Yes, I’m aware that it’s after midnight and yes, I’m aware that I’m burning the candle at both ends, but I *really* want to get my Java finished.

It’s not like I have all that much to do: two and a half tutorials.  Still, it’s really pissing me off….

I’m writing a bean which consists of a fan animation.  When this bean is placed within an applet, the user should be able to control it via buttons.  The only problem is, I can’t get the bloody buttons to work.  I know it would be best to go away and sleep on it but I doubt I’ll be able to sleep unless I get a bit more work done.  I know what I want to do but it’s just not working.  I don’t think I’ll have a great deal of time to work on it during the day tomorrow because I have a lecture at 12, meeting at 1pm and a class 3-5pm.

Grrr Argh!

Can you tell I’m a little stressed?  Apologies in advance for being snappish/moody.

Just got myself a LibraryThing account.

I noticed that Kevin had one and thought it would be a good way to catalogue my books. I’ve spent about 30 mins adding the majority of my books- 50 in total. The only thing is that the site allows you to add a maximum of 200 for free and I’m hoping to surpass that in the future. It’s not to bad though- it’s approx £12.50 to become a lifetime member, allowing you to add unlimited books.

If you want to see my profile, click here. I’m going add a button to my profile in the near future.

I’m sure some of you were aware it was my 20th birthday on Thursday so I’m going to begin by thanking everybody who sent me their wishes.  Cheers folks

So how was my day then?

Well, I have to say,it was fairly relaxed (no mad parties) and really good.  My day did start off rather earlier- I was awoken at 6.15am by my mum and sister, asking me to come open presents.  Why so early?  Well my mum was disappearing off to work and my sister was going to school- wouldn’t have been much fun opening presents alone now would it?  What did I get then?  Money, 2 Futurama boxsets, perfume (Ghost which is a favourite of mine), a gorgeous emerald green top, jewellery, make-up and chocolates (yummy!).

After this I went back to bed as I had the day off uni.  No, stop right there, I wasn’t skiving: I normally have Thursday off (ha,like I would ever skive anyway).

Got up around 9am watched some tv and spent about 5 hours working on a golf website (doing this in conjunction with a company at the uni so I don’t want to say lots about this at the moment).  Basically, I was fitting images into a template I’d already made.  The alignment was a little off and that’s something that’s still irritating me.

I went out for tea with my mum and sister in the evening.  Bit of a nightmare- got caught in gridlock trying to cross a bridge (broken down bus) so we ended up taking endless country roads to the resturant.  It was great when we got there though- the music was perfect- a couple of Bryan Adams songs were played which made me quite happy .  Oh, the food was great!

We left the resturant just after 7pm and continued to my grandparents house were we cut my cake (pics of awesome cake to follow).  Soon after, aunties, uncles and some cousins arrived, turning the place into a merry madhouse (I think my wee cousins were more excited about my birthday than me.

During the time I was at my grandparents, one of my wishes came true….

You know how I always want it to snow on my birthday?  Well, it happened.  Sure it was only a light covering but it was snow all the same.  I could see little flakes when I let the dog out but came back inside- thought my eyes were playing up.  It wasn’t until we started walking home I realised the pavements were dusted in snow.

All in all a great day

Now then, am I entitled to a quarter(ish) life crisis?

Had a slight childhood flashback- someone sent me a quiz thing asking if I’d ever watched Veggie Tales. I remember having to watch it in RME class (religious studies for the folk that don’t know what RME is).

Came across the “I love my lips video” on youtube.

Enjoy

Erm yes, I seem to have had a bit of an accident in the kitchen today….

My sister made some soup earlier, then my mum popped in and added more carrots.  I was told to let them boil then turn it down.  Well I did that, except I didn’t realise there were 2 pots on the cooker, not just one.

So, I was up in my room, finishing off a bit more of a team project and watching Bones when I decided to pop downstairs.  As soon as I got to the top of the stairs there was a really bad smell.  Got to the kitchen and looked at the contents of the pot.  The big pot of soup was fine.  Then I noticed the other one…..

The bottom of small pot of soup was black, there was no water left and contents, inedible.

Dear, dear, dear I’m in trouble….if you don’t hear from me soon, I’ve been sent to the third circle of hell.

I really love living in my village, it’s friggin’ great. It has electricity, internet and running water.  Oh, wait…

Score running water off that list right now.

Yep, there appears to be a situation in my area this morning- a lack of water.  I don’t know why that’s the case but I know that it’s not just my house (I was beginning to worry my ceiling was going to fall down and that I’d be washed away or something overly dramatic along those lines).

I didn’t realise anything was wrong until I jumped in the shower.  It made all the right noises but there was hardly any water coming out of it.  Of course, my mother went totally nuts over it, moaning that I spent too long in it and that’s why it wasn’t working (apparently having a shower which lasts nearer an hour is unacceptable?).

A quick phone call to my grandparents set things straight- they didn’t have water either.  In fact, the whole village doesn’t have any water.  I’m a bit concerned when it’s going to come back on again.  Sure I buy a wee bottle of water everyday and rarely finish it so I have enough to last me for now?  We only have one tiny shop here and I can see that selling out pretty fast.  In fact do they even sell water?  Answers on a postcard please.

Lets hope I can drink enough tea to keep me happy.  Else, this could turn nasty.

Now, I’m not normally one to moan about Firefox but over the past few weeks, I seem to be having some issues with it.

The first issue- sometimes it doesn’t work on Vista.  You click on the shortcut you expect it to load…..well, it doesn’t.  This first happened the first time I tried to use it with Vista.  No problem, I simply had to delete something from a file and restart the computer.  This sorted the problem for a while.  I updated my version of Firefox a few days ago so perhaps I need to do this everytime I update?

