Cambridge et la neige.

C'est jeudi français!

Depuis deux semaines, il neige. À Newcastle, toutes choses sont blanches.

De toute façon, je suis allé à Cambridge cette semaine. C'est une belle ville. Je serait heureux si j'y vais pour mes études.

Maintenant, j'écoute de France 80 en ligne. C'est très amusant : la musique pop français est comme… fromageux qu'il est en Angleterre.

À bientôt!

Les offres

Mardi, j'ai reçu une lettre de Newcastle University qui a dit qu'il me donne une offre! De plus, hier, j'ai reçu un émail de Cambridge University qui a dit que j'ai besoin de visiter pour une interview. C'est le 7 décembre, et je suis nerveux.

De toute façon, j'ai eu une réunion pour discuter l'aviron Mercredi. Nous avons parle au sujet du programme hivernal d'entrainement. C'était vraiment agréable ; j'aime la responsabilité d'être « Junior Vice-Captain. »

Bien, c'est tout! Bonne nuit, fais de beaux rêves, si c'est logique en français.

Stroke on the Water

See what I did there? You've no idea how long that poor pun took me. To get an idea, take a look at the date of my last post.

For the first time in over a month, today, I rowed on water, instead of one of the machines. It felt great to be back on the water, though I think my skill has depreciated somewhat.

I finally received my SAT results this week:

• Critical Reading: 650
• Math: 800
• Writing: 650

Hopefully that should be enough to get into either MIT, Harvard, Princeton or Stanford, but I'll bet 2090 is below their average intake's overall score. Still, I'm counting on my foreignness making up for that.

Night all!

Seeing Red

The title wrote itself.

After being beaten by RGS and a further three schools in the UKMT Team Challenge – though, granted, we beat local rivals Whitley Bay High by 9 points, which softens the blow – I went to the cinema with Niall! Bobby took us in his lovely little Corsa, although this meant having to endure Saskia too.

The film we saw was entitled RED, hence this post's title. Any film starring Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren, must be good. Add to that its origin in DC Comics, and suddenly it is brilliant.

Right, enough waffle, goodnight!

Hallucination

My brain's getting cleverer. I mean to say, my subconscious is getting cleverer. Throughout the summer, I began being able to wake up from within dreams, given that I could realize it was, in fact, a dream. At first, this was quite simple: various otherwise impossible stimuli could reveal the fictitious nature of my hallucination, such as the duplication of people I know or the incredibly unlikely appearance of just one person. Strangely, a few weeks ago, a dream which should have set sirens blazing managed to keep me busy for quite sometime. I think my brain managed this deceit by making everything a little less detailed.

Today, ye olde subconscious tried a new trick: making things much more real. It took me to school, put me in a Physics lesson, and let me go home early. The façade was going well, until I realized I'd forgotten to go to French. Suddenly, Mr Brain couldn't decide whether to let me keep walking home or put me back in school. Obviously, the ensuing confusion alerted my senses and I even realized that I hadn't even gone to school, then I felt the sick realization that I hadn't yet woken up. Hence, I woke up, albeit late for French. Conscious one, subconscious nil.

Unfortunately, I did go to school in real life, and, frankly, it's becoming increasingly tiresome. I'll be glad of the new horizons awaiting me at whichever University chooses to have me.

Enough mindless blabber for tonight. Night interpeeps!

Nocturnality

It's a day before November, one day after a brilliant party – thanks Ben! – and both 11 and 12 hours after 0100. Fall has begun and GMT is back for the winter. It's had a longer holiday than teachers get, but it's back, rolling back sunset and bringing darkness to the early evening.

Speaking of which, I woke up at sunset yesterday; I fell asleep at sunrise. It is such an odd sensation, but I greatly enjoyed it. The chickens didn't enjoy being locked in their run all day though, so I'm staying at home and letting them roam free in the garden today.

Back to the party: it was fancy dress, which has never been a concept to which I've taken – especially given the usually tacky nature of the general masses' costumes. Nevertheless, I vowed to go for broke; I don't do things by halves. I've mentioned a few times this week my progress in sewing. Finally, yesterday, moments before sunrise, I finished my suit jacket, went to bed, woke at half five, put my outfit on and turned up to Ben's party as Harvey "Two-face" Dent. Hence, in fact, that post entitled Duality and the increase in Batman references. I'll have to nab a photograph of me from last night off of someone else – I couldn't be all that bothered to take one of myself.

Oh, almost forgot! It's probably been a month or so since I last mentioned that most glorious of foods, but I've eaten some both just now and also on Friday. I am, of course, referring to bacon.

So, on the subject of bacon, I'll end in the immortal words of Porky Pig: That's all folks!

Poker Night

With two items of clothing down, I started work on the penultimate piece. Hopefully, my outfit will be ready for tomorrow night's party. Here's to a Saturday of sewing...

Anyway, tonight, Josh, Karl, Alex and Tayler turned up for a game of Texas Hold'em Poker. Wasn't a bad game for five-handed, and the order in which you read them – if you read conventionally – is the order in which they busted. Alex was especially impressive, lasting almost the entire game with 20 big blinds. Tayler and I could've gone on for hours, had it not been for his kings full of sixes versus my four sixes, which took us from about level stacks to a skew in my favour.

