Sunday, February 29, 2004

Leap Day

Whaoah Excellent. Quality. See yer in 4 years. :)

russian

a few more touchups to the css, a russian flavor to the date. In the morning I went for a bike ride in the bitter cold (not really, snowed a little) which I have not done in absolutely ages because I have been a slob without a cause. Times change and I am feeling the rewards. I was absolutely knackered for the first half of the ride but I was much better for the second half, a little but needs improvement before I can do the Tour de France. I did 100 sittups last night, ooooh Im good!

Just back from juggling club. It was really good this week altho some of the music was shite. I got a NR of 23 throws (right hand 23x2 -2=44 catches) of 4-ball shower. It really helps the 5-ball cascade, I need to have some practice of left hand leading 4-ball shower as this will definitely even things over. I was lent three green Dube Beach clubs which is excellent, thanks Tim!!! They're slow spinning which is something I haven't experienced since day one at Wokingham Juggling Club with the hard onepiece clubs. Yeah it was cool driving home, it started to snow really hard and driving was really good fun. I love snow, so white and so pure. like travelling through space with huge stars hitting your spaceship and gliding off into history behind you.

Middlesborough won the league cup, beating Bolton 2-1. Their cup first win in 120 years lands them a place in Europe next year. Australian GP next week, come on baby!!!

Saturday, February 28, 2004

shower

today awoke to snowflakes. falling from the sky, back to sleep way too early for me. awoke again, snow gone all dry still cold out. Ive just been doing some juggling: doing 4-ball shower. Max of about 10 throws. Need more height as the throws are superfast, at least for my slow arms. rocking tunes on the xfm at the moment.

Last night I put on 1-world and it fucking was awesome. There was this comedian who died 10 years ago, his name was Bill Hicks and he was god: thank the technology that I could hear recordings intertwined with another god who died 10 years ago (this april). unfortunately its not on listen again because of excessive "strong language". SUch talent, so good.

Crosswords. Ive done 2 x-words this evo. The independent do an excellent online crossword where you type in the letters on a popup screen thing. its great.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

78!!!

I've finally done it! I've made it past the big 5-0 and into almost triple figures. A NEW Record of 78 catches of 5-ball cascade! WoooooYeah! It all happened outside in the justsuperzero temperature under blue skies this afternoon, there was a little wind but it was beautiful out! Here's to the cracking the ton in the next couple of weeks! I also practiced 4-clubs outside, focussing on doubles. I got a NR of 8 catches with increasingly cold hands in the almost dark twilight. Outside dry weather rules!!!

Manchester United lost away to Porto in the Champions League and Keene also getting sent off. It was the first leg of the 1/4 final and we play them at Old Trafford in a couple of weeks. Ive got a fucking cold and sore throat at the moment. I only had two pancakes yesterday as I had a bacon sarnie and egg before and there was no space.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

sunday

I love music. I love free music, therefore I love kazaa. It has its shorts but I am becoming ever more dependent on its excellent service, even though sometimes the tune Ive just heard on a specialist radio show is not online. A new band for you: Death Cab For Cutie. They;ve been hanging around as a name in my conscienceness for a long while as the music press seems to like them. Yesterday i downloaded three of their tunes: a cover of the smiths' this charming man, and two of their own. TOtally rocking the head, the former is on constant rotation buts getting a little too familiar and is on the back burner for rationing.

Pancake day!!! Whoah I love pancakes. What a shite day. It's raining drizzle and the gray skies are very boring. The cat did something Ive never seen it do before: drink out of my cold cup of tea from my bedside table. Obviously she didn't like the taste of that very much and then moved to try and refreshment from my glass of water (half full) so she couldn't reach it. I filled it and she lapped out some water. Weird.
Monday I did some research into the next company Ive an interview with (oxford, next week) and they look very impressive. They provide a pharmaceutical service across the board from biological assays to scale-up and manufacture of the IND and anything in between. They are like Tripos but larger and have a more broad range of services (i.e. on the biology side, something Tripos were aiming to do in the future). Ive also been looking and making notes from my university notes on medicinal chemistry.

Juggling. Sunday was good. I did my first ever club back cross (single) and that feels good. My 5-ball fealt a lot better: Im sure there were runs over 50 catches but I was not counting. I varied the height and started from my off and on hands whereever relevant.

Friday, February 20, 2004

whahahh

its friday. it snowed. I had my first ever graduate job interview yesterday. It was okay, I was a little loose on the technical questions but hay Im only human and its been hellava long time since I was doing chemistry mechanisms. Almost a year. So up to Cambridge and back in one day pretty tiring: the company appeared to be very impressive. A lot like my previous employers but with a lot more areas of operations. Ive another interview in March with another company too, as well as agencies sending other applications in for me all over the place. So, progress is the greatest thing. I sent off the speculative CVs last Friday and the first interview the next week is very fast!!!

