Sleeping Vs Life

Sleeping has prevented me from going University so no updates on the bad essay marking scandal!

And I still need to return Friends DVDs to HMV... it's not right when 2/3 Cds do not have disc labels! Shocking.

I'm in Christmas spirit now - plenty of brain food, and no Manchester til Jan 27th. Heaven!


-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Bristol Brittannia

Cottage Brewing - Bristol Brittania - 4.8% ABV






It's nice.

**/5


-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Tarl Barl Stout

Allendale - Tarl Barl Stout - 4.5% ABV





it's a nice Stout. I like them dark and strong!

***/5

-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Blizzard Winter Ale

Atlas Brewery's Blizzard Winter Ale - 4.7%ABV





I like my Winter beers.

***/5

-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Carl's Beer

Houston Brewing Company - Carl's Beer - 3.9% ABV





Sounds better than it is. Bring on the next one please!

*/5


-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Doin' Fine

Northern Soul Legends "Dee Dee Warwick" - Doin' Fine - 5.3% ABV





Creamy, not too dark, really gets me in the mood for Soul music!

***/5

-- Post From My iPhone

A Sabbatical, A Challenge

Part of it is advice given to me, but I think I'm going give it a full, serious go and give Facebook and MySpace a complete rest (no status updates or checking it), and only going on if I'm emailed a message.

Weirdly enough, it constitutes a challenge since I'm addicted to technology and the computer.

But hopefully I will come out of the feeling fresh. And in the meantime, I can earn some serious gamerpoints on the 360 and get playing MGO on the PS3.

Win, win.

Tomorrow is a big day, seeing the lecturer for my course at the University of Manchester about that appaling essay result, apparently my sources tell me the marker has been noticed for dropping unnecessary marks. So Hopefully, here goes! And maybe my trip to University will be more productive than today where I was there for all of 20 minutes to hand in some paper.

Commutiung is ridiculous! (Stay Tuned for more...) I'm off to paint the town blue...

A Special Place...

For so many reasons.











I remember the first time like it was yesterday and it gives me such an amazing feeling.

I'm sad, but I'm forever grateful.

Thank you! =]

-- Post From My iPhone

I'm a Virgin

I'm Virgin Trains best customer today, not to mention Boris' messenger boy on the TFL.

Travelled to Manchester to hand in an essay and leave...! And now on my way in the opposite direction to the capital. Before heading back sometime this evening for £1 V&C at the Underground!

I worked out it's about 400 miles I'm clocking up today, probably more.







Yes, I take pictures of myself on the train! Gangsta! ... Not to mention there's a couple sitting opposite!

Hooray!

Sam Mead was right - I'm an idiot!
-- Post From My iPhone

Clarity of Expression

Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité.

I need to provide clarity of expression this time, since I did so dire on my last essay (More to come on that, like I said).

I have less than 7 hours to write an essay on whether the French Constitutional Council has come to serve as a 'third legislative chamber'.

Its interesting in its own way, but I fall asleep at every opportunity reading the research.

And the French Constitutional Council is a halfway house between our courts and the US Supreme Court.

Except, no appeals system, and they don't "create" laws, merely say whether they are legal or not.

So, basically, no, its not a third chamber, though it is very powerful in its own way. Now to translate this into 1,500 or so words.

Blogging has become my #1 Procrastination activity.

Its fun to write, even if there's no point behind it all.

Coachmakers Arms - Robin's Nest

Robin's Nest - 4.1%ABV - Brewed by Howard Town






The name is unfortunate, but better than it sounds. **/5

-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Easy Rider

Kelham Island's Easy Rider - 4.1%ABV
Refreshing, and that's Doug's thumbs up on the picture. Even if it does look a bit like carboard on the photo...!









It was good, saved it towards the end. A nice paler beer than my usual, ***/5
-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Narrow Boat

Shardlow Brewery's Narrow Boat. 4.3% ABV






From what I recall, this was a good beer and my pint got stolen by Phil and Sue when I evacuated the building for a breather.

