway, as you can probably tell not much else happened today, so I'll just leave you with two random & cute Flash games...

1. RayRay Parade - the aim is to get all the RayRays to stand up, but the catch is that, whenever you click on one, his neighbours either sit down (if they're already standing) or stand up (if they're already sitting down).
2. The Way Home - keep the squirrel jumping (at about the right time) and keep the mouse pointer on the object you want to land on.