Greyday

Well my first blogged week is over and after the ups and downs that the last week has brought there ends up with a day to forget. Monday the greyday, now normally i can cope with mondays (especially considering that i don't have any lectures) but today just seemed to be one of those days where you know you should have achieved several objectives (i.e write essays, do lab work and post Invader Zim DVDs) but somehow time seems to have slipped through your grasp. One of those days when the most you can think of writing in your blog is a complaint on how useless the day has been. Hopefully its a one off, it may also be mild alcohol withdrawal symptoms (I am detoxing after excessive indulgence and spending £150 in 2 weeks ) and having a dodgy potato waffle sandwich last night.

My rant of the day today was over the continued lack of snow, supposedly this winter was going to be the harshest ever ,so far we've had maybe 3 nights below 0 C (one of which me and a friend rich were sat on someones doorstep back in Lichfield heavily under the influence discussing the word "pure") and only a sprinkling of snow, hardly a harsh winter (why back in my day.....).
Music has been seemingly the only good thing today and i've listened to everything from Artic "another band with a stupid accent" Monkeys to Fallout "downtown in a lulelulah" Boy. Definatly "Small Print" by Muse stood out though.
Roll on Tuesday!

Andy does London (much better than Debbie does Dallas)

Ok once again i've been unable to post everyday, however i have been very much worse for wear alcoholwise everytime i've been in proximity to my laptop, this is probably a good thing as drunken Andy makes very little sense.

Ok a review of this weekend makes a definate good entry for the blog.
Very handily my weekend begins friday at 11am, thus to aid total optimization of my time i formed the following mental plan.

11am -12.30pm - finish writeing blog for thursday and get room and desk tidyed to do work.
12.30pm - go buy milk bread and many asorted veg so as to make a healthy lunch. Also post some dvds
1pm - 5pm -finish 3 Forensic Toxicology essays
5pm - have healthy dinner (maybe steak salad)
6pm on - read some scientific literature followed by maybe watching a film.
Note no alcohol should be consumed all day am planning to detox
On the guidance of the plan the day went something like this.
11am- 12.30 - blog finished, started watching "troy"
12.30 - went for lunch, got bread and milk, and mushrooms, however instead of making healthy lunch bought egg and sausage sandwich.
1pm went over to Sion's played God of War and Pro Evo 4.
4pm Hungry again went for pub lunch, drunk beer.
5pm Picked up a bottle of JD and some coke went back over Sion's for more PS2ing
Sometime later - wander home smashed, finish watching "troy" and fall in to bed.
Obviously all of my objectives were met for the day.

Saturday was however an awesome day and i could'nt picture it have being any better. It was one of Sions old uni friends Will's birthday so we were invited out for lunch and a few drinks in London. Now i was initially doubtful about going seeing as i can't stand London, anyway i decided at the last minute that i would go.So after leaving at about 10ish we arrived in at 11.30 and went to meet Will and other people at the Natural History Museum. Unfortunatly there was a queue to go round the dinosaur bit (the best part) so we made do with all the stuffed animals. Then we went off to the resturant in Leicester Square, I can't remeber the name but it was an indian, we had a few beers and more people turned up including Jane (Sion's Girlfriend). The meal was pretty disappointing but a peshwari naan made upfor it.
We then wandered down charing cross road in search of a pub that could hold our party of 16, i learnt some home truth about one of Sions exgirlfriends and we all laughed about how bald he's going.
Anyway after a brief stop for a 1664 blanc we ended up in the bricklayer arms our destination pub , although our party basicly filled the small room. Several alpine ales later and pretty drunk we decide (those of us that are left ) to go find another pub , somehow we end back up in leicester square by which time we're hungry, fortunatly we're close to chinatown which is absolutely buzzing, why its chinese new year, so we felt we'd honour it by having a takeaway. Then the group disbands leaving me, Sion, Jane and Harv. So after a starbucks we start to head back to waterloo station deiciding to walk. After a short detour at Trafalger square to indulge in some lion riding we wander across the Thames and make Harv chase quality street while also feeding some to the whales. Finally we're back in Waterloo and catch a train straight away. With the final act of the day to loudly embarass Harv as we knew he was looking at a girl in a short denim skirts legs.
So probably the best time i've ever spent in London, though it won't change my opinion of it.
2 Rant free days and 2 music free days.

Lost in my Results

Well inexcusable as it is this entry is a good 12 hours late, although after watching the 5 hours long Return of the King extended edition i was in desperate need for sleep, having 3 hours of learning how criminal law supports forensic sciences didn't help this at all.

Although it is definatly worth updating as to why thursdays are my best day of the week and will continue to be for the next 13 weeks and then maybe even more.

Why, LOST, it is so awesome, now when i was in New Zealand and season 1 was running, i just wasn't interested at all, only through luck and shacking up with a beautiful girl did i end up catching the finale. Then upon returning to the UK curiosity hit me, why was everyone addicted to this programme. So through certain means i obtained season 1 on my pc, 2 hours later i was addicted, now i'm up to season 2 episode 12 and the addiction hasn't gone, though by admitting it i'm on my first stage to recovery.