Standard! ***/5

After this, I was back on the Thistle Do. A good night of songs, banter, even hugs from drunken locals telling everyone they loved us. Classic.
-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Shepherd Neame's Original Porter

A nice Winter Hop Ale.
Original Porter - 4.8% ABV. - Brewed by Shepherd Neame








Dark, but very wintery.

Intriguing.

***/5
-- Post From My iPhone

Coachmakers Arms - Thistle Do

Thistle Do - 4.4% ABV - Brewed by Harviestoun
"Dark, Warming, Complex"





Dark, creamy, tasty.

****/5
-- Post From My iPhone

We Laugh Indoors

My birthday party was last night. No pictures, but it was a cool night watching 40 Year Old Virgin, we didn't go Rileys in the end.

Thanks for the company. With any luck, I'll get my post in the mail. There seems to be a big backlog with it being Christmas.

At least though I got a card from Mark Fisher MP, which was a delight.


-- Post From My iPhone

iPhone ringtones in 17 steps - no downloads required!

I was looking for ways to get ringtones after a Facebook friend had asked me how it is done. As it turns out, very easily - with no downloads, at all (though you can get applications for your Windows and Mac that do this for you).

To find out how, it was as easy as a google search, credit goes to e-How.

Once you have done it once, I would say its easy enough to keep doing it. So here we go:

---

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• iPhone
• iTunes
• Mac or Windows Computer
• Non-DRM song (i.e. one not bought from the iTunes Store)

Step1

Open iTunes.

Step2

Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.

Step3

Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.

Step4

Write down the start and stop times of the clip.

Step5

Right-click the song and select "Get Info."

Step6

Click the "Options" tab.

Step7

Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Start Time" in the minutes:seconds (i.e. 2:01) format.

Step8

Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Stop Time." Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long.

Step9

Click "OK".

Step10

Right-click your song again and select "Convert Selection to AAC". Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.

Step11

Right-click the ringtone and select "Delete".

Step12

Click on the "Keep Files" button.

Step13

Find the file. It's usually in your User folder under Music > iTunes > iTunes Music and under the band's name. It will have an extension of "m4a."

Step14

Replace the "m4a" extension of your ringtone with "m4r". You can either double-click slowly to re-name your file, or right-click and select "Get Info" on a Mac or "Rename" on a Windows PC.

Step15

Click "Use .m4r" or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.

Step16

Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library.

Step17

Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.

---

Easy as pie. I've gone and put the guitar riff from Scary Kids Scaring Kids cover of Losing my Religion as my ringtone. Brilliant.

Absolutely furious

On the verge of using foul language, but I shan't. Any essay I wrote that I thought was good, as did a fellow student and others who read my essay, has been slated by my marker:

Inadquate referencing
And an apparent misunderstanding of the question
Among others things but I stopped there because it's clear that the marker is the one that has misunderstood the essay.

If a question is not too explicit, then the essay will take direction from the interpretation of the author - and it is clear my marker does not like my argument so marked me down accordingly.

So much for anonymous marking schemes to provide impartiality.

I'll elaborate more on this later. Phone calls, emails etc to get on with!

And I beleive I am not the only student at the University of Manchester who thinks the teaching and marking is inconsistent, too uninformed, and dare I say, ridiculous.

More later. Stay Tuned!


-- Post From My iPhone

Twenteen

So today, I turned Twenty. Or Twenteen, as my brother so nicely put it.
It's been a good day, and I've treated myself to West Wing on DVD and Friends on DVD to give me hours of entertainment.
But for a lot of reasons I've been getting nostalgic about my teen years, as you do when you finally do when you're not a teenager anymore.
I would like to thank everyone who got me cards, sent me text messages, for the presents and messages on Facebook and MySpace. And its not all over as I have a little gathering with a couple of friends this Friday that I'm looking forward to.
It was a strange day for me in terms of who gave me messages of 'Happy Birthday', and who didn't.
Sometimes that leaves me a little confused, but when I think of my teen years, it brings me to recall probably my favourite day of recent times - the band and its music has always been an inspiration to me. And being there with a certain someone made it even more special.