All 9 entries tagged Randomness, Northerner-in-Exile

September 14, 2006

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

Writing about web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vennegoor_of_Hesselink

A group of us in the pub for the United-Celtic match last night were wondering how Celtic’s Dutch striker got his unusual surname. Wikipedia provides the answer. The word ‘of’ is actually Dutch for ‘or’, and so his name is actually Vennegoor or Hesselink, which is a Dutch equivalent of a double-barrelled name. So he’s really just Jan Vennegoor-Hesselink, which doesn’t sound nearly as interesting.

: 14 Sep 2006 16:58 | Tags: Football Randomness | Comments (2) | Close comments | Report a problem

September 07, 2006

Lack of goats

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5322302.stm

Has to be the strangest excuse for speeding ever, surely?

: 07 Sep 2006 16:15 | Tags: Randomness | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem

July 05, 2006

G103

Writing about web page http://o.tearne.org/G103/

During the course of the second term, I was involved in the making of a film by the Maths Department to be used to show prospective undergraduates what an average day in the life of a maths student is like. This film, called G103 has now been finished and is available online here. My role is as an extra in the lecture scene and also in the scene labelled "Dance of the Mathematicians".

: 05 Jul 2006 19:22 | Tags: Film Maths Randomness | Comments (3) | Close comments | Report a problem

End of degree questionaire

Well, everyone else seems to be doing it and I don't really have anything else to do, so here's my answers to these questions.

Best day: Dunno. Can't really think of any especially good days. Plenty of days have been good, especially in the last two years, but I can't think of any that stand out as best. Possibly Gala Concert day last year when I wrote this entry.

Worst day: Again, nothing in particular springs to mind. This one's more likely to be something from the first two years, as they weren't nearly as good for me as the second two years were.

Best decision: Getting more involved with the Music Centre. I know I'm not nearly as involved in the Music Centre as a lot of you are, but in my first year pretty much all I did music wise was turn up to rehearsals. Starting to go to The Bar after band on Wednesdays (yes, Brass Band did used to go to The Bar and not The Graduate) means I now know a lot of cool people I wouldn't really know otherwise (despite my MC involvement still mostly confined to Wednesdays).

Worst mistake: Dunno. Possibly living in Coventry in my second and third years when most of my friends lived in Leamington. I still think Coventry is objectively a nicer place to live than Leam, but subjectively I think I'd have enjoyed my time more if I'd lived closer to my friends.

Craziest on–campus antic: I'm not really one for doing crazy things. I can think of some crazy things I've done during the last four years, but they weren't on campus, so they don't count. Marching round campus using glowsticks as our light source for the OWW carnival one year was kind of crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if I now get denounced as sad and boring by some of the crazier readers here.

Favourite place on campus: The Chaplaincy. Spent a lot of time there in my third year. It's a very nice place to revise, as there are plenty of people doing crazy things and/or offering to make tea to distract you, but not too many that you don't do all the work you were planning.

Most painful experience: Not really hurt myself that much at uni. All of things I've done that have left scars happened before then. At uni, it was probably the experience in Tae Kwon Do that taught me that wearing shin pads while sparring is a very very good idea. Or possibly Matt kicking me in the face.

Favourite lecturers: Colin Sparrow, Dave Wood, Colin Rourke.

Worst lecturer: Hmm. MacKay wasn't really a bad lecturer. He clearly knew what he was doing, although the rest of us generally didn't. So the worst lecturer award is a toss up between Dmitry Rumynin and John Moody. I'll go for Moody.

Biggest waste of time: Going to John Moody's Commutative Rings lectures in the third year. Went to pretty much all the lectures before I decided to drop the course.

Most valuable use of time: Either Chaplaincy or Music Centre socialising/dossing. Met plenty of weird and wonderful people in both.

Shortest time between beginning an assignment and handing it in: I've always tried to finish all my assignments the night before they're due at the latest. So probably about a day.

Average time spent awake during a one–hour lecture: About an hour.

Number of Pub Jogs completed: 0

Number of times drunk: Some, possibly lots. The time I was most drunk would have been the Friday of the Real Ale Festival in my second year.

Number of exams sat: Somewhere in the thirties.

Number of times expelled from Students Union: 0

Cars crashed: 0, but some extremely minor incidents involving Union minibuses which no one noticed.

Cars owned: 0

Friends for life: Some, and hopefully more.

Best Friends: A few.

Girlfriends: 0, unfortunately. I'm far too shy.

: 05 Jul 2006 14:42 | Tags: OWW Randomness Union | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem

May 03, 2006

Awesome

Writing about web page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8&feature=Favorites&page=1&t=t&f=b

Check this out. Pachelbel's Canon on electric guitar. Awesome.

: 03 May 2006 22:01 | Tags: Randomness | Comments (4) | Close comments | Report a problem

April 24, 2006

Book list

Procrastination book meme
Book Meme!
1. Copy & paste.
2. Bold the ones you’ve read.
3. Add four recent reads to the end.
4. Tag!

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) – J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien

*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon*
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

1984 – George Orwell

*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) – J.K. Rowling*
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) – J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5) – J.K. Rowling
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) – J.K. Rowling
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
Ender’s Game (The Ender Saga) – Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herbert
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
Hey Nostradamus! – Douglas Coupland
The Nature of Blood – Caryl Phillips
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules -Ed. David Sedaris
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – Judith Kerr
Are you Dave Gorman? – Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace
Earthsea Trilogy – Ursula Le Guin (surely Earthsea quartet?)
The Secret Life of Nuns- Pietro Aretino
Une Fille d'Eve – Balzac
Candide- Voltaire
Evelina- Frances Burney
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Germinal – Zola
Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson – Jonathan Coe
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams