WillWybrow.com

“So, Will,” I hear you ask. “What are you doing at home now you don’t have your dual-monitor arrangement for computing? How are you surviving without the convenience of dividing your activities into high- and low-priority screen time?”

The answer, of course, is that I don’t have to survive without that. You remember that old laptop I was telling you about? Well, I’ve got instant messaging on that one, using Pidgin, and I’ve got browsing at hand behind it. Then, because this old laptop doesn’t have USB 2.0, Umberto’s iPod is plugged into my other laptop (my “main” one), and I can watch the movies and TV shows that I copied to its hard drive on the other screen. It’s a really good set-up, I have the video screen tilted forward so that when I recline in my chair, I see it properly.

Just a quick update for you, I know you’re all interested in what’s going on.

I’ve just swept £1.57 of coins into a pile. There are five 20p coins, four 10p, one 5p, one 2p and ten 1p coins, and they were laid out in a shape in front of me on my desk, which is giving off a horrible squeaking noise that’s making me feel sick. I don’t know why it’s doing it. Maybe two 19-inch CRT monitors is pushing the desk’s strain limit. Maybe it will break in half and collide the two monitors together, breaking them. The wreck will crash down on the computer case beneath them and crush the inside of my computer. I think that this is unlikely, though.

I think I will spend the money on some eggs. I have some bread left, and I think I’ve become a little addicted to “egg in the basket” since I plucked up the courage to attempt such a concoction. I always hear its name in the voice of Stephen Fry saying “eggy in the basket” in the film V for Vendetta. I would need some butter as well, though, since I used that all up recently making these delicious egg bread slices. I will probably need more money than this for both eggs and butter, though ASDA do some fantastic deals.

I could also spend the money on some Relentless Inferno. It has been a while since I bought and consumed any, and I quite miss it.

Something came up this weekend that was very annoying and considerably stressful. It didn’t do any lasting damage, it just made me worry for a bit. I guess I’m pretty thankful that nothing went wrong, but I’m a little pissed off that unexpected events akin to those that happened yesterday can ruin my otherwise carefully laid out plans. Even with a little leeway for unaccounted-for happenings, sometimes unusual things really can throw unwanted spanners in your otherwise manageable works. If you were worrying, thank you. It means a lot. If you are still worrying, relax, the worst is over with.

I’ve just discovered the source of the squeaking of my desk. There is a loose screw underneath the front left-hand corner. I am going to get my screwdriver and tighten it up.

You identify the problem, you tackle its source, you reap your rewards at the end. That’s how it works. When I’ve fixed this screw, I’m going to tackle some other problems. I am going to fix some more things. Most importantly, though; I’m going to finish the washing up.

Much love.

Oh man, Bob Catley is a fucking rockstar. He’s basically a superhero. I met him, and shook his hand, and was all “yo AHS, check out Bob Catley,” and they were all “woah, his music is awesome!!”

We went to Tamworth for Jenna’s generic-winter-festival party and saw her dad and sister and town. We had a great party.

Then I went back to Leeds (again) to share Liz’s birthday party with Chris and Norman at their four-fifths atheist domicile…

Then I came home. I got back to Leamington and almost kissed the ground with happiness. But not because I’d been away, but because of what happened while I was away. Basically, I was glad to be home without regretting being gone. Let’s leave it at that.

That’s the summary of all the decent things that happened this weekend. Not at much detail as last time, I guess I’m just not in the mood.

Oxford

So began the first of my holiday outings last Wednesday, when I went to visit the wonderful Jenna at her Oxford University college: Linacre.

We decided to try and cram as many awesome things into the day as possible, which is why we set off to Modern Art Oxford and the Natural History Museum (which were great) and also swung past the “castle,” or the mound-where-a-castle-once-used-to-be (which was not so great - not only was it a lame attraction, but Jenna confessed that she hated me so much that she was skipping the country to avoid spending new year’s eve at my house).

Modern Art Oxford was a very pleasant experience. They had a few exhibitions on (including one which was disappointingly closed), ranging from boring to plain weird. It was all loosely connected by sharing common binaural techniques to create the sense of sounds coming from positions they weren’t, which was interesting and entertaining. We stopped by the gift shop and I was bought a 25mm badge.

