Title says it all, I always seem to be rushing around lol. Since uni finished I was practising for a gig. Originally we were told we could play 7 songs, which got cut to 5, and then 2. We were playing covers at a school fare. The reason our setlist got cut short was so htat the teachers band could play their setlist twice. Most gay. They were also playing covers and skipped all the guitar solos !
In the end we played ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ and ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’. To make up for only being allwoed 3 songs we had a 3 minute shred off between the other guitarist and I.

Since then I got myself a job gardening two days a week - got 2 weeks left of that. During this weekend and last I wrote an isntrumental song. Still needs bass and drums, maybe a synth, but all the guitars are done:
http://www.myspace.com/000metalsam

I intend to write another one within the next few weeks

I’ve been very busy this last term at uni, so I’ve not had much time to post here

But, my first year of university is now over and summer holidays (all 13 weeks of it :D) are here! Managed to end uni on a good note getting a 2:1 and the highest score in the year for one module.

Plans for the summer: Play a gig or two, record some guitar, play even more guitar, then do some mountaineering and a quick tour of eastern europe ending in Prague Should be fun !

Currently looking into finding an external FireWire soundcard with phantom power and mic pre-amps - the Tapco Link.Firewire and the Mackie Onyx Satellite appear to be quite good. Also been looking at the M-Audio Firewire 410, but thats a bit pricier than the other two and only offers two extra outputs, which is overkill for what I want it for (miccing a half stack).

Hopefully playing a gig on the 14th - Playing a whole load of covers. Im quite excited, but not sure if Im going to be able to learn eerything in time.

Will hopefully be able to meet up with some old mates from high school soon. Its strange, when at home I miss all my uni mates, when at uni I miss my mates here. I guess I miss my uni mates alot more though, just becuase I’m used to seeing them everyday for the last year or so. Should be bale to meet up with some mates from uni in a few weeks time or so though, so it’s all good

Are white!

Its the Roses tournament at the moment at York university, it spans from Friday to Sunday afternoon. It is a tournament between York and Lancasters universities, and is held York every other year. Currently York are winning 116 - 94

Havent updated for a while as I hve been very busy. Had exams a couple of weeks ago and Ive been neck deep in revision and work last week - and will be until the end of term.

As a result of revision my guitar has been put to one side, but I still find the time (1am when I cant sleep usually :s) to get in a bit of practice or write a riff or two. Currently writing two instrumentals, one is a classical and the other is going to be shred. Going to try and record them over summer

Started learning Fortran as an extra cirricular activity, very simple language - finding it pretty easy after trying to learn C++ twice lol. We learn on a linux system (FC2). I took to it quite nicely having used linux before, found my limited knowledge of bash very useful to get around. We were recomended to use NEdit to code in, which imo looks nasty, so I used VIM instead : I can also ssh into it from home so I dont need to trek to the programming labs (an entire 2 minute walk from where I live).

Currently working on a report for the week - the point of the report is to measure the height of craters on the moon by measuring the length of their shadows. So Im trawling through 80+ pictures of the moon trying to find some suitable pictures! *YAWN*

Octopush later

Im in a picky mood,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6571139.stm

^^ talks about M$ software being sold cheap, then goes on to talk about the one laptop per child project, which uses linux. Without saying the onlpc uses linux - ies it creates the impression tha tonlpc uses M$. blah.

I had gone to some sort of guitar college rather than university ? Would I have got in ? Would it be as fun as I think it would ?

As you might have guessed Im starting to find my course a little intense. Bring on summer

Real inventive M$….just after Apple drop it, Microsoft follows their lead. But yeah, the point…

is that now the Zune becomes more attractive. It has a feature that lets you share music with other Zune users, but M£ used to have DRM on the music that you shared, you could only use it for 3 days then it deleted itself, or wouldnt let you play it, something like that.

But now, no DRM, means you can keep the music. Hopefully. Which would make the Zune great

Unless its been recalled…..I havent seen one in the shops since it was released…In fact, Ive never seen anyone with one…

Technorati: Microsoft Zune DRM

Which is great! They all appera to be physically ok, although they may have suffered from some stress or something along those lines, as hte follwoing bbc article demonstrates:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6533069.stm

If what is in that article is true, Iran ought to be ashamed - they treated our servicemen disgracefully. It was bad enough to make the woman where a headscarf, but what they did there was unacceptable. I can but hope the PM does something about this.

Technorati: Iran

So Dell anounced a week or two ago that it will offer its customers the option to have their computer arrive with linux preinstalled.

What does this mean for the customers?

More choice. which is always good. They will be able to try linux without the hassle of installing another operating system, and without having to setup a dual boot. Although this is ‘easy’ for the technologically aware, most people would brick it at the thought of doing this. This should also take the hassle out of configuring a new linux install. From personal experience, even ubuntu never works ‘out of the box’, although it does come pretty close. Things like sound never worked properly - I always struggled to record my guitar into my ubuntu desktop. Hopefully Dell wil lsort out all those little things

What does this mean for linux?

A greater following if anything. Theyre certainly not going to lose followers from Dell offering linux alongside Windows. Hopefully this will also mean a faster development cycle for whatever distro is chosen, as bugs get reported quicker due to more people using it. As always, a gain for one distro is a gain for all distros, as everything in the linux community is shared.

Whats does this mean for M$?

Unlike what many Linux geeks think, this will not be the deathblow to windows. There will always be windows until games manufacturers start releasing games natively for linux (and OSX :D). Until that point there will always be windows.

The BBC’s announcement of Dell offering linux:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6506027.stm

Had a look at the Dell website and their not yet offering Linux on any of their machines. I say any, I looked at one (Home, Desktop) and assumed they havent yet

Technorati: Linux Dell Windows Microsoft M$

Title says it all. Been trying to do some revision lately, but it goes so slowly. I get lost in my mind if theres nothing else to distract me :S

Went out today with my Dad to find a new suit for this weekend. Two of my friends are getting married, so I decided it was a good excuse to get a new suit. My old is getting a little…..tight…..

The new amp is awesome to play, sorting out some soundproofing tomorrow. Going to get some carpet from a charity shop, cut it into strips and stick egg boxes on it. The egg boxes improve the acoustics of the room, and the carpet should absorb the sound to stop it going through the walls. Need to do more practice, Ive not done alot lately. Infact, I havent done much of anything apart from watch films / tv.

Might write a post on the situation with Iran and our sailors later. I think we should send in the SAS and sort them out - Iran really is acting like a playground bully - the fat kid noone really likes.

Just got back from spending seceral days at a mate’s from uni. All of us (from our circle) but one went down to his for a few days. I arrived tuesday night with another guy and everyone else came down on wedesday. Wednesday night out host threw a large party, inviting loads of his mates from the area. Needless to say we were far more wrecked than all his mates Highlights included my friend’s shoes being thrown out the window and someone trying to start a fight with me because of a misheard ‘your mum’ joke. Quite a funnny incident lol.

Thursday was spent chillin’. We went bowling, then back to his, watched a film or two, got some fish n chips. Really good time

Alas, now I must work very hard for hte rest of the week. Will take a few breaks to play with a band Ive organised for the holidays - were going to play and record a cover of Sonic 2. Me on lead