Silky Heart
24 January 2009
I've been spending far too much money these last two weeks. First came the television, then came the games, Xbox 360 controller, a couple of pairs of jean and a new coat. That's on top of all the expensive take-away dinners I've been having too. I've really got to reel in my spending for the rest of the term. Starting from next week I'm going to go back to cooking my own dinner again. I do still need a couple more items of clothing but those can wait until February I think. It's only a new pair of boots and some new shirts. After that, I don't have anything planned money-wise.
The new semester is pretty much in full swing now and the deadlines are already coming in thick and fast. Lots of essays and exams coming up after Easter and a couple of presentations before then. I've also received most of my semester one results, with the exception of Asia Pacific Studies and Background to Japan. I'm fairly happy with the marks that I received. My portfolio wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting it to be, but I was slightly disappointed with the mark that I received for the Background to Japan presentation. My partner and I had put a lot of work into that presentation and I expected a higher mark. It's still pretty decent though so I shouldn't really complain.
Posted byHocchan at 6:13 pm 0 comments
Master Chief!
17 January 2009
I've just had my first week back at university and it's been a productive one. It turned out that I didn't need to worry about my student loan at all. It arrived in my bank account in the early hours of Monday morning. And as it turned out, accommodation didn't take out my rent until yesterday. I bought myself a new Sharp 19" LCD TV for £179.99. At first I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the display when playing my Xbox 360 on it but as soon as I changed to a HDMI connection I was blown away by how good it looked. Now I can play all my games in glorious 1080i resolution. The TV also has a built-in Freeview decoder so I can receive quite a few digital TV channels. Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase - even if the customer service at the shop was crap!
I've also bought myself quite a few games during this last week. The first being Halo 3. After playing through it I regret not having bought it sooner. This instalment in the series is so much better than the second game. There's none of this playing as the Arbiter rubbish, and the story is a vast improvement. It feels a lot closer to the original game, which in my opinion, was the best game of the series. I also bought Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey for £4.99 and £9.99 respectively. I haven't played either of them properly yet but they look pretty good. Finally, I ordered a refurbished 20GB HDD from Microsoft for £12.99. The twats at Microsoft managed to get my delivery address wrong but I managed to sort it all out eventually. It's a good job there are people at UPS who know what they're doing.
Posted byHocchan at 11:11 pm 0 comments
Ponyo Ponyo Ponyo Sakana No Ko
11 January 2009
Aah, the joys of a half decent internet connection! I'm back at home for the weekend so my internet speed has been pretty good compared to one I was getting on the university's network. Unfortunately, I haven't managed to sort out the problem yet. I've e-mailed IT support but they tell me that there hasn't been any other reports of slow internet speeds from my halls. They've told me to check my computer on someone else's connection and check their computers on mine. This means that I've got to enlist the help of one of my friends before I can determine the cause of the problem. Most likely I won't be able to get anyone until at least Monday which means I'm stuck with a crap connection tomorrow. I can feel my blood pressure rising already...
It also doesn't help that my student loan seems to be taking its time this semester. Last time it was already in 'paid' status the weekend before the first day of term. This time it's still in 'submitted' status, and it's been like that for the last week. What the hell does this mean? Does it mean that it's been submitted to the bank for payment on Monday? Or does it simply mean submitted to the system for payment? If it doesn't arrive on Monday then I'm going to have to see accommodation and ask them to give me a few more days to pay my rent - it's due on the first day. I could be stressing out over nothing but it's got me concerned.
Posted byHocchan at 1:52 am 0 comments
High Speed, My Arse!
07 January 2009
It is the year 2009, right? Well, you wouldn't think so from the speed of my internet connection today. Jesus Christ, even loading a web page is like trying to force your face through a cheese grater - extremely slow and excruciatingly painful. I really don't understand what the problem is. I got back to my university halls yesterday and the internet has been complete shit since then. I did change my LAN settings slightly when I was back at home (to get online with the 360) but, as far as I can tell, everything is back to normal now. But still it proceeds to piss me off. It's worse than when people had to use 56k dial-up modems to connect to the internet. I've tried the computers at the library and the internet is fine on there (but the computer itself is slow as shit). It's got to be a problem with the network in the halls. They'd better get it fixed soon or I'm going to have to start smashing stuff...
Posted byHocchan at 11:23 pm 0 comments
Holy Jesus Christ! So, This Shipment...
06 January 2009
I know that this is six days too late, but Happy New Year! I can't believe it's taken me nearly a week to write the New Year post. I've been very lazy during the last quarter of 2008 and that seems to have carried over into 2009. My procrastination in updating this blog is clearly evident when you take a look at the post count for 2008 and compare it to 2007. One-hundred and twenty-six posts in 2007 compared to just eighty-five posts in 2008. I only just managed to beat 2006's post count by four. I'm very disappointed in myself. So I'm going to make myself a New Year's Resolution - to write at least one-hundred and fifty posts in 2009. It shouldn't be too difficult, as long as I don't start procrastinating again. Gambarou!
So what do I have planned for this year? Well, next Monday I go back to university (I'm actually here on campus already but teaching doesn't resume until next week) so that'll be fun. I'm looking forward to the new semester and the challenges it should bring. I'm also eager to see the results of my first semester assessments. I've also got my student loan arriving on the first day back so I'm going to have a lot of fun spending it! I've already planned on spending about 25% of it in the first week. Most of it will go on buying a new LCD TV for use with my Xbox 360. I can't wait to see the games through a HDMI connection. That's something I'm excited about. The rest of the money will go on getting a HDD for the 360 (so I can download some Live Arcade games) and new clothes (that trench coat I've been meaning to buy since September). That should still leave me with plenty of money for the rest of the term. More than last time anyway, when I ran dangerously low towards the end of November. Let's hope that doesn't happen again...it's not fun being poor!
Posted byHocchan at 10:53 pm 0 comments