Yesterday was also important because i got my Autumn semster exam results back, though at 10am after a heavy night on vodka i really didn't care about what i got only trying to stop feeling sick. Fortunatly it was good news, i've pushed my average up to 58% (borderline 2.1)
and with the easy modules this semester i can make it a confirmed drinkers degree.

Got a phone call also from my Dad who is also currently holidaying in Rome, although the weather is colder there than here (or at least it was yesterday, today snow is expected here), predictably he was sat in an Irish bar(he can find an irish bar even on a deserted island (maybe they should feature him in Lost, Guiness would mean Hurley would get laid))

I had a big rant yesterday, the BBC featured a poll result on whether people believed in evolution: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4648598.stm
only 48% of the group responded by believing in it, Get over it people, new species don't just pop into existence, evolution is a fact. In fact the whole stupidity thing made me thing of this video: http://movies.lionhead.com/movie/1168

Thus leading to the first reason for emigrattion (took 4 days to get here):
England is now almost as stupid as America, it seems the majority of the population can't think (full stop) rationaly. Therefore not a place where i want to continue with my science.
Also supposedly i'm not allowed to be attractive and normal if i'm a scientist: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4630808.stm
Retards!

Anyway most listened to song of yesteday (if you care) was "Final Countdown" by Europe (what a classic)

Try Hard

Well Wednesdays always hold a special place for me, this is due to the fact that wednesdays are rugby day. I'm currently playing for the University of Surrey Seconds Team , not that this is really anything to boast about considering we're sat at the bottom of the league with -6 points. Even so i just really enjoy playing for the team its great fun and i think i'm fitter than i've ever been. My usual position is Winger although i say usual as todays game proved to be an eye opener, due to a critical shortage of forwards today i was recruited due to being one of the larger build backs (i took this as a complement on my muscles) to being a flanker, now this position holds one of the easiest objectives in the game "chase the ball, no tactics to worry about, this was my feelings before i started playing the position 5 minutes later i'm knackered, "chasing the ball" is really hard, especially when i've been used to sitting on the sidelines and only running when i've got ball in hand. Needless to say i couldn't let the side down and started to throw my weight into the rucks (this is great fun) and as a new experience actually got penalised by the ref, usually being an innocent winger i don't need foul play but today i was straight in there with stopping the opposition play. Unfortuantly my tackling still appears to need work, although i blame a lot of this on the very greasy pitch. So anyway todays game looked like a walkover, 10 points up at half time, somehow we then managed to lose by 4 tries to 2. Now normally this would be dissapointing however it seems to be a trend where we're in total control after 40 minutes but are totally thrashed at the end of the game. Todays loss wasn't helped by loosing our lock Tom after 40 minutes (this happens every game) and our fly half luke (one of Sion's flatmates) with a shoulder out after about 60 minutes. Fortunately the opposition were a great bunch of guys and lent us some players (we had a 15 man minbus to get there so couldn't bring subs). Although they had a very odd after game ritual for their man of the match, lets just say it involved a shot of vodka wearning nothing from the waste down and something called the sheep dip. Although they were all public school raised thus explaining it, although our man of the match ritual ( a mars bar in a pint of guiness) seemed slightly tame afterwards.
The journey home as always was great with 16 cans of castlemaine XXXX being swiftly downed (also there were several drinks in the bar after the match), thus predictably requiring a minibus toilet stop on the hard shoulder 30 minutes later.

That most of today covered although due to the minus celsius conditions last night the campus lake had frozen meaning a great morning spent firstly trying to find rocks and then skimming them across it. I badly hope it snows soon i really want to go sledding down the cathedral hill.

As a last point of the day it was an odd coincence that whale died in the thames on the day that Sion visited, hmmm makes you think eh!

The only song listened to today was "Mexican wine" by Fountains of Wayne, and i had a rant free day.

Nothing but G-strings on the brain, and E-strings of course

Well i'm quite pleased to have been able to stick at this for more than one day, most things I take up are left kissing the dirt after a limited time, examples include: The Trumpet, The Trombone, Hex coding and my movie production company "Commulinks Random Shit" (although the films Suddenly Cold I and II proved to be great successes).

Very little happened today although had an interesting lecture for once, the annoyances of the dissertation can also be left until the end of the week whilst i enjoy my mid week weekend (tuesday lunch until thursday lunch).
So as i obviously have the attention of everyone on the net (ha!) what to talk about, well only one thought springs to mind, infact it is always ready to spring to mind except in those awkward moments in the presence of attractive members of the opposite sex ( and to be honest tuesdays arn't really the best days to discuss that).
What i'm really talking about is my guitar or collection of guitars.I don't really know how at the age of 21 i have a collection of approximatly £2750 of guitars. I think the story is somehow to do with my amazing driving skills, upon my last driving test (sometime 2002) I impressed the invigilator so much that he actually suffered a mild stroke that left him believing he was passing me when infact he was ticking the fail box, ergo (i hate this word, it's a word stupid people use to make themselves look sciency(yes i know your reading this Sion)) i could not use a car meaning i didn't have to buy one, therefore (a real sciency word) i was £1000 up. Maybe abusing my student loan and living on bread and water so to save my wages in New Zealand might have also entered the equation somewhere but only in a limited way.
So back on track i currently own 4 guitars although due to the storage quality i have kept one in maybe dirty rusty bit of firewood best covers as a description.

