120

We did the Fresher Fair yesterday. I put the poster and last year's poster on my Flickr account. Interesting people, some geeks (in a good way) some far too cool to join (in a bad way). But I'm expecting an interesting year in it with new management strategies.

I left early to go to Thorpe Park, which was fun. I couldn't afford to spend £4 on a poncho, so I was soaked. It was the worst weather I'd seen in months. I think in a year (9th September 2005 flooding). But being with Sharan, I got to jump all the cues. This was her birthday party, and she works there, so we got in free and had a fantastic time. I rode Colossus twice, going upside-down 20 times in total. Which was great because I hadn't been upside-down all week.

Before going in, I had a little time to kill and in the rain and ample space of the car park, I did my first drift. It was fun. I was low on petrol and didn't have a spare tyre, so I was more cautious than usual.

I gave Becky's friend Helen a lift home, initially not thinking Woking was so far away. But it was. But driving with Becky back from Woking at 2AM had an advantage: empty, long roads. Which let me do something I have never done before: 120mph. Now I know that it isn't much to never sports cars that easily do 150mph, but on a student budget, it's a hell of a speed. And my car did it well I could push more out of it, but the long straights seemed a lot shorter without the Peugeot (I managed about 93mph on the same road in my 106).

So, 120 and drifting in the same day. I think I will rest my car today.

That's about it.

For those that found the secret blog, well done.

Hard Work, Too Hot

Freshers Week has started. So I have met lots of new people, some very interesting, others rather dull. I have also been very busy. I have spent several evenings with Emma watching Star Trek and playing various games (I completed Lost Levels, well, I thought I did, but there are more strange levels afterwards). I have done a lot of driving too.

Emma and I and Housei made a sign to welcome Housei's friend to England. It was like the signs people usually hold up at airports, but far more ornate, with badly written Japanese on it, and we found it very funny. So did he. He (Hiro) is a designer putting on an exhibition in Earl's Court. We drove him from the airport to his hotel, and had a good chat with him.

I have spent a few evenings with Dan though, just hanging around with him and his flat which he is now a flat rep of. His flat seems cool. The JCS is also restarting, so I have some posters to design.

Becky has been coming around a lot too, though fetching her from her house is a bit of a drag, as I have to drop her off too. Though doing it late lends time to driving fast on empty roads (I haven't learnt).

I gave Mandi a lift today, and I made my first Facebook group. You have to be on Facebook to see what it is. Unless you're Yukina, then you have to ask Erin. I have been busy. I also helped Laura move some of her stuff, and she met my sister.

Anyway, nothing too exciting. I'm going to order my parents a new computer now. It's a shame they don't want ionic cooling.

Scary

That is my car. And I'm in front of it. And it led me to be absolutely petrified today.

The past couple of nights, I have used my car to relieve tension from stresses that have built up. This basically involves seeing how fast I can take Roehampton Lane before I decide it's unsafe. Since it's residential and has been mutilated by a bus lane, this is around 70mph. That's the same speed I hit on that road when I was driving my friend's Soarer.

Last night it was around 3PM I was doing this. Pretty empty. Tonight was different. When I joined the motorway, I joined with a nice Porsche, and I stayed behind him for a while. Out of solidarity for German car drivers, I don't drive in any way to annoy them, and respect their vehicles and use of the road. This usually applies to everyone, but non-German car drivers lose that respect quicker.

He was driving tamely, he wasn't doing anything daring or fast. When I got to Roehampton Lane, I wanted to see how I fared compared to the previous night. This was only around 11PM. So after the lights changed, and seeing the same Porsche behind me, I drove a little faster than him, and sped down the road. At no point was his speed exceeding mine. We weren't racing. But then I see HIM getting pulled over by the police. Bear in mind, American readers, that the police in this country tend to be rather lenient in comparison to your police when it comes to speed, and rely on machines to do all the catching and fining.

They didn't arrest me, when clearly I was driving faster, and that scared the life out of me. I haven't been arrested before, and I can't afford a ticket. So I was scared lifeless by the thought of it. But, better him than me. By the looks of his car, he can afford it. I don't drive that fast when people are in my car, but I was alone. And the good fuel made my car more responsive.