In other news, several updates on my once-brilliant Ubuntu machine – upgrading from 8.10 to 9.10 – eventually terminated with a failed attempt to upgrade to 10.04 LTS. The attempt failed due to a lack of disk-space; ultimately, this was caused by bad sectors on my 120GB hard disk which restrict me from actually moving partitions to wherever I want. Free software is great, if you at least have money for new hardware. Never mind, this still works.

Well, at least poker went well. Night froods!

Production and Reproduction

So, there was a point today when I thought to myself "this is the least productive day ever." Actually, upon further reflection, I feel I've produced enough to call today a win. I enjoy doing anything I can on any given day to tick it off as a win; today's winning qualities are as follows:

• I finished sewing my custom shirt
• I cut up some trousers
• I ventured to Sainsbury's with little brother Owen
• I bought copious amounts of food, including some drink and snacks for Friday night's poker
• I logged onto the XKCD IRC channel and had a thorough discussion on mammalian breeding patterns with a complete stranger, as well as sparking some conversation about SATs and contributing to Tetris-related nostalgia

Of course today was a win! On the subject of SATs, by this time tomorrow I will have my score. 2400? I doubt it, but, oh my, how excellent would that be? They'd better be good: they'll be sent to MIT, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.

As you'll be no doubt pleased to know, the reason humans don't have a mating season is because they have supreme intelligence which allows them to imagine the future. Thank you, #xkcd.

A Stitch in Time

So, four hours into the day and I hadn't yet gotten any sleep. "Wherefore?" thou mayst ask. "I was writing an essay about time-travel," I would respond.

After finally surfacing four hours into the afternoon, I started my sewing again and had a lovely catch-up with my good friend Becky.

Today being Tuesday, I went rowing, and thanks to pacesetting from seasoned rower Casey, took another 6.2 seconds off my 2000m time: 8:05.2. I then felt physically sick for about an hour, recuperated and I'm now ready for another night of writing about time-travel.

Goodnight interpeeps!

Idiosyncrasy.

So, went down to the rowing club this morning: I had a few minutes on the machine, but spent most of my time there clearing up after a party that presumably took place last night. Still, it's always fun. There's much amusement in washing glasses and popping balloons.

As for the rest of the day, maintenance of my beautiful Ubuntu-running machine took centre-stage. I'm nigh on an expert in matters relating to rsync. I've tidied up all my home folders and synchronized the most important gigabyte or so over my dear memory stick Josephine, as well as written a straight forward shell script for future synchronization. I do love Linux.

I've also set the gears moving for a poker night this Friday. As practice, I just played with my little brother and marginally lost. Anyway, with the remainder of the night, I think I'll redraft my essay about how Batman has influenced me. This essay isn't even purely for fun. I'd happily write it for fun, just as I would my time-travel essay, but no, I'm writing it as part of the application process to Princeton. I hope they enjoy quirkiness.

Goodnight interpeeps! Take care...

Duality

Today may have been a good day. It rests on the decision of MIT's admissions office. I had an interview today with an MIT Alumnus as part of the admissions process. I thought it went well enough. I may not find out how well it went until next April. Currently, today is both good and bad, just as Schrödinger’s Cat is both dead and alive.

I also did a little shopping, including my latest purchase to make Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor bearable: new headphones. The old ones broke – darned things. Now, all is right with my world as I'm listening to the Batman Begins/Dark Knight soundtracks. Big love to The Caped Crusader and his associated music.

Whilst I'm reminiscing on The Dark Knight, I feel like mentioning the approaching dark nights. English is such a pretty language, especially when trying to make a link from Batman to winter.

I adore winters. I've lived through 17 of them, including that one I was born halfway through. Their perpetual ability to upset the futile masses is somewhat amusing. Here approaches the dawn of winter, the dusk of the year. I'll tail off before my melodrama cannibalizes itself in a bout of irony, and remind everyone that it's still only fall: it is not yet cold.

Goodnight.

Au Revoir Les Enfants... Salut l'argent!

Aujourd'hui, j'ai trouvé un lettre et un paquet par le courrier. Le premier, c'est du Magistrates' Court, et il détaille le compensation que je suis dû par mon attaquer de février ; le dernière est un DVD que j'achète de Play.com ce Dimanche. C'est un film chouette, s'appelle Au Revoir Les Enfants, écrit et réalisé par Louis Malle. J'ai le regardé déjà une fois, mais j'aurais voulu le regarder une plus fois, préférablement sans sou-titres anglais, mais, malheureusement, on ne peut pas les éteindre.

En autres actualités, j'ai redécouverte les Polos! Elles ont des belles menthes.

Ben, ouais, c'est tout! Bonne nuit, mes amis.

Despicable!

So, tonight I ventured to the land of feature-length commercial entertainment once more to witness the enjoyable animated 3Dness which is Despicable Me. Great voice work from Steve Carell – who I'm not often a fan of, however, he is rising in my estimations – and Russell Brand as a Emmet Brown-esque mad scientist.

Having the day off school let me catch up on some work, or, at least, finish one piece of work. Annoyingly, I still have some left to do, but half-term should give me enough time to finish all school-work as well as my essay for Harvard, Stanford and Princeton. I have a brilliant idea!

That'll be all for today. Things on my mind tonight include almost exclusively applications to my big four Universities. I mean, if I get these right, I could be offered a place at one of the greatest academic institutions in the world. That's the previously mentioned three and MIT. Exciting stuff!