In juggling ive been launching from my off hand (left) and it feels really different. I read on rec.juggling that this has helped others which is why Im trying it. First impressions are good. Im also changing the height of the pattern at points in the process which also is another way of getting out of routine. Its something new so you concentrate a lot more on that than other things.

I watched six feet under this morning from last night. Is nate finally going to leave that moose? Claire and the fellow arts student are finally getting close. The mother is fucking crazy, in a good way. That was what made the first series so good: craziness.

Ahh gotta go - Just downloaded Thomas Dietz's latest vid (#9). Ciao.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

w/s

ive made a temporary site for my juggling club: Here Its a work in progress, I need to guage what the site actually needs. I have put some puctures which I took of me juggling in the kitchen earlier. They're the smallest the camera can do with quality at its lowest but Im looking not for fine art here: need to cater for everyone's tastes and connection speeds. Add on to that all are thumbs the page should load pretty quickley.
In the afternoon I juggled 4 outside and am getting better, I managed 8 clean and 11 or so unclean doubles. I cant wait for warmer drier weather and also to get my own proper clubs which will produce correct results every time. I am also in need of some smaller squishier balls because I'm getting fucked off with my huge balls colliding all the time ;) I took loads of digi photos earlier, put them onto the potential FJC site, see above, and had a go with lots of different timings with the camera. Its great fun!
Thomas Dietz video #8 is out. thank fuck for mirrors because the lutkus site is extremely busy and the bandwidth is being gobbled up by hungry jugglers and thus takes hours and hours. I got this in ~20 mins and considering its 50MB big thats great! I am trying a new trick: behind the back and under the opposite arm ie under the opposite armpit behind the back. The diff is getting the other arm out of the way so that the ball can flow without hitting it, its some timing.

Monday, February 16, 2004

rugger

Eng beat Italy. Big surprise. 50-9. Robinson scores 3 tries in an okay game that was good for 60 mins but the Italians were out of reach by then and England totally controlled all.
In juggling club I had a go with 4 clubs which was almighty difficult. Collisions and not enough spin were the main problem. It is still the second day on 4c and first with proper clubs so must look at the positives in this. The 2inone were getting better by the end by which time I was fucking knackered.

Sunday, February 15, 2004

then there were four

Ive made another newspaper club. This is much stronger than the previous 3 (partly due to wear and tear of the originals and better workmanship this time). So yesterday i set about learning 2 in one hand with them. I had already gotten some practice with at the J club last w/e. Singles were relatively easy to do and I had no problem with either hand, my left was much better in fact with a NR of 46 catches. I got 31 catches NR in my right. Today I started on doubles and I got 20 NR in my right and 10 NR in my left, Im finding it difficult to put enough spin on the left but given a few more days this should be sorted.
This afternoon during a lull in the rugby I took up all 4 clubs and went out into the biting cold (not actually cold as such just it fealt so with bare arms and a t-shirt). I was doing doubles and did not have too much luck. Later on after France had beaten Ireland, Wales beaten Scotland and United beaten City (manchester), I again took up 4 and tried singles. With the aid of the movie camera I worked out that it was all too narrow. I managed not only to qualify but I got a NR of 11 catches. Excellent!
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In the eve I saw Saving Private Rian. This was very good. Im very tired...

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

hullo

Thomas Dietz is possibly the best juggler around. Some might argue that gatto and garfield are the greats, but they're twats. Thomas is a god. If you don't believe me check out the latest of the Thomas Dietz videos: Thomas' Videos. The latest vid is number 7 in a series and its unbelievable. The complexity of the tricks and the apparent ease that he does it is hugely inspirational to us jugglers. What a dude. The quality of the video again is top notch, wordup to shani!!!
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I broke my 5-record... by one :( but also :) so that's kind of :s iguess! so 48 NR is my score.
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ManU beaten by Middlesborough 3-2. The two irish dudes whore (haha: who're) at war with Sir Alex increase their stake in the club piling all the more pressure on Alex to go. Bastards.
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I've been doing speculative CVs today (great fun folks). With Ian's help I now have a damn hot covering letter. I have a mountain of CVs to fold up tomorrow and Im really looking forward to that! I applied for three more jobs today. There are not very many new job adverts on the net applicable directly to me, perhaps I'm being too fussy or somint. Or looking under the wrong stones.
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Tresspassers William ROCK dude. They're live on XFM now and totally chill the fucking spine.
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The computer fucked up today. Ive a virus checker (avg) and an account which recieves lots of spam with mydoom in it (so im told, i dont actually open tha attachments!) but there was a problem whenever I opened OE the AVG kicked in and froze the whole computer, a real bastard. I got rid of all the OE files except the saved hotmail ones and started over. Now have a mean lean OE which is much better. no crappy O2 emails thankyou.