Tonight we had an IB dinner to discuss how we felt about the IB 3 years on. Certain people were conspicuous in their absence, and I missed some that had even RSVPed but not shown up. I'm way too tired and eager to play CS to recount all the details, but I ended up speaking to a lot of year below friends (I think of them as Lower Sixth formers, but they were in the Upper Sixth far more recently than me). I didn't get to show them my car, but I did show them my sexy hair, which still looks fresh from yesterday.

That, and completing more Lost Levels, that was today.

Some Hiding

I'm letting you know now, now that it is time, that there is a link on this blog to another small blog of mine, one with very different subject matter. It is on this page, but I'm not going to tell you where.

I want the first person to find it to say so in a comment. Don't say where it is, just say you found it.

I got a haircut and I saw Dan today. I hung out with Dan and Beth for a while, and I saw Erin (new Erin) again, as well as a few other people. I got Becky to come over for a bit and all of us played Mario Bros: The Lost Levels for several hours. It made much screaming and incredible joy whenever we finished a really hard level, and it made everything worthwhile.

I also spoke to Natasha, who is now in France. It was good to chat with her, she's very remote now. But we'll see her sometime.

Not much else, other than Sarah told me that Roehampton was on the news. I didn't see it on News 24, but I take her word for it.

Storm

There was a beautiful storm that lit up the entire sky tonight. We watched from the window, but in my excitement, I ran outside to observe it, and the whole cloudy night-time sky was illuminated with these bright lightning flashes. It was amazing.

Through an amusing twist of events, Kiana was locked outside by Emma for this storm.

I spoke to an old friend Sarah the other day. It was very cool, we chatted for ages about all sorts of classic stuff. I hope we can meet up sometime in the not too distant future.

Today was another day of solid Mario and Star Trek. Which is good, because tomorrow is very busy. I did walk to the shops with Emma and Mizuki, and on the way we noticed a car with a sign on it saying it was for sale, and another sign from Wandsworth Council saying that it was illegal to sell cars on the street. I hate it when the council interferes with private citizens going about legitimate business. I could not see any point to criminalising private car sale through in car advertising. Another peeve of mine.

We also got to watch the fourth episode of Prison Break Season 2. I like how it's always getting better. I don't know who can't like that main character.

I also made a CounterStrike first. I shot someone, took their grenade, and hurled it into a known hiding place. I usually do things similar, but to no avail. I got a double kill. I hardly ever kill anyone with grenades (I think it was the first time), and I have never managed a genuine multi-kill in CS, and I did it and won the round to boot. Go me.

Not much else to report. I'll be seeing you online.

Post Editorial

That last post was quite something. And it was quite specialised. It was something that I feel I could have submitted to a Facebook newsletter or something. And at around 1360 words, was an epic undertaking to read if you aren't a member of Facebook. So if that was the case, I apologise, and I hope you become a member soon.

Anyway, since then, there has been more waiting for University to start.

The house made a trip to a wholesaler, where we found that the prices aren't that much below Tescos, and that getting to Acton shouldn't be taken lightly. We hit 20 minutes of solid traffic, which we only cut short by making a quick dash the wrong way down a dual carriage-way, which cut hours from our journey.

I also asked out that girl in Wimbledon who was very beautiful. She has a boyfriend (which I suspected), but asked me to go with them for drinks after work some time, which was a good result.

The ZSneXBox SNES Emulator that we have been glued to for weeks has a cheat function: you press the right analogue stick on the controller, you jump back in time about 15 seconds, to whatever you were doing then. It saves a lot of problems, especially in games like Mario (it wouldn't work so well in a chess simulator). We completed Mario Bros. 3 easily using it, and felt guilty for doing so. We have been playing it since without the use of cheats, and it has been far more painstaking. But a lot more rewarding. We didn't even use the Warp Whistles. There have been days where we've spent four straight hours on one world, and it has been great for me and Emma doing just that. Today was close to solid gaming (Point Blank 3 broke the Nintendo monopoly).

I'm about to embark on a CounterStrike game, so that'll tally up some, but it's online, so real friends don't usually participate. I found an excellent server. It's fast and full of pretty good players, but not too good so that I can't do anything.