Good night froods! I'm watching Lie to Me, Sky1. Tim Roth is brilliant.

9.6 seconds

I finally beat my original 2000m indoor rowing time today. After missing my lift from Bob due to a peculiar dream that kept me dormant until 1120, I eventually got to the club at 1150, after having some much needed bacon. Within a half hour, I was on the machine, and rowing the best I've ever rowed on one, cutting my time from 8:21.0 to 8:11.4. That's the 9.6 seconds you've read about.

In other news, my attempted install of Ubuntu server failed. This is due to a lack of support for my i686 infrastructure. I may have to use 8.04 or 8.10 instead. The ideal plan is to get a new build, then use this laptop to connect to the server, not as the server itself.

I've begun work on the Common Application today. That's America's answer to UCAS. It'll cover my Harvard, Princeton and Stanford applications, hence speed up my progress with the flowchart of academia, which now covers my entire whiteboard.

My mother certainly deserves commendations for another brilliant Sunday roast, with mashed potato, sausages and all. It's thanks to such a dinner – and my progress in rowing and completion of the flowchart's primary function – that overall, I'm in a pretty good mood today. I've been edgy as of late, for which I do not apologize. Edginess is a fine component of the human condition: a truly excellent defence mechanism.

Goodnight all!

Maverick can be my wingman...

On Thursday I was filled with adulation, having completed my UCAS application, and, hence, my Cambridge application. Unfortunately, dealing with Britain's top academic institute is never that simple! I have to fill out the SAQ, which, much to my relief, isn't too long. That'll be sent away by Tuesday, and then I can concentrate on MIT, Stanford, Princeton and Harvard.

Tonight, I've downloaded – thanks to wget and Oxford University's Open Source Software mirror – Ubuntu Server Edition 10.10, known colloquially as Maverick Meerkat. Lovely. I'll be trying that out on a wee laptop soon, so expect complaints of a total failure in tomorrow's post!

Regards,
Love and kisses,
Yours sincerely,
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Robin James

Going with the flow.

Today, I made myself a flowchart on my whiteboard, with coding, multiple loops and a few of my Perl moves to boot. I do enjoy a good bit of Perl. This isn't just any flowchart, though. This flowchart has a time-frame of 11 weeks, several variables, four real-world processes – each of which can have up to 6 contextual meanings, dependent on the variables – and reiterative loops, as I said.

Besides being a good geek, I had to fill my day with some regular person stuff, so I went to a decent party, saw some people I hadn't seen in months, some I hadn't seen in years, as well as Niall, Stevo, Bobby, Ben, Saskia and Tom, all of whom I hadn't seen for a few days.

So, after reiterations, recreation and reminiscence, it's time for bed. Night froods!

Le retourne de Jeudi français!

Demain, je dois avoir envoyé mon application à UCAS. Aujourd'hui, j'ai le fait. Maintenant, j'ai 79 jours jusqu’à je dois envoyer un application aux universités Américaines. Ce sera un propre application pour MIT, Harvard et possiblement des autres.

Ah, oui. J'ai oublié de me désoler pour ne pas avoir poster en français le semaine dernière. J’espère ce soir rends tout meilleur.

Bonne nuit!

The Social Network

I saw The Social Network at the cinema today. It was a fantastic film, and probably still is. Go and see it sometime. Don't pirate it. Pirate music, that's fine. Don't pirate films. The crux of the matter is that, for music artists, the majority of their income – if they're any kind of decent – comes primarily from concerts. The film industry has no such live performances for generating revenue, hence, in not paying to watch a film, one jeopardizes the entire film industry. Don't pirate films.

Back to my original point, which was, oh yeah, The Social Network is brilliant. It has inspired me to increase my geek abilities. For instance, I'd rarely used the wget command on my fantastic, invincible, Ubuntu-running laptop. Currently, I'm testing it out, trying to download scores of photos from MIT's website. I did try wget on Facebook, but, their brilliant tech guys have blocked non-authorized bots, as have wikipedia. On my first attempt at wget, I downloaded around 400MB of data from Newcastle University's website. I'd guess it'd still be going, approaching one gigabyte, had I not killed it.

Anyway, enough chat. I have Unix commands to learn. Laters interpeeps!

Gimme eat.

As per usual, this here Tuesday included rowing. Today's session was fantastic, thanks to indoor rowing champion Shaun giving the four of us who bothered to turn up – Rob, Ben, Tom and myself – a proper workout. I feel like I might do a load better next time I try for a 2000m time. Sub-eight minutes, here I come!

A few hours ago, I inadvertently knocked over a glass of milk and successfully resisted crying. I don't see the point in it, after all, there's no sense crying over spilt milk. That said, I really like milk, and I dislike wasting anything that I like. Food, for example: I've heard numerous times in recent months that Britain – renowned worldwide for its self-righteous disregard for anything other than its own pride – throws away one-third of its food. To anyone reading this: do not throw away food; give it to me, as I get hungry every ten minutes.

Oh, before I forget, I must say hello to whomsoever is visiting my blog from Singapore. How are you?

Goodnight interpeeps!