The Museum of Natural History, where I had previously had the pleasurable experience of watching Richard Dawkins face off the imposing John Lennox in debate, was another fascinating experience, made even more so in the light of the remnants of the memories of my last visit; atheism and evolution tend to go hand-in-hand these days.

I got to spend some time in Linacre college, which my friend Tom Etheridge tells me is “not a real college, [because it's] full of grads.” But what if I’m visiting a “grad”, Tom? The college was nice and modern (but still with that Oxford University class pretension about it). The student rooms were cosy and nice and the dining area was homely.

The most important thing that I can say about Linacre, however, was that when I got a shot at using one of their computer rooms, I got a nice surprise. Some of the new motherfuckingly huge iMacs were there, but what did their screens have plastered all over them? It wasn’t Leopard… it was XP! That was quite an unexpected highlight that appealed to my technological nature.

In the evening, we stayed in the college’s common room, and I met some people. We had fun playing darts and Pictionary and watching some Channel 4.

Leeds

The first thing to note about Leeds is how fucking far away it is! Regardless, hitching the train up there was alright; I do like getting trains. While I was there to see and hang out with all of Leeds’ remaining A-Soc, strictly speaking I was Liz’s guest.

When I arrived at the station, I moved into the shopping centres, passing through all sorts of different bits, including “Victoria Quarter,” which had an interior made of gold and had shops whose very names were too expensive to pronounce. Liz and her housemate Michelle intercepted me (despite the terrible description I gave them of my location) and we wandered around the city centre for a little while. I spotted four Caffé Nero coffee shops, and visited two of them (Stuart, have pride). After some guilty confessions from Liz that she didn’t actually know her way around Leeds’ centre, we decided to try and find the restaurant that we were meeting A-Soc at later. We did find it, and spent the waiting time in Wetherspoon’s (where else?).

The restaurant served fairly standard food but I’d say it was overpriced as well. Nice atmosphere, though, and the glass panel in the middle of the landing of the first floor was just terrifying. Afterwards, we didn’t return to Spoons, as was my initial inclination, but headed off to somewhere a little quieter, which was a better idea now that I think about it. I heard about the London antics of Leeds Atheist Society and met and spoke to some cool people.

i think a-soc is a pretty cool guy. eh debates god and doesn’t afraid of anything

After things wound down (meaning: they closed at 11pm and didn’t give me the required time to finish my bottle of wine), Chris gave me a lift back to his house, stopping at Tesco to pick up the classic Southern Comfort and Pepsi Max party drink. Back at “Atheist House” (which is not as good as the name “Fort Atheist”), we stayed up most of the night watching various animated shows (American Dad prominent amongst them).

In the morning, I got up and sped off to Leeds station to catch a ride back home, but not before having my half-can of Relentless thrown off the First travel bus. They got their comeuppance, however, because I scrawled “FGW Are[sic] cunts” on the First Great Western train that was my final connection to Basingstoke (and last public transportation vessel for the day). That will teach them not to allow cans of drink on their Leeds buses.

What always bugged me, even when I was young, was when people comment on the unlikelihood of events happening in films. You know, when Jason Bourne makes an impossible jump, or John McClane runs through a storm of bullets without being hit.

Of course, saying “it’s just fiction, it doesn’t matter,” isn’t really a satisfying dismissal of those people. They nag and complain that the film is unrealistic and that makes it unenjoyable for them and unenjoyable for you.

But I had this idea when I was little that maybe all those unlikely things had to happen. That any story where they didn’t happen wouldn’t be very worth telling. There would somewhere be a version of the ‘Die Hard’ storyline where Alan Rickman kills Bruce Willis in the first ten minutes. But nobody wants to see a film like that. In a theoretical universe where every possible story is told, ones with hugely unlikely possibilities will eventually come into existence and they are the ones we read about in books and watch about in films.

Of course, these days I don’t care very much about all of that. Every now and then I’ll be aware that I’m watching something that others might be thinking is unrealistic. In which case I might wait until something relatively probable (but still a bit unlikely) happens and remark on how “this film is so unrealistic,” in a sort of terrible humour attempt.

But also nowadays, years from my initial feelings of ire at the bothersome critical appraisal of my immature peers, I realise that I’d basically applied the anthropic principle to storytelling. Woo! Young me was secretly clever!

One would hope that a nice, well-meaning individual, such as those one might choose to call friends would actually feel remorse if one expresses immediate and deep-seated distress at such a friend’s actions, actions that result in the destruction or otherwise irreparable damage to one of one’s oldest and most favourite possessions.