Monday, February 09, 2004

juggling

Excellent: Juggling t-night was great. I never have done any 2 club in a hand and got 11 on both dubs and singles in the right hand. Full dub cascade now at 14 NR catches, also had a go at trups: I think my best was 2 catches. Im going to learn 4-ball mills mess. It sounds and looks fun. But its exceptionally difficult. Good good good!!!

Sunday, February 08, 2004

php
thanks bro. he's finally got php working on the server and it rules. whahoooo!!! right, next step learning it. Okay ive done a simple page where it works out what browser the page is being seen through which I think will come in very useful especially with CSS been interpreted differently in various browsers. Yehhah.
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United do a spurs... almost. At half time at everton its 3-0 to united and all looking great. Come the final 5 mins of the second half its 3-3 and united looking nervous. Finally, though, RUUD gets his 101st United goal and we win. I watched Jonny English and its a big pile of obvious crap shit.
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20 rev 3-club cascade NR. 6 double 3-club cascade NR.
Grandma's Birthday today. Happy Birthday Grandma.
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deep blue skies. getting dark, cold light, near spring: yet a long way from new zealand. chill

Thursday, February 05, 2004

travel

This job hunting business has re-awoken an urge long forgotten: to go travelling. I stumbled across a link on totaljobs to BUNAC. They do organised working trips to popular destinations across the globe, sorting out the difficulties such as visa and the like. I printed off New Zealand and Canada. Ive always wanted to go to NZ and the Rockies are another want to go to place. So Ive been looking at loads of NZ sites: jobs agencies, travel sites, and other. One can get to Aukland from £530 return which is mighty fine. Im going to research this further because its very appealing to me!
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Guess what? Spurs City half time: 3-0. Full time 3-4 and City are through to play United in the 5th round of the FA Cup. Sounds like it was a great game! Quality.
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Jobs search: Found lots more jobs to apply to, including some non chemistry, graduate jobs which look very tasty. I also applied to two agencies in NZ for the hell of it. Nice.
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No Juggling... what is this, a job finding blog? I promise that I'll do some juggling tomorrow!
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Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Jobs

so the government finally admit that there are no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. took them long enough. theres going to be an inv into the intelligence but not into the reasons for going to war now the issue of lacking wmds is admitted to.
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arsenal out of carling cup as middlesborough beat them, 2-1 on the night and 3-1 on aggr. excellent!
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I began applying for jobs today, as before said there's a lot of them out there it just takes ages to sift through them all to find ones that appeal to me. progress is progress!
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no juggling. no time really. been looking at this bloody screen far too long!
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Last night I finished the Long Walk. Very sad in patches, hugely inspiring in human courage against all odds, a great journey of 4000 miles walked in a year from camp 303 in middle siberia to India through the gobi desert and over the himalayas. quality! I am now going to finish Karouac's The Town and the City which I began last year sometime and put aside for some reason.

Monday, February 02, 2004

SuperBowl XXXVIII

yes this late night sport watching thing has become a bit regular but hay Im not complaining. Last night I watched superbowl 38 featuring New England Patriots versus Carolina Panthers. Ive never ever watched american football, never apealed to me and besides I didn't know the rules. Thanks to an excellent presentation by channel 5 I both understood what was going on and had an awesome time too.
The game, which up to the final 3mins of the first half was scoreless, was an excellent introduction to the sport. The beautiful magesty and power of the game is phenominal. The final quarter was frantic with the panthers catching the patriots and going themselves into the lead before the patriots pulled back level and opened another lead. And you've guessed it (more drama) as the panthers levelled it with 1 min still on the clock. An awesome group of passing moves brought the game within punting distance and the man vinatieri (who had missed two previous punts earlier in the game) stepped up and sliced the ball through the posts to win the game, wow!
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got up about noon - not bad considering the fact that I got to bed at 4 thirty this morning! Been job searching on the internet, lots of chemistry jobs which look good. Have some reservations over whether I want to do this as a career, well see!
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47 5-ball so near but so far from the big 50
the strap on one of the weights snapped as I was putting it on so no weights practice today. I did an hour of solid clubs and balls (half each).
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