Crime and Punishment

It was a dark February night. Three young men were walking home after a day's shopping, but this does not make them any less heterosexual. Suddenly, a moron leaps out from behind a hedge, runs at the most handsome of the three boys, swings unsuccessfully for his head, gets behind him and puts him into a headlock. After struggling with the drunken fool, Robin James – that's the handsome one I was telling you about – broke free and walked briskly away from him. It was at this point when Niall – at least in the top three of the most handsome of the lads – politely asked the moron what he thought he was playing at. The moron – lacking the ability to communicate with intelligence ‐ responded to this perfectly reasonable question with a well-aimed right hook, followed by a unsportsmanlike knee to the ribs. Somewhat satisfied with this display of stupidity, the degenerate stood back and observed Niall's cowering. Following this, the three desirable young gentlemen stepped up their pace, putting considerable distance between themselves and the assailant.

Alas, this was not the finale of the incident, for the drunkard tailed the boys down the street. During this pursuit, Niall phoned the police whilst bleeding from a cut above his left eye. Before long the idiot had regained his previous aggression and sprinted towards the trio, throwing his fist at the back of Robin's head, missing only due to the agility of the handsome adolescent, who ducked, sensing the oncoming fist. At this point, Bobby ran, followed by Niall and Robin, unperturbed until reaching Niall's house some 500m away. Half an hour passed before the police pulled up outside the house, at the same instant that Stig of the Dump crawled past, presumably still looking for a fight. The police arrested him immediately.

Today, justice was delivered, as, finally, the imbecile rekindled some dignity by pleading guilty.

Gluttony and Three-legged Races

For me, Sunday mornings mean heading down to Tynemouth Rowing Club; as you may already know.
Again, as you might know, both Bobby and Niall are ill. I row when I'm ill! I went to a regatta when I was ill.

Nevertheless, I got down to rowing, courtesy of the ever brilliant Michael, and spent several upcoming hours not rowing, but, instead, babysitting Saskia. It's not all that bad, really. We did do some brilliant three-legged racing, however, it'll be nice when Bob's back on his feet; he's much better at looking after her. Bless 'em. So cute!

Back to superficial matters: I ate a burger and a sausage at the post-rowing barbecue. Yes peeps, October barbecue. I later ate my entire Sunday dinner. I have a big Sunday dinner. Loads of mashed potato.

Right, enough monologic drivel. Exeunt.

SATs and my aunty's.

The title rhymes if you pronounce everything right.

I had to go to Tyne Metropolitan College's Coach Road campus at silly o'clock in the morning today, all in the name of the world's longest exams. According to College Board's regulations, I am not allowed to discuss the test or my responses to anything in the immediate future. Actually, they didn't specify a time-limit for not discussing the tests, which is odd, as I'm sure I'm supposed to tell Universities about them, otherwise, well, what's the point?

After that, I popped round to my aunt's house just around the corner. A few corners, in fact, and passed a Greggs on the way. I have been to at least 16 different Greggs so far this year, and possibly more, as I didn't start counting until July.

Anyway, my dietary habits aside, I'd like to put a good word in for Fifa '11. It's brilliant. If my PS3 didn't YLOD regularly, I'd buy it, play on it, and not get annoyed with Sony quite so much.
Damned daemonic corporation. At least they don't control reportedly 110% of the world's computers, or overcharge in order to add the faint ghost of genuine value to their products. Microsoft and Apple respectively, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, there it is again! I said I'd use it.

Well, that concludes another bitesize portion of my day's musings. I, of course, only write about superficial matter, such as exams, Greggs and PlayStations. They are all mere distractions from truly important matters, such as... I don't actually know, but I had you going for a while, didn't I?

Goodnight everybody. Enjoy your comatose amnesia-inducing hallucinations!

Wacky times with Michael

An eventful night to say the least! Michael dragged me out of the house at 7 o'clock, we got rejected from Niall's house, took a detour to McDonald's, where Karl was having his break, and eventually got back to Niall's house about an hour after that, and watched a film: Yes Man, with Jim Carrey. I mean, we watched Yes Man, which stars Jim Carrey. Jim wasn't actually with us.

After that, the night calmed down, until, of course, Michael did his usual taxiing. Yeah...

Anyway, I have an exam in 8 hours. Sleepytimes are required. Night!

Robin and Saskia's awesome fun times!

We – Saskia and I – had such fun today. I went around hers after school, and we played Singstar for around two hours. After eighteen songs, Saskia had taken the lead, with 10 wins to my 8; from whence I first won four in a row and defended a two-point lead until I finally convinced her to stop after 30 songs. I won 16-14! Last time we played, I won 9-7, so, basically, I'm the best, although, I'd much rather listen to her singing than listen to mine.

That's all for today, night froods!

"There's a rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming up!"

Great Scott! Tonight, I went to the cinema! There was some kind of audiovisual display at the Silverlink! I think I remember! It was Back to the Future!

I love Back to the Future. It is undoubtedly the best film I've seen at the cinema since Inception; although, I hold Back to the Future with more affection. Doc Brown's eccentricity clinches it.

In other news, nothing interesting happened, however, I am closing in on a finished personal statement, just as the Cambridge deadline closes in on me. What fun!

Anyway, nobody cares about that tonight, certainly not me, as I have rekindled my love for Marty McFly and Doc Brown! Gee, that's heavy.

Night interpeeps!

Bangers and mash!

Yeah, guys and gals – no, not gals. Dolls? Nope, 'tis a play. Oh, hang on, reboot, I've got it!