Everyone’s a bit materialistic. Well, I would consider that most people are, even if there are the odd exceptions. Now, some people can say that such materialism is negligable. They might say that they’d rather spend time with their friends or that they preferred a life enriched with quality experiences and the values of friendship instead of a bunch of stuff that anyone could buy. But just see how long such a thing would last if one of their friends carelessly, oh, say, put their foot through their TV, or crashed their car. Chances are, he or she would still be pretty pissed off with the friend.

Then suppose that the friend makes no effort to reverse the emotional damage to the person or the friendship. Suppose the friend doesn’t care about the damage they’ve caused? Not only is there the monetary value to consider, but with personal items, sentimental value too.

What I’m talking about isn’t a TV or a car, but then, the person I’m talking about doesn’t necessarily place higher value on friendships than possessions. Possessions never grow tired of you, they don’t have needs. It’s a good relationship. You can also throw away possessions that remind you of bad things and nobody thinks you’re cruel or weird. You can look after possessions that have sentimental value attached to them. But it gets harder when you want to be possessive over them. Not many people understand that some aren’t as liberal with their things as others.

Some of you reading this will remember this:

It’s my oilslick-coloured Zippo lighter that I bought almost four years ago. I used to carry it around every day. It’s been useful, comforting, a talking point, a distraction, an inspiration and a common interest; I’ve spent a lot of money on filling it with fuel and on its purchase in the first place (ask an unemployed sixteen-year-old with no income from parents how often they have £20 to spend on one thing). I wrote rhyming verses about it once, and when it fell out of my pocket one drunken evening at my friend Cai’s birthday party, I was so happy to find out that he’d picked it up and kept it safe for me, and overjoyed to have it safely returned to me months later. It’s been a rollercoaster few years; setting light to wood, paper, explosives, the touch paper of short-lived friendships… well, those years have come to an abrupt end.

You see, an unnamed shit-munching housemate of mine came into my room one evening. In his usual absent-minded way he began being liberal with other people’s property (mine), the way that most people are these days. I’m uncomfortable with it, but I restrain myself from being too possessive because it’s unseemly to be like this with friends that I can supposedly trust.

Well, some childish behaviour ensues and stupidity prevails, much to my disgust, and my courteous housemate slams the lighter on the floor in “fake” annoyance that it’s empty and won’t light. Wow, thanks for taking care of it. A little disgruntled, but managing, I pick up the lighter, prepared now to confiscate it and terminate our session of interaction by asking him to leave. But when I go to snap the lid shut and hear the friendly clink of lid touching base, I’m greeted with an uncomfortable grinding. I investigate further to find that my housemate slamming it into the ground actually deformed the hinge. The lid doesn’t close properly, and the lighter is ruined. My lighter is ruined.

What does that mean? Well, it means I would quite like it to be un-ruined. Or, failing that, replaced with an identical-looking one that I will grow to love more easily than a brand new, different-looking one. I was civil to him when he came to talk to me this evening, and when I brought up the subject, he didn’t care. It’s not normally like him to avoid talking about issues, which is why I am slightly perturbed by this. He doesn’t care. I asked for an apology, I figure that’s the first step. I told him it was ruined. It bothers me. But there’s nothing.

This is my bitch to you, internet-land. And don’t comment saying “WELL LOL RITEING ON UR BLOG ISNT GUNNA FIX TEH PROBLEM” because I have already talked about it, and will continue to, but I wanted to write it here as well. Fuck you, fuck everyone. God damn I hope bad shit happens to everyone after reading this just so you can feel as pissed off as I do.

It’s been a bit of a weird result, to be honest.

I woke up at 3am instead of last time’s 2am for the blackcurrant-induced toilet-trip. The only difference this time was that I didn’t immediately get back to sleep again afterwards. In fact, it was more like 5am when I finally did get back to sleep, and those missed two hours were a bitch.

But it’s ok. Despite being a bit more tired this morning when waking up, I got up ok because the doorbell went. The doorbell, you may well know, is located just on the other side of my bedroom door. Plus, I thought it might have been one or more of the prizes I’ve won in competitions this month. But it turned out to be a package for Stuart, probably from the NSS and probably containing a number of their new badges. Shh, don’t tell anyone they’ve got new badges out (I’m torn between the ‘atheist’ recolour in Warwick Atheists colours and the ‘evolved’ creationist-flip-off). Anyway, point is, I got up ok.