Facebook is opening up it's gates to regional members soon, that's going to make it weird. The JCS is also planning its stuff for Fresher week.

Anyway, I'm out of here for now. Sorry for no updates.

Call me!

QuasiBlog Editorial

As you'll know by now, I'm quite into Facebook. It's the only social networking site I go to, it's the only one I've been interested in, and aside from this Blog, the only one I contribute to regularly. So with the furor that some recent changes have made, I give you a personal and opinionated response.

I logged onto Facebook a few days ago. It had changed. I saw new and exciting things. Things were different and I could now find out what had happened with people that I had added, and saw a catalogue of everything I had done the past few days. This gave me the opportunity to follow a direct link to a post I had made in a group the previous day to check for replies. This gave me the opportunity to look at Status changes that had been made (which I could do already, but it was on another page, and when people download things at my house, it slows the connection a lot). It basically made everything faster and more efficient.

The News feed was just as fun. It gave me the opportunity to see what had happened with people who called themselves my friends, with any events they deemed important and public enough to put onto their social networking site. This saved a lot of time too, because it is very rarely that I have the time and boredom to check each person on my friend list for changes. And a lot of the changes are trivial changes, and shockingly, I don't mind knowing if one of my friends likes a new band that I haven't heard of, because, being my friend, I value their opinion and I may well enjoy their choice of music as well. And I like knowing if a friend just went to see Severance and loved it, because it means I can talk about it with them.

One of my friends goes and puts a new movie on their list of favourite films. They found it important enough to makes changes to their profile, and they now have this profile change sent to their friends. As their friend, I can now use this information to initiate a conversation with them on the topic, and I can do it as soon as I log on, because now news is brought to me instead of me having to wait to be bored to trawl through profiles, possibly not even noticing a change like that.

I have a couple of beliefs about all the fuss created. This new feature has brought to light exactly what people share about their lives online. Suddenly people are aware of what other people can know about them, suddenly they realise what their profile contains and how eager they are to share that information. Of course, when this realisation is brought about by a change of what they're used to, the primary reaction is to blame the change. And lots of people did that.

There were so many people, such as Billy "Bill-The-Thrill" Andre, a Junior at Boston University, who insisted that the Mini-Feed and News-Feed were invasions of privacy. Can I inform you that to invade privacy, there must first be privacy to invade. Nothing on any of the feeds was at any point private, so there was nothing to invade. Instead, it made things easier for people who are interested in you to find out what you have been doing in your public social networking site.

This blog is in total public domain. There are no checks and no IP limits and no location based restrictions, anyone with a clear internet connection can read this. On this blog I put stories and events from my life that I would like people I know to read, and people who can't spend time with me to remember me by. I am aware that anyone can read this, and that it is not hard to find. Hence, while it may not seem like it, I do show some discretion in what I say. That should be true in every aspect of the internet, and is particularly true when possible employers want to find out about you.

Facebook is different. It is based around Networks which you have little control over. I believe it has popularity for this reason, that the (main) Networks have to be proved and you have to offer some kind of valid identity before you even join. So to begin with, only already with a connection with you, either on location (which is optional) or based on Educational Facility (which is not, but discretion is possible through Limited Profiles and Blocking). So already it is different from public blogs (like Blogger) and from normal social networking (like MySpace). The people who can see your profile are limited from the very start, and that isn't changing.

So the problem obviously cannot be that people you don't know and trust have more access to you through Feeds, the problem is that they have easier access. I have to ask, why is that a problem? These aren't random people. These aren't just people that happened to go to your University, or live near you. The only people who can access this feed are people that You have selected to be "friends". So the problem lies that you don't want your "friends" to see what you've been up to, you want to make your "friends" check your profile if you do anything different.

Here lies that problem, and it's the same problem that MySpace has. There are far too many people who will add just about anyone they see walking across the cafeteria as their friend in an effort to boost their numbers. They'll bolster their count in an effort to be as popular as Tom, and they ensure that the term "friend" becomes reduced to something that means nothing of the sort.