Issue number two.  When you’re typing away, into a textbox (like on bebo for example), if you type an apostrophe, all the text goes into the quick search bar at the bottom of the screen.  Before anyone asks, I haven’t set up any fancy shortcut- this happens all by itself….

Perhaps it’s a Poltergeist?

Well, maybe not.  I did a wee bit of research and others have had the same problem.  Mozilla don’t really have a solution to this yet.  Minimising the window then maximizing it again does help but it’s a bit of a pain in the backside to be honest.  They are working on a fix though- click here for more info .

In the meantime, seeing as I’m typing this on my Vista machine, I’m having to use Internet Explorer 7.

Yup, I’m going to be struck down by a bolt of lightning for such blasphemy.

Remember the database exam I was a bit stressed about?  Well, I got the results today….

(Somehow) I managed to achieve an A19 (A20 being the best)- 28 marks out of 30.  I lost the 2 marks because a missed out a small bit of the ERM diagram and make a wee error with the mapping.  Apart from that, the rest of it was fine.   No bloody idea how I passed…I was so sure I’d screwed up!

Everyone else up at my end of the classroom passed as well so I’m chuffed for the lot of them- no resits for us!

I was a bit shocked because I didn’t feel confident about this exam at all.  I don’t particularly like exams and always get extremely stressed about them.  It felt a bit weird- this was the first proper exam I had done since my Higher Computing one back in 2005 when I was still at school.  The past couple of years have been great without the looming threat of exams but I guess you have to face them sometime

Anyway, I should probably be sleeping right now.  Over and out.

Ok, here’s the review of the Foo Fighters gig that I promised I would do….

I left my house pretty late and surprisingly made it to Aberdeen by 7pm. Of course, the whole way there, my uncle, cousin and myself were listening to the Foo’s on cd.

Once we arrived, we only had to queue for about 2 mins ’til we got in. There was a search at the door so bye bye camera (I was told to hand it in and that I would get it back but it was only a disposable so I binned it). I went to by a t-shirt but they were sold out of medium t-shirts already which was a little annoying but no biggie.

Following that, we made our way through to the concert hall- not as full as I thought it would be at that point. We hung back a little, towards the righthand side, right next to the first pillar. Really good view from there (saying that, the AECC is pretty small so you could have been at the very back and had a great view).

Serji Tankian came on at 7.30pm on the dot. I wasn’t overly impressed by him to be honest. I’ve never really been a fan of System of a Down and his solo stuff was every bit as loud. Sure he could sing but there was too much political ranting and raving for my liking….just get on with the music. The outfit he was wearing was a little scary…..white suit and a white top hat…hmmm. Oh yeah and the James Hunter-esque dancing….not cool.

I can’t remember when he finished. What I do know it the Foo’s came on at 8.45pm and by that time, the place was packed.

They started off with “Let It Die” which wasn’t a song I was familiar with. Knew the next one though- “The Pretender” which rocked live. Just awesome. “Times Like These” was next and the crowd went totally nuts over that. Great to hear “Long Road To Ruin” live- cracking tune. I think my sister was listening on the phone for the majority of those.

Somewhere about this point, Dave was up for some banter saying he couldn’t believe this was the first time he’d been to Aberdeen in 13 years (of course there was a lot more swearing along with that). He also mentioned it was gonna be a permanent tour stop (well, I’m sure everyone would love it if the Foo’s came back up here).

“Learn To Fly” was fab and really got everyone going (cue me dancing a little like a loon).

Great songs just kept on coming. “My Hero”, one of my personal favourites was beautiful. I think everyone was singing along to it, with Dave on a acoustic guitar, accompanied with a gorgeous sounding piano.

“See You” was a lot of fun. It was announced as another song we could dance to and I think just about everyone did…..including these hilarious folk in front of me. I’m not sure how much beer they had drunk (I think I was covered in half of it) but they deserve 10 points for their dancing skills. Really great atmosphere.

“Monkey Wrench” was funny with Dave trying (and failing) to shout out the bit at the end. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to do!

“All My Life” was nuts. Two of the drunk guys decided to let one climb on the others shoulder and they were really big guys. I don’t know where they went but they went running towards the front and I’m sure one of them lost their specs. I don’t really think security knew what to do. Put it this way, no one wanted to get in their way (everyone in my part of the crowd supported them so they didn’t crush us ).

The Foo’s disappeared offstage. Cue hilarious backstage antics at this point showing there was nothing left on the setlist.

Encore!

There was a bit of a football chant (basically Aberdeen repeated over and over to the tune of “here we go”). Dave thought it was crazy and it went on for ages. Of course my uncle is a Rangers supporter and was chanting something else, along with the guy behind him. I’m not saying what they were chanting because I don’t want to lower the tone .

A few more kickass songs later, and it was time for the last song “Best Of You”. That was cool to hear with everyone singing their hearts out. Seemed a few people fainted during the last song, due to the extreme heat which was a shame. It was HOT.

It was totally packed trying to get out of the exits (pretty difficult making your way over a beer covered floor!). Glad to get some fresh air!

It was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. I’ll definitely be seeing these guys when they get back to Aberdeen. To put it simply, these guys rock!

Oh, TRIANGLE SOLO!!!! by the percussionist has to get a mention.  It was immense

Setlist
——

Let It Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Long Road To Ruin
Learn To Fly
Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
DOA
Stacked Actors
Skin And Bones
Marigold*
My Hero
See You
Everlong
Monkey Wrench
All My Life
In Your Honour
This Is A Call
But,Honestly
Best Of You

*Cold Day In The Sun was in here somewhere but I can’t exactly remember where. It was great though- Taylor singing.

As you all probably know, I was at the Foo Fighters concert in Aberdeen last night.

All I can say is it was immense.  Bloody fantastic.

Review to follow.