I decided that aiming to be in at 10am today is just too harsh. I don’t have to be in until eleven, so I thought it would be ok to just be ready to be in by ten (ready to leave by nine) and then spend the extra time writing this and playing on the internet.

In summary: a bit pissed off about lying sleeplessly for two hours in the middle of the night, but glad I didn’t fail when it came to getting up time.

Overall status: successful.

Today is the first weekday of my new masochistic idea for helping me get out of bed in the mornings - discomfort.

Unfortunately, over the weekend I never got the chance to go out and buy extra bedding for the experiment. The idea was to use one duvet to cushion the floor and another as a cover. So I used some spare bedsheets and a towel and a bunch of old clothes from my suitcase to create a mountain of insulation over me. My house is cold enough as it is without it being a) Winter and b) the floor, so it was important I didn’t catch hypothermia (severe exaggeration but the point remains valid).

I got into bed at about 2307; pretty early by recent standards (considering for the last few nights it’s been in the region of 5am) and got to sleep without much of a problem. Woke up for the loo at 2am (I made a special case to check the time) because of the stupid blackcurrant squash we have in the house at the moment. Blackcurrant is a fucking diuretic and I’m pretty sure it’s giving me lockjaw. But that’s another story. I also resisted the urge to injest caffeine products in the hours leading up to my bedtime.

So, how did it go? It went pretty well. My alarms went off at 8am (for a 10am start). I didn’t hear them very well… On nights when I leave my computer on all night (tonight I was ‘purchasing‘ the film Hook), this thing happens where my ears kind of close up. I guess it’s to block out the sound of the fans whirring away. They go fine again in the morning but it makes my alarm quiet sometimes.

After two presses of the ’snooze’ button (so, on the third alarm), I got up. That’s much better than six presses of the ’snooze’ button and then going back to sleep, as has happened more than once in the past. I had time for all the things I needed to do in the morning. I even had time for breakfast, a too-often-missed delight of the morning. I had so much free time, I even sent a reply to my dad’s e-mail.

I’m not very tired either. The caffeine I denied myself last night was a pretty nice treat this morning, and it, coupled with an early morning meal, should keep me energetic and happy all day.

I have no plans for tonight, which means I will be at home in the evening. Getting up at a normal time should mean I fall tired at a normal time, which in turn should mean I get to bed at a sensible hour again. I will try and make it to the supermarket so I don’t have to sleep under a pile of musty clothes that I haven’t removed from my suitcase since packing them before term one last year.

Early Morning Experiment’s status so far: successful.

Having a comfortable bed is the single biggest mistake you can ever make.

I used to think that having a comfortable bed would make a night’s sleep more relaxing, better for you. Better than waking up in the middle of the night with springs digging into your back in painful places (what I get in my dad’s house), at any rate.

Now I know that this is bullshit. A comfy bed only makes me want to stay in bed for longer. I am much more lazy and sleepy than I have ever been before, and it’s just detrimental to getting things done.

So, in the hope of motivating myself to actually get the fuck out of bed in the mornings, I am going to buy another duvet, lay one on the floor and one over the top of me and kip on my floor for every weeknight next week.

I will let you know how that goes, if you like.

…but Relentless prices up?

It’s a bit of an economical mixed bag. I was enjoying it when a can of Relentless was cheaper than a litre of petrol. Fuck petrol! Though the fact that it’s getting cheaper is probably a good thing. It’s less than 94p per litre at my local supermarket, but they put Relentless Inferno up about 10p just a few days ago! Nightmare!

But I went to 24 hour Tesco on campus yesterday night and bought some where it was still under £1. It’s good.

I don’t think I am being affected very much by the, ah, “credit crunch.” Things still seem to be costing the same as they always have. And, as usual, it’s easy to spend too much. Especially with my housemates; they don’t really realise that students aren’t meant to live in comfort and luxury. They’re supposed to buy all the cheapest things possible and barely live on them. It’s a nightmare when other people come back from shopping and ask for my money. They didn’t ask what I wanted to put my money towards…

Oh well, got a little bit of cash coming soon enough (in time for the holiday season, in fact), and maybe a little pocket of cash as gifts from Santa. Money is a bitch, but it’s the only path to true happiness.