It's the Facebook Whores that now find that their public profile is just that, and it's now readily available and offered to every passing face that they added to their "friend" list. That's what they are afraid of, that is why they don't like the Feed.

Heaven forbid that the Feed could offer a very fast and efficient way of informing my actual friends of a fun group I found, or that I just saw and loved Jackie Brown, it's something that's just for stalkers to know every detail about you.

Can I ask, why do you add stalkers to your friend list?

There is a Limited Profile option that people have ignored thoroughly, and suddenly now that there is a major and apparent new change, the people who have lived their entire lives through Facebook and MySpace are up in arms about privacy.

Mark Zuckerberg announced that he has responded to the criticism, and introduced more privacy settings to Facebook. Doubtless, everyone will go and make sure that the Feeds are completely crippled as soon as they can. I won't alter my privacy settings, because I do not mind people who are on my friend list knowing what I do on Facebook. It's actually the reason I joined Facebook. To be Social. And Network.

In the group 'Minifeed is not an Invasion of Privacy', Casey Fitzpatrick, a Freshman also at Boston University, said "If you use a public restroom, should everyone else that uses public restrooms be able to know that you JUST used the public restroom, how long you used it, and what you did?". All I hope is that she doesn't add her restroom durations to her Facebook Profile. Not that it would matter, she's not my friend, I wouldn't be able to find out, even though I also sometimes use public restrooms.

I am glad there are privacy controls, but I doubt they will be used appropriately, and I am sure that the Feed that I have used and enjoyed everyday to see how my friends (people I know and care about in real life) are doing. The publicity and high profile of the protests has made it so what I do online has become slightly harder, and progress, as I have always believed in, has been reversed.

Facebook Groups

Facebook is taking off, and with more people returning and joining in Roehampton, it's getting to be a big deal.

Recent changes, including (mainly) the introduction of a mini-feed, have prompted outcry.

I feel very lonely in the fact that I like this feed. While I can understand some people genuinely being against this, it seems the majority of protest stems from the groups that people have created about it becoming so large so quickly.

The reason people joined these groups? The mini-feed. No one would know about it otherwise.

And joining an anti-feed group has become passe IN ONE DAY. This is the speed that the internet moves. Blink and you miss a whole fad.

There are also groups calling for the extermination of the stingray that killed Steve Irwin. I know some are saying this in irony, but reading some things said, I can't help but feel that certain parties are lacking irony. Might I ask, what would it achieve? Stringrays are awesome, and deadly, as we know.

Stringray... Stringray! Da da daa da daa da.

I picked up Kiana from the airport today, she moved in for the second time, and we saw a bit of the Transporter 2. I'll watch the rest of it tomorrow. Becky came round and watched TV and Emma came back. Busy day. Shopping tomorrow. We're out of toilet roll.

An Important Update

Absolutely nothing happened today.

Zero. I stayed in almost the whole time.

I did a but on the computer, a few productive things, a few not so productive things, but the most noteworthy was that I spoke to Erin for the first time since I was in San Francisco, and we had a fun little chat about what we've been up to, and about how cool life has been. It also made me realise I haven't been reading her blog enough, so I'm going to tackle a minor backlog when I can.

"I though I would trust Yukina's judgment."

I cut myself shaving today. Only a really, really tiny one, but it's one of the most annoying things to happen in the bathroom. That and slipping. I don't think I've had a cut while shaving in over a year. Incredible. I doubt I mentioned it on my blog.

Someone linked a quiz, and I found one that seemed quite representative. For a blog quiz at least.

Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino

Smooth and sweet, you fit in to almost any crowd. No one would suspect you of being a coffee tweaker!

What Flavor Frappuccino Are You?

The news of Steve Irwin's death is very sad. It made front page on Slashdot, which is rare for a non-geek (the claim that he was a scientist is valid, but it's reaching). There were some amazingly funny comments on Slashdot, but I won't repeat them, go and look yourself. But I will say that while I laughed, I am sad that he's gone. He's one of the celebrities that was just so unpretentious and likeable, I don't see that in celebrity very often.