Yeah, ladies and gentlemen! Today, I had some wonderfully reheated sausage and mash with gorgeous onion gravy. I have a tendency to call brown stuff gorgeous, given that it's not faeces. Blue stuff – besides mould, that is – gets tagged "pretty" in the exquisitely complex matrices of Robin James' brain. Anyway, yummy dinner; thanks mother! She's given me a cupcake for afters, but hasn't told me what's in it. It could be spacecake. Mmm, drugs... Here's hoping!

In other news, I am not as good on a rowing machine as I would like! In fact, I'm worse than Tom and Niall. This, ladies and gentlemen^†, is embarrassing. It must be dealt with immediately, or at least in the near future. Maybe I was fatigued today from a piano lesson. They can be quite strenuous!

Finally, I bring such brilliant news: I am totally immune to whichever serotype of rhinovirus the local disease factories – or, as I believe the biological term is, "humans" – gave to me. Excellent! Total immunity, here I come! Apologies to anyone I gave diseases to over the past few weeks.

Here ends Tuesday 5th October. Now to have that prospective spacecake!

^†I'm sticking with that now; apologies to transgenders, although I figure you're covered by the "and"? I don't know. I AM JUST A GUY.

Eye of newt and toe of frog...

A) If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where my little brother found the frog, what happened to the greenhouse, and all that Countryfile kind of crap, but I don't really feel like going into it, to tell you the truth.

B) Mr and Mrs Frog of Number 4, Under-The-Greenhouse Drive were perfectly ordinary, thank you very much.

C) Double double, toil and trouble,
Greenhouse broken into rubble.

To explain, if thou hast not yet noticed, I'm going for a literary knickerbocker-glory today. In case thou canst not divine them: A) is in the style of Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye; B) paraphrases the opening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; and C) is almost identical to the chorus of the witches' chant in Act IV scene i of Macbeth. I adore Macbeth. I saw a performance of it at Shakespeare's Globe in London with my sister on 1^st May this year. It was fantastic!

To explain the events of the day, mother decided to take down the Bronze Age greenhouse at the bottom of the garden. When I say "take down", I rather imagine she would run at it and tackle it to the floor. She may well have done; I was at school at the time. In doing so, several frogs were freed/exiled from its reaches.

So, ranking among the top 3 most absurd of my English posts, that concludes today's dwellings. If thou hast not enjoyed today's blog, thou hast a deficiency in thy love for literature.

Night froods!

Return of the Bacon

No, don't worry. It's not the end of a Kevin Bacon trilogy. So many trilogies end with "Return of the..." or at least "The ~ Revolutions." Are there even any Kevin Bacon trilogies? Someone get back to me on that.

The true nature of Bacon's return – yeah man, every frood knows Bacon gets capitalized – was a sandwich. The tastiest sandwich I've had in over a week, for today, on this the sunniest of Sundays, on the thirdiest third day of the most Octoberesque October that ever was in 2010, I returned from rowing at one very quarty quarter to twelve to find in the fridge the most delectable of delicacies: BACON. Oh yes, that's right, happy October ladies and gents! Didst thou enjoy September? I did. I'd rank this September among my top 20 Septembers!

After that, the day went pretty well. All days go well after bacon. Illness? Not today! To porkiness and beyond!

And another, final, thing: thou mayst have noticed that I am avoiding the ridiculous pronoun "you" in all instances and its derivatives. That, my dear fellows, is simple: "you" is silly. Observe the table of personal pronouns:

Nominative	Accusative	Possessive
I	me	my
you	you	your
thou	thee	thy
he	him	his
she	her	her
we	us	our
they	them	their

Doth thou see? Canst thou spot the flaw? "you" is identical to "you." Fortunately "thou" is not identical to "thee." Of course, "her" and "her" are annoying too, but I don't know any four-hundred-year-old alternative which fixes that, except for supposing that females own nothing, however, that would be sexism, and I would not allow it!

Yours self-righteously,
Robin James
Chief of Grammar

Saturday with Niall!

... and Jelly Babies!

Yep, we went to Sainsbury's for a decent bit of binge, then headed back to his place for a bit f Pelham 123. Awesome film. We also listened to a bit of music, some soundtrack and the odd novelty tune on ye olde Grooveshark.

I'm gonna head off now, but not before I tell you all about the relief I feel for having thrown that awful broken bed-frame out of my room. I am extremely relieved! Hooray for Allen keys!

Night froods! x

Drugs are so cheap.

Seriously, right, ibuprofen are really quite brilliant drugs. Headache? No bother. Cold? It'll take the symptoms down. Depressed? 150 of them will set you back maybe £2.50, and, well...

Obviously, no store would let you buy this many at once, but how hard would it really be to go into, I don't know, 5 stores? 2 packets in each.

Anyway, on a cheery, less hypothetical-suicide-related note, I finally got myself a copy of the local newspaper News Guardian in which my story and photograph were printed. Again – as if I don't mention the sexy dudes enough – I'd like to draw attention to fellow rowing heat-winners Bobby, Niall and Tom. Go guys! In fact, if you really love Niall – and why wouldn't you? – you can read what he has to say about games, films and stuff on his blog.

So, that's today: benzene rings and newspaper things. Tomorrow promises to be similarly – if not more so – disappointing.

Night fellas!