Thus presenting my pride and joy, or as my guitar collection goes my good looking but risque australian, she has the body and a great sound to match and you can try anything with her.

Sion requests Song 2 by Blur

I can feel the jealousy radiating from my other guitars and also from previous girlfriends as most of my time is spent strumming out quality tunes (yeah ok well i more than make up for the lack of quality of the songs I play with the quick speed in which i can learn (and then forget again ) new songs.

Other guitars in my collecting are the straight up and naive but very jangly american, the slighlty aged english thats definatly seen several sets of hands and the cheap and nasty but great fun japanese who is currently lent to my brother. (comparing guitars and women is definately great fun)

Current projects with my guitars include trying to get hold of a cheap 8 track and then getting down some of the potential classics that just spew from my mind on a regular basic (i'll post when i think i might have got my first one) and also learning the mandolin at some point.

Well as a round up of the day i have only ranted at vending machines ( who wants skittles at 8.30am?) and according to media player my most listened to song ever is "Worlds apart" by ...and you will know us by the trail of the dead., this is possibly due to the first 10 seconds that i regularly use when i can't be bothered swearing at someone.

So it begins!

Well a New Blog, A blog full stop, pretty newbish at this but if that fool ben can pull off a half decent one and he lost us the empire surely the almighty me can manage one.
Only a short intro because i meet too many new people and am starting to tire of telling them the story. So here goes:

Once upon a time there was a talented toxicology student beginning to become disillusioned with the way of life in the rat nests that is the town of Guildford, England. Searching for some way to escape he came across a lucky break in landing a placement year in the amazing city of Wellington, New Zealand. To cut it short a year later after heavily impressing said employers the talented toxicologist was offered the job of a lifetime upon completion of his BSc, and not being stupid accepted this offer. Finally 6 months after returning home to England the dawning of how little time left he had in the UK hit this not so innocent young lad thus spawning this blog.

Ok boring stuff over may aswell make a start on the blog.

Well helpfully its a monday for my first post so i can retell the tale of my amazingly eventfull weekend.
On saturday after spending the previous night reliving the nostalgia of pc gaming from the early 90's i decided to make use of my day of freedom and downloaded Dos emulators and abandonware. It must be said that this proved a great idea and kept me busy for all of an hour and a half until i re-remebered why 90's games should have stayed in the 90's and i was forced to do some work. An essay on Arsenic poisoning as 33% of a module, your taking the piss right , i would happily do an essay on my favourite element ( yes i know i'm sad and mentally strange to have a favourite element )for free. 2 hours later chalk up 33% of forensic toxicology module.
The rest of that saturday to remember(subtle sacrasm; it was such a boring day) i spent relearning songs on the guitar that i'd learnt and then forgot over the previous week.
Intresting fact for saturday, it was my only day off from the corrupting influence of alcohol, having got particularily addicted to JD and 7up over the last week.
Sunday was the mighty Sion's birthday (though he had to remind me of this) upon his return from London after having a poncy weekend watching theatre and going ice skating we had to go for a beer whilst watching the much talked about Man Utd- Liverpool game. One beer was followed by several more whilst playing the benefit/loss game (maybe i'll explain later about this although if you've ever seen Green wing you'll know what it is)and also chatted for a while with weeman (the rugby team captain). Finally after a couple of 7ups and JD and a healthy dose of God of War on Sion's PS2 (What an awesome game), i started on the road back to my luxury (as compared to other uni of surrey campus accomidation) room although my pounding head and need for sleep was interupted by the need to sort out things with sophie ( a long story) anyway after repeatedtly pointing out it has been over a year since i dumped her and we'll never ever get back together i think she got the point.
Ugh Monday, well today started with a incredibly enjoyable extra hour in bed which was then followed by the most boring 2 hours ever (ever!) of my life , why did i have to choose the crappest dissertation choice out there.

Me upon dissertation options becoming available(october last year): " hmm Solid Phase Extraction of Theraputical Drugs, sounds interesting and not boring at all"
At which point a future me from 23/01/06 with the benefit of a time machine puts a sniper bullet through my left temple whilst being conviniantly hidden behind nearby grassy "hill" (there are many of these on campus).

Enough theatre , in truth i can see this dissertation being my downfall, thus leading me to class academia as my rant of the day.
Anyway with the afternoon off i learnt a classic song on my guitar, Highway to Hell, then headed into town with Sion to get a camera (ended up getting 2 instead) and a PS2 controller so i could thrash him at PRO EVO 4, (this didnt happen because he is a very lucky b*****d)
My most liked song of the day was "Dope Nose" by The String Quartet ( a Weezer cover), theres just something odd in me with a like for classical.