This new movie Crank seems pretty exciting. I mean, as a movie fan I love deep, thought provoking, emotional and powerful films, my favourite directors are Spike Jonze, Tarantino, and David Fincher, but as a guilty pleasure, I love mindless action movies. Jason Statham seems to be pretty good in these. I've only seen the Transporter so far, and it wasn't the best action movie I've ever seen, but it certainly was watchable. And as an action star, Statham has a likeable charm about him. So for fun I watch those movies. I'm never left thinking about them for long, but they do the trick. That, and ingenious horror. I love innovative horror movies that really scare you. I liked Saw and The Ring a lot for those reasons (not Ring 2, it made me want to cry). But when I went to go and see Mr and Mrs Smith with Dan, he hated it and I loved it. It was thoughtless action and it was great. So I'm going to see Crank if I can. And Transporter 2 (maybe tonight).

I pick up Kiana from the airport tomorrow morning. I also drop my father off at the same time, and so I get to be double useful. Plus my car is warmed up by the time I begin to drive Kiana home.

Speaking of car...

I have a new one. I sold my Peugeot, and with the money from that and borrowings from my future Student Loan, I went and purchased my short term dream car:

BMW 318i

I have wanted a BMW 3-Series for a few years now, and since I have been driving long enough to warrant a significant drop in insurance, I have my own BMW. I'll post pictures of it soon. Now, it's not hugely special, it's 13 years old and it has a few dents, but damnit, it can move. It has a 1.8 litre engine (the Peugeot was a 1.0 litre). I paid about as much as Dan paid for his car, and I'm really happy with it. I have driven it at 110mph only so far, there's always too many cars on the road to get it to top speed, but I love it. It's so comfy, and I installed my old sound system in it, so I have all my MP3s available.

Damn, I am happy with it, it's a wonderful machine. So I'll be seeing you in it if I see you around.

Well, if you're reading, it was good to chat to you today Erin, and when I see her online I'll call Yukina too. And you should totally do what I told you to do instead of that thing I didn't want you to do.

Gorgeous

A few days have provided a lot of excitement for me of late.

I went to the Goodwood Revival on Saturday, which was a recreation of a golden era of motoring. Cars from the 60s and earlier were on display and were being raced, and the dress code was strictly 50s - 60s era. Which meant I got to wear my hat.

It was very enjoyable, and I got to see some incredible sights. Very old Jaguar cars [see photo] racing (I mean old style cars, filled with turbo chargers). Ford GT40s were flying everywhere, and since my father and I were positioned at a nice corner (very wet and cold, but it provided good skidding), we witnessed a few spins, a couple of classic saloons making side on contact, and a wonderful Ferrari 250 LM smashing in its front corner. Factor in that they made 32 of them, and it's quite a spectacle.



The phone rang while I was at home one morning, and I answered, as it's usually for me, and the person on the other end started speaking Japanese, and despite my requests for her to 'hold on', she didn't understand. So for the first time in well over a year, I had to speak Japanese with no other options, but I managed to squeeze out a few words to get her to wait a minute while I fetched her son. I mean, it wasn't hard, but I have not had no choice of language since I spoke to Rumi-chan on my last night in Osaka.

As for other news, well. Becky has come over and visited every evening and we've watched a lot of Arrested Development and played a lot of video games, particularly Donkey Kong Country. I also took her job hunting today, where she got an interview from one of the most attractive women I have seen in a very long time. I'm going to have to ask her out. I managed to speak to her and I got some minor flirting in, but not nearly enough.

Anyway, it's 3 and due to my new earlier hours, I'm tired and should sleep after just one episode of Frasier.

New Company

The past couple of days/nights, I have been seeing Dan and we've been hanging around with one of his friends, who, despite my expectations, turned out to be very enjoyable company and we had intelligent conversation. She was quite knowledgeable about film, and we chatted about some of the good films we knew.

So I'm quite happy about that, I have made some new friends. Plus, I'm spotting all the new students and making friends with the ones that seem lost or need help with luggage, which should be a good way to know more people next year. It's a shame it always happens when my hair is curly.

I managed to call Kiana finally, and I found out when she's back. It's only a week away, but it was later than I expected.

Not much to say, except Emma got hair extensions, and they look pretty convincing.