Christmas Update...

Wow, well I sure haven't been updating this blog as much as I originally intended. Well, the truth is that i've kind of been snowed under (pun very much intended) with work lately. A couple of my assignments at the moment are to analyse the RMS amplitude of various tracks and produce a scientific report, another one is to program a media player in C++, and finally to set out a strategic and operation business plan. The only one of these that I can call finished is the first one. My scientific report is full of figures, statistics, and research, fun stuff! Just need to hand that in now!

At the moment I'm also working mainly on the programming assignment, the media player has to be built purely in C++ and has to handle the playback of wav files, and also act as a playlist creator / editor / manager! So that's all fun!

Other than university, this terms been pretty awesome! Living in a flat with my mates from uni is great! Better than halls i think, if only for the quietness! haha. I can't believe that university is going so quickly, i've pretty much finished the first term in my second year. Seems like only yesterday I was arriving in Bournemouth as a nervous fresher, not sure what to expect from the whole thing! But on the whole, university is great!

This term i decided to make an investment... in an xbox 360! Well I decided it could be my early christmas present to myself, and it's fantastic! I only have a few games, including Forza 3, COD MW2, GTA IV, and some others, but i'm already becoming dangerously addicted to it!

Speaking of which, i must just go and finish that mission in GTA...

What an audience...

Wow! Well i started this blog with the idea that friends and family would be able to visit to find out what i've been up to at University. It's really turned into me typing about what's really on my mind at the time i click that 'New Post' button. Regardless of this, i checked my blog statistics today and was surprised to see this...

It's a map of all the visits on my blog! Now don't worry, its not tracking your current location (Thats illegal!), it just shows the exchange you're connected too. Now there's defiantly a couple of people i know in America and New Zealand, and I'm sure services like TOR can account for some of these hits. But the fact is, people from all over the world are reading this blog, and I'm not sure how that feels. I mean, can they all be genuinely interested in my first year antics at uni? Maybe next time you visit, you could leave a comment so i know who you are!

Moving on, its a busy few weeks in Bournemouth coming up. We have 5 assignments on the go, one of which is to create a multimedia application in flash which teaches the user the basics of how to use a DSLR Camera, those who know me will know that this is something i'd enjoy doing... and I did! It was quite a steep learning curve from what i'm used to, but i'm very pleased with the end result. I'll post some screenshots and a video up after hand in date, may even try to host the application online somewhere so you can all have a go!

Final rant, Twitter. I've been 'tweeting' for about 3 or 4 weeks now. You can see my latest 'tweet' at the top of this blog. It's an interesting concept, which at first seems exactly like Facebook status updates, and this is the underlying problem with the service. It's not until you join and start tweeting, that you realise really how different it is to Facebook! My experiences have been that when I try to encourage my friends to join, their response is "isn't that just Facebook" and that's as far as it goes. Maybe i'll post a blog on the differences, but for now I'm just wondering if any of my readers have twitter, let me know in the comments!

You will never see snow in Bournemouth...

Seven words i heard when being shown around Bournemouth University on an open day, not sure how or why the topic came up but whoever spoke those words has been proved very wrong this week! Like the rest of the country, Bournemouth has been plunged into whiteness with what can only be described as snow.

Am I happy, excited, or pleased about this snow. No. Whilst it may be fun plotting (and for some reason always failing) to break out onto the roofs of University buildings and have massive snowball fights, the fact of the matter is that snow is only good if it's a few feet deep, freshly fallen, with a nice hard base, and on a nice steep mountain. And even then, it's only good if I am at the top of said mountain with a nice pair of ski's strapped to my feet. Who said I was bitter about my family going skiing again this year?

Pushing that aside, news here. Unfortunately one of my best mates on the course has decided that it's not for him. The decision is totally understandable, but he will be missed! Other news, all assignments are done for now, and as you may gather my exam has been and gone (smoothly, as far as I can tell). Emma is visiting this week from good old Winchester, hopefully the snow won't ruin the travel plans! Which brings me onto a very good point...

[rant] Other countries have snow for 6 months a year, and manage to cope absolutely fine. Yet our useless country has but a sprinkling of the white stuff, and headlines such as "Snow brings chaos to London" and "Snow in England spawns transit mess" are commonplace! I mean come on, sort it out Britain! [/rant]

Anyway, enough from me!

Sam

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates on the Music Blog front, i have to admit that I stupidly came back to Uni, leaving all my previous creations at home! But have no fear, more are on the way!

P.P.S Just been reminded that i promised to update you on my cooking. I tried making lasagne, ended up on the toilet for 3 days and taking Immodium! (Don't try this at home kids)