As I Xi It v2.3

So many things have happened in the last couple of months and I’ve become somewhat lazy to blog about my travels. It all becomes a bit of a chore when the backlog of things to blog (bloglog?) starts to pile up.

I wanted to write more about my trip to Switzerland, much more about Iceland and then last month, there was the trip to Northumberland with Jac, Kamil and Randy, just last week I was in France with Xiao and Anja and on Sunday-Monday gazing upon Stonehenge and Sailsbury cathedral.

I more or less write all day for work and it sort of takes away the pleasure to write personally. But the thing is, while writing for work, I’ll often be thinking of things to blog about, but when I get home and down to the computer, I don’t really feel like it and would rather immerse myself in past episodes of The Simpsons.

*sigh*

This weekend, we drove up the A40 and I noticed that there were quite a lot of people parked up on the hard shoulder suffering from vehicular problems. Since I’ve been learning to drive (finally, some say), I’ve been reading my driving books and realised how none of them actually follow the book. If you’re on the hard shoulder, you and all your passengers should get behind the barrier and onto the bank while waiting for help, but there were families just loitering behind the car. You don’t get behind the barrier just for fun, you do it because its safer than standing on the roadside where cars are whizzing past you at 70 mph. The hazard lights should also be switched on.

It seems odd that to pass ones driving test, you don’t actually have to learn how to drive on the motorway. In fact, learner drivers aren’t allowed on motorways.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve become more appreciative of a good notebook. At the moment I’m using a Bart Simpson A4 wire-bound notebook for my book chapter research notes and the holes in the paper where the wire goes through aren’t quite cleanly punched. It snows teeny bits of paper every time I turn a page.  It’s not as bad as my other generic notebook, that’s like a bloody blizzard! They might only have been £1 each, but I still expect clean holes. 

I’m finding that I’m vacuuming more often these days as a result.

To all who read this – Merry Christmas and Happy Non-Denominational Holidays from XiYuOnline.com

I find that as I get older, Christmases become less and less exciting. About as unexciting as birthdays. I don’t like festivities. There’s too much forced jolly-ness.

People shouldn’t just wait for Christmas to be nice to each other. Life’s too short to be reserving good will wishing only around Christmas time.

I’ll leave you with this screen shot off the TfL site. It’s not something you see every day in London  even though it sometimes feels like it.

It’s all very well having all these nice new gadgets being released. Most of them look pretty darn good, but why is it that most of them have that shiney gloss finish to them? It just leaves fingerprints too easily. The base of my LCD monitor is black as is the bezel around my keyboard and they both just look fingerprinty and really dusty if it hasn’t been immediately been dusted. Then there’s my delightful netbook which shows less dust due to being moved all the time, but the case is a real fingerprint magnet. My iPod is alright, its white so dust specks don’t show up so easily and you can only see fingerprints at a certain angle.

If things must be glossy, they should be on light coloured items. Dark covers and casings should be matt. I think once I’ve had my netbook for a bit longer, I’ll repaint the case with something matt. Come to think of it, things with that satin sheen can sometimes attract fingerprints and be harder to wipe off! The long-term practicalities for materials on gadgets and gizmos require more thought to them.

No matter how clean your hands are, there are always fingerprints left.

It also irritates me how some people insist on touching computer screens when they’re pointing something out. A majority of the screens in the computer room in uni are fingerprint-tastic! There’s even one with a pencil mark across it. I’m just slowly simmering away when people are poking at my screen. Just the other day my friend left a perfect thumb print on my netbook screen, he wasn’t even pointing anything out! When it comes to fingering screens, there are some serial offenders out there no matter how much and how nicely you tell them not to do it, especially if its your own property. Matt screens are the worst to clean.

I had a meeting at 10:00 am this morning so had to get up earlier than usual. I woke up at 8:00 am and it was dark. I hate waking up when its still dark outside. It wasn’t just dark either, it was raining heavily, but not so heavily that I could hear large drops of rain dripping on my window ledge. It was a terrible wake up, I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep but I couldn’t, I had important things to do. I finally managed to get myself out of bed at 8.33 am and did all the usual morning things but at a rather leisurely pace, with the wet weather, I figured everyone to be late for the meeting, I even took some time to play with the cat. He was just sitting in my chair, watching me going about my morning ritual.

I made myself a mug of hot Ribena. For some reason I really felt like Ribena. Finished off my drink, put on my shoes and jacket, deployed my hood and off I went at 8.56 am. I walked reasonably briskly to the station and at the platform, I only waited 2 minutes for a train to arrive. With the wet weather, I assumed that The Tubes would be packed with either “Severe” or “Minor Delays”, there were minor delays, but I didn’t notice. When I caught the second train, it was pretty much the same, it just arrived as I got to the platform. Everthing Tube-wise was going rather well. I actually arrived at uni on time, so did everyone else.

It’s strange. Sometimes its rush, rush, rush and you end up running late, while other times when you take your time without much care, things turn out hunky-dory, why is that?

While I was going down the escalators at a station on the way back, I always want to get to the platform presto-pronto as not all trains go all the way to the end of my line. Sometimes, on a bad day, I could be waiting 20 minutes for such a train.

What really annoys me is that some people just don’t stand on the right-hand side of the escalator if they’re not willing to walk the steps and block the way for those of us who want to get to our destination quickly.

This afternoon, a group of four people basically just plugged up a section of the escalator so the left-hand side which is for quick passage was blocked. There was a queue of about 6 people behind them. Isn’t it obvious to people that if you’re static, stay on the right and if you’re moving, stay on the left?? With everyone standing on the right and leaving the left empty, it kinda gives it away. What really didn’t help matters was that the guy closest to the obstructive group didn’t do anything about it. Luckily, the train I wanted arrived on the platform just after I got there. It doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it really just get my goat.

What’s quite bizzare is that in Singapore, there are signs that tell people to stand on the left and walk on the right on the MRT escalators but everyone does the opposite.

It’s 20:58 of Thursday 13th November and I hear fireworks still. Deepvali’s over and so is Guy Fawkes. Fireworks use ought to be more restricted.

It’s the 9th November and you know what, there are fireworks going off as I type this. There’s just that popping sound and its been raining on and off over the past two days. Obviously rain didn’t stop play.

Last night, there were fireworks still going off at 11.59pm GMT. I’m sure there are noise pollution laws here about such things.

All this fireworks nonsense has been going on for three weeks now. Surely it must all end soon??

The bloody things have been going off every night for the past week or so where I live and I’m sure there’ll be more to come as Guy Fawkes night approaches.

I do wonder if that’s what’s causing my tinntus. There’s this constant hissing/whistling sound in my left ear. When I woke up this morning, I noticed it in my right ear too.

Don’t like fireworks, which is ironic considering Soph and I are planning to shoot them at the Lord Mayor’s Show this year.