Il pleut encore!

Tout d'abord, je voudrais vous afficher cet histoire d'un journal local au sujet de mes amis au club du rowing. Il y a même un photo de nous: le Bobby infaillible, moi-même, le joli Niall et le fou Tom. Et le vieux dans le pic? C'est le chair-man légendaire s'appelle Chris.

Ce soir, j'ai attendu un événement célébrant les projets comme l'un qui j'ai fait pendant l’été. C’était pas mal. Rentrant chez moi, il pleut beaucoup encore. Le semaine dernière, il pleut jeudi. Je suis désolé; une semaine, je écrirai en français au sujet de quelque chose au lieu de la pluie.

Donc, c'est le fin de jeudi français.

The eyes have it...

Today, I attended a lecture at Northumbria University, given by Rt Hon John Bercow MP: the Speaker of the House of Commons. It was thoroughly enjoyable for my politically interested self, and greatly restored my faith in the British constitution. Alas, I didn't ask him any questions, but I neither had a question to ask nor any reason to come up with an awkward question – he didn't annoy me in the slightest, not like that time I confused David Cameron.

In other news, disease is all but disappeared, including what I will describe only as a "facial anomaly" to avoid saying either "cold sore" or "herpes". Damned genetics. I'm not tall, I'm fair-skinned, almost fair-haired. At least my eyes are blue and not some form of green. I apologise for the offence taken by green-eyed people, but you're a noun away from being the personification of jealousy, and I'm much more inclined to brown and blue eyes, though not one of each, nor a mixture. All right, I've had enough of this. Basically, my genetics are pretty bad, bar the intelligence and the well-defined eye colour.

Right, not sure I've any more grumbles or musings, except possibly mentioning that Newcastle City Library is becoming increasingly popular, which I'm not all that pleased about. I can barely get a seat.

Without further ado, I bid you adieu.

Good night interpeeps!

Piano-playing; undead cats.

Illness is almost finished. Ha! Take that parasitic lifeforms! That said, being human, I'm a specimen of possibly the least independent species known to, well, man. That's the first admission to being human I've made in a while. I love the immune system, makes me proud. Long live evolution! Ha, that's quite funny.

Anyway, went rowing tonight, didn't get out though. I did have a decent session on the machines though. I also had my first piano lesson since barely passing grade 4. By rights, I should be a much better pianist than I am in reality. Of course, that's an effect caused by a great lack of effort. I love playing the piano, but not so much practising to impress the ABRSM.

So, that's a little mention for both causality and evolution, two of my favourite scientific concepts. I'd tell you my feelings about Schrödinger's cat, but, appropriately, I'd rather leave you in suspense. Do I like Schrödinger's cat, or do I not? You will never know, therefore it's both! What a very crude depiction of a brilliant concept.

Another thing, it's correct to say both "[the cause] causes [the effect]" and "[the cause] effects [the effect]." You can even slip them into passive voice for more interchangeability!

Good night chums!

Holy disease-and-injury-ridden day, Batman!

Yep, going for a Batman TV Series Robin-style line for the title. Robin parodies Robin: breaking news.

The rhinoviri seem to be dying off now. Go immune system! Unfortunately, a ridiculously old metal bed coupled with all of my weight resting on it in just the wrong spot later caused a deep cut in my left hand. That wasn't even the worst of my medical maladies; damned nausea woke me up at 0430 this morning 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

In case you're wondering, that was me fixing my 'r' key. I mentioned the rebuild of Ubuntu I did on here, well, turns out the hardware needs rebuilding too.

Anyway, yep, nausea, wounds, the common bloody cold, but it's all right now, baby it's all right now...

[I forgot to give this a title; I realized 04102010]

So, after feeling all fit and exasperated yesterday, I'm feeling much more ill and exhausted today. Some fool has given me yet another serotype of human rhinovirus and it's taken all physical strength out of me. Thanks some fool! Although, I think it's 30-something down, 69-minus-something to go for total immunity to the common cold, and this'll make it 30-something-and-one. Excellent!

Nevertheless, my mind and fingers are still working at their usual full capacity, and, hence, I've drafted an article about yesterday's rowing regatta which the News Guardian will hopefully be printing on Thursday. If you want to know how that turns out, you'll either have to get the newspaper or have to learn French.

Now, I'm finishing writing today's post after a long battle with my laptop. It seems it caught my cold, bless it, but trying to fix it with alternate medicines gave it amnesia and an inferiority complex that could only be resolved by rebuilding the entire thing. So, I am now essentially connecting to the interweb through a brand new laptop! It's analogous to the way the TARDIS rebuilds itself across series, and is possibly only through the ingenuity of Ubuntu Linux. Windows rebuilds are pathetically long-winded, and almost certainly result in a loss of files and the will to live.

Anyway, I now have to manually set up all the nifty tricks I used to have, ahead of the scheduled rebuild I was planning for Ubuntu 10.10 next month. Night froods!

Tynemouth Triumph/Sculling Success

Today's rowing regatta in Durham was utterly fantastic. It was thoroughly enjoyable; all the Tynemouth Rowing Club crews rowed well, picking up countless second places.

However, our 4X+ novice crew – the infallible Bobby in stroke, the enigmatic Tom in three, the handsome Niall in two, and myself in bow – was the best crew as we won our first ever regatta race!

Unfortunately, that first race was a heat, and, by winning it, we had to compete in the final against some not-so-novice machine-like athletes from Tyne United. Beating them really was impossible: despite rowing much better than we did in the heat, we still fell at least a boat's length behind.

The words "Durham Today/Argh!" and "We Won!" are now written in large friendly letters on my whiteboard, and will be for days to come.

Today really was brilliant - I even had a bacon sandwich, and I'm now eating custard. Good night folks! Have a great day.

To be a rock and not to roll.

And so, with three weeks to go until the deadline for UCAS applications to Cambridge, my personal statement is still leaving something to be desired. That something just so happens to be a personal statement.

I made a start on it, but, seriously, do they want modesty and showmanship, personality and humility? I can do all kinds of things with words^†, but writing a personal statement truly is a challenge.

Anyway, tonight was Alex's first gig! It was awesome - the band played some right good tunes. Not left good, but right good. Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, ACDC, Fleetwood Mac, loads more, and even 2 4 6 8 Motorway.

Tomorrow, that formidable regatta in Durham. I'd best get some kip before the 0700 rise. Oh, and I've committed myself to writing a newspaper article about it. Stay tuned!

^†Read my earlier post featuring An extract from Rijako

Il pleut beaucoup!

C'est jeudi français!

Ce matin, il faisait du soleil. C'était un bon commencement de l'équinoxe d'automne. En rentrant chez moi à vélo, il pleuvait. C'est agaçant, mais le cyclisme dans la pluie est vivifiant. Ma chemise était trempée.

Malheureusement, la pluie a arrêté le rowing ce soir, mais ma mère a fait un diner avec des saucisses et de la purée de pommes de terre.

À la une, pour la première fois, j'ai été payé pour ne rien faire par le système débile du gouvernement britannique qui s'appelle "EMA". Je ne refuse jamais de cadeau gratuit. Merci, gouvernement débile, c'est toujours un plaisir!

À demain, les anglophones pourront lire encore, parce que mon blog sera en anglais.

Bonne nuit, tout le monde!

Fire Alarms and Time Travel

Yeah, so, after turning up late to school due to an overindulgent shower and a lack of vegetable oil, I had to endure a fire drill.

Since that was possibly the most noteworthy event of the day, I think the time is right for me to reveal my theory against any possibility of time travel, both for myself personally and, hence, all mankind ever, without arguments involving violations of causality – I'll save paradoxes for later.

First of all, if you assume that at some point in my life I personally build a time machine, I would meet myself at some point between 2003 and now before doing anything else, which, evidently, I didn't.

Second of all, if you assume that I do other almost as amazing stuff in my life, you can assume that any future time-traveller would take a trip to meet me in order to correct and/or poach my ideas, much as would happen to Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci respectively.^†

Upon this event – no matter what their guise or their time machine's cloaking device – I would undoubtedly hijack the time-traveller's vehicle and meet myself at some point between 2003 and now, which, evidently, I didn't. Even if a time-traveller doesn't come to meet me, they should at least visit Earth between now and my death, hence giving me the chance to commandeer a time machine.

So, to conclude, since I have not yet met my future self, it is logical to assume that no-one descendent from Earthly simians or indeed with any knowledge of human science will ever invent a controllable form of time-travel. Damned logic.

Tomorrow is French Thursday!

^†Ben, you got the charges the wrong way around. Though, granted if he'd done it properly we'd be stuck with the neutron, the electron and the absurd-sounding "negatron". Actually, that's way cooler than "proton". Ah man, Franklin!

zOMG, bacon is dead cows dude.

Yet again, bacon formed the foremost part of my breakfast. Is it healthy to eat so much bacon? I'm going with "yes". I also eat plenty of crisps, so it's not all bad. Okay, I had a banana today. There, health conscious folk are now silenced.

My little brother is currently blasting the novelty tunes: The Witch Doctor, Monster Mash, Bird is the Word. At least he's using Grooveshark, and I'd be hypocritical to get truly annoyed at him for it, since I spend a disproportionate amount of my time drilling those songs into people's heads.

We had another brilliant rowing session tonight. Amazingly, we managed to stay in time for at least five strokes. Roll on the regatta on Saturday! I'm feeling a little better about it than I was on Sunday, though I'm still bricking it.

Oh, wait, I've been writing this for a little while – during an episode of Friends, obviously – and now it seems the little brother is watching the full length video to Michael Jackson's Thriller on YouTube. I find the comments on YouTube are always much more entertaining than the video. And there you have it, today's title.

An extract from Rijako

Was today noteworthy in the slightest? For me, it wasn't. Today's post will have to take a completely new approach; no detached diary entry, oh no - today, enjoy the opening of my book. Brace yourself for...

Rijako Chapter 1: Zyla and the Duck

 Space travel is a tricky business. There’s a lot to get used to. Zyla Moph had about ten minutes to get used to it.
 The Nasisian capsule crashed on Camalah – or Anti-Nasisia as the female inside it might call it. By no fault of their own, the people of Nasisia are very touchy about their planetary identity. In fact, it's a crime to express a desire to leave the planet. Originally, this heinous crime carried the penalty of death, but after a meeting between the three Nasisian world leaders – who by an amazing coincidence are all called 'Cake' – capital punishment was considered not severe enough, and a law was passed that anyone who wishes to leave Nasisia must be sentenced to a fate worse than death: exile. Naturally, many philosophers, professors and primary school pupils argued that this would reward those who want to leave. Cake, Cake and Cake decided that kind of talk sounded like the philosophers, professors and primary school pupils wanted to leave, and so fired up the cannon, launched their best scholars towards Anti-Nasisia and then looked for some more patriotic philosophers and professors.
 As Zyla Moph stepped out onto the Camalan landscape, she realised just how wrong the three Cakes were. Nasisia, she mused, is hellish. Ahead of her stood miles of beaches, illuminated by azure sky and bordered by tranquil seas. Behind her towered a city skyline, and behind that the rolling mountains littered the idyllic planet, half of which bathed in Alpha Capricornus' sunlight, whilst the other watched the stars in the sky. This was every bit the Anti-Nasisia she was looking for.

Yeah, it's not great by anyone's standards, but I wrote the first chapter - these and a further 1200 words - as a piece of coursework for AS English Language, got an A, and wrote a further 4 chapters. I may finish it one day.

A note on the name "Nasisia": I originally named the planet "Lebb", but an English teacher/Mr. Bean lookalike noted the similarity between "Lebbian" and "Lesbian". As for "Nasisia", a google search turns up with nothing of note, and I like the sound of it. Another note: "Rijako" is my initials dispersed with vowels. A final note: "Camalah" - by starting with ~"camel" and ending with "ah" - has a certain desert-like quality, hence fitting the beach planet. And there you have it, a sort of save-the-best-'til-last approach to revealing my mad choice of proper nouns. Don't even ask about "Zyla Moph" - I really have no idea.

To conquer Comic Book Characters...

To begin, I thought I'd share an article about the U.S. Air Force's ridiculously cool new program: BATMAN.

Like any decent day, today started with bacon. After bacon, I had possibly the most hilarious session ever with the lads at Tynemouth Rowing Club. You had to be there.^† We're not even close to being ready for the regatta at Durham this upcoming Saturday.

So, anyway, with a hey diddle diddle, a drill and a fiddle, I've finally got my 1.2m*0.9m whiteboard on my bedroom wall! Pictures to follow? Who knows?

Enough blogging today though, I'm going for an uncharacteristic early post^‡, I'm going to watch House on the Hallmark Channel and then I'm going for my dinner.

^†Okay, you probably didn't have to be there to appreciate the hilarity, but – as with all instances of "you had to be there" – it meant "I can't be bothered to explain why it was so funny."
^‡Although, it's more of an excuse to use future tense and make another footnote than anything else.

Saturday

I finally rolled downstairs at about noon, and made a bath from an old sandpit box for the chickens, which, much to my dismay, they didn't appreciate at all. Oh yeah, I hadn't mentioned, I keep chickens.

My breakfast was much less disappointing: bacon, fried egg, toast, tomato ketchup, monster munch, a packet of rusks, a cup of tea - milk & four sugars - and a slice Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell. Have a listen to my current favourite playlist on Grooveshark.

After that, the next globally interesting thing to happen: I watched Lethal Weapon 2 for - amazingly - the first time ever. "It's just been revoked." True awesomeness. Exeunt.

A film review and impossibilities.

Well, I'm reverting back to English today.

I've just finished deciding that the last question in my little sister's maths homework is impossible. Finding an nth term rule for the following:

2 9 17 27 39

Obviously, it was supposed to be:

3 9 17 27 39

making it a simple n²+3n-1. Anyway, after half an hour of obsessively finding differences of differences of differences of differences I finally came to the conclusion that if 0 occurs anywhere but at the edges of a differences of differences(...) triangle, an nth term using powers of n is impossible.

Now, the promised film review. I saw Grown Ups at the cinema tonight; true to form, Adam Sandler, Kevin James et al. guaranteed a laugh per minute. It was real easy-viewing stuff, recommended for anyone who just fancies a good laugh.

All of this, however, does not make up for the disappointing lack of post today. A whiteboard on Wednesday, a letter from Parliament on Thursday, yet nothing today.

C'est jeudi français!

Alors, ma nouvelle idée! Une fois par semaine, je vais écrire en français pour améliorer mon niveau du français, et j'ai décidé que ce sera toujours jeudi.

Tout d'abord, je viens d'arriver chez moi pour trouver une lettre de mon MP au sujet du Digital Economy Act (quelques choses ne se traduisent pas). C'était assez intéressant.

D'ailleurs, il n'y a pas beaucoup d'actualités aujourd'hui, cependant, j'ai parlé à des personnes d'un chaîne de télévision de Corée du Sud, grâce à mon école.

The Lie-in, the Book and the Whiteboard

All right, so maybe 0800 isn't that much of a lie-in, but the C.S. Lewis reference wouldn't work nearly as well with anything else.

As for the book, that's real. I'm referring to the Harvard Prize Book I was awarded on behalf of the Harvard Club by my school today. No Small Matter by Felice C. Frankel and George M. Whitesides. I also won the award for French in my year, and received the certificate for the Open University course I completed last year.

Finally - and, man, this post is short - I come to the 1.2m*0.9m whiteboard which arrived today! I bought it on Monday, on eBay, and it's ridiculously big.

I've got a month left to finish my UCAS application, due to the early Cambridge deadline. 108 days to go for MIT and Harvard.