On a Thursday night some people stay in.
On a Thursday night some people go to the pub.
On a Thursday night some people go to their friends.
On a Thursday night some people get a shock.
On a Thursday night some people find themselves free from all strings.
On a Thursday night some people realise that perhaps they're looking forward to the forthcoming Sunday.

The mind boggles.
I hope this weekend goes well. I'm looking forward to it in some strange kind of anticipation.

See you soon, Southampton. See you slightly sooner, Southwold. See you tomorrow, Dorridge.

The previous post is more important than this one, but... AT LONG LAST.

I've just got back from 6 days away. Almost seven, in fact. But on the bus to the station last Friday afternoon, I heard a track which I really liked and enjoyed.

ALL weekend I've been asking everyone what the hell it was. And eventually last night, Tuesday night, I found someone who knew. The track was "Africa" by "Toto". So up in Camden earlier today, I bought their album from Virgin Megastore.

You've no idea how good it is to be listening to it now. Go Nineteen Eighties!

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

Apart from being pissed off I can't make up decent post titles... my mind is really messed up at the moment.

I'm not sure what to think, who to fell attracted to, what I should say, who I should be looking to cuddle up to. I'm so tired, confused and messed up at the moment.

I saw Lookie off at the airport earlier. I felt so sad. And I do again now, writing this. She's been a really good friend and such a nice person for so long. But she's moving out to Australia permanently now. In fact, she'll be on the plane as I write this.

Hugging and saying goodbye to her was the first time I've cried in a very long time. I'm really really going to miss her. Probably more than she realises.

And then theres this whole thing I can't talk about on my blog "yet". But that's also making me feel yukky.

So right now, I shall go to bed wanting to lie in someones arms with a sholder to cry on. I've had an exhausting day and I want to vent.

There is at least some consillation in that the taxi driver charged me £8 from central station to my house rather than £8.05. He doesn't realise how much that meant to me today.

So, yes, we had this evening at the ECS barbecue. And I drank lots.

Evil Rich was rather wobbly to say the least. (Hope you're feeling well now. :P)

But the last post I made, I've no idea what I was thinking of with the whole mind thing. 'twas the drink talking. Which doesn't usually happen to me.

But I can tell it happened last night, my stomach is a little raw this morning, and I've got to leave for Hitchin now.

Hey ho.

It's been a while.

Recently, I have been at Reading with internet mates, Deviant and Ciber and my good old friend Andrew, previous housemate.

I've also been at a party last Monday night. I was absoultely drunk by the end of it.

At one point, a girl dressed as a nurse wanted my green and yellow scarf fluffy thing. I said "No", s she undid my trousers, pulled them down, pulled my boxers down to my ankles so I was properly exposed for someone else to realise and take photos.

Mad.

But a very good night, I really enjoyed it. Especially the talking I did with certain persons.

Since then I've had a night over at Evil Rich and Allan's with Clare present (of course). It's great, they're such good people and I enjoy their company lots. Especially them turning up random out of the blue whilst I have noone else to talk to in real life.

Then today we gate crashed my Uni departments staff barbecue. Got some food, and tonnes of free drink. All very good. All very drunk.

But the reason I wanted to post was to somehow tell you all that MY MIND IS GOING INSANE. I recently posted about something I can't talk about, and that bothers me. Those thoughts won't go away and it pisses me off.

And to be honest, you'll only get upset if you ask me about them when you're not supposed to. So unless you're very brave I wouldn't ask me about them or I'll open up and perhaps hurt you.

Damn me. Damn me hard. Christ sake.

But I suppose a nice good news today is that my work work's project has just been signed with AOL for a 12 month contact. Which is fantastic for the CV and stuff. I'm well happy about that.

Off to Hitchin this weekend. Really really looking forward to it.... Talk to you all soon.

I know it's a really bad place to get quotes from. But I was just watching Big Brother and they're all doing this dating agency thing. When they finish their advert, Big Brother gives them a quote.

Nadia got the following. Which I think is a really interesting one;

"If you can't be with the one you love. Love the one you're with."

So, as I mentioned a post or two ago, I'm going to be having my own "place" in under a year now. As I was saying, I have some plans.

Initially, I shall call them "KHAS" prononced "Cas". This stands for "Kloopy's Home Automation System". And it will make my flat/house the best in the area.

What I am going to do is spend the next 10 months or so researching, planning and developing a system that will automate my home. The first stages will involve the following;

Computer controlled lighting in every room.
Each light will be connected, either by wire or radio to a central computer which can control these lights both on a trigger basis and pre-programmed time basis. For example, motion sensors in each room will detect when someone walks into a room and turn the light on. When the room becomes empty, the light is switched off. This will conserve power and look absolutely sweet.

Whole-house audio system.
The computer that controls the lighting system will also control an audio system thoughtout the house. Each room will have an amp and speakers. The computer will detect which rooms are occupied. If a room is occupied and the person wishes to listen, music will be broadcast into that room. On a room becoming empty, the music will slowly fade out. Thus, walking thought the house will enable me to listen all the time.

These two systems will, of course, have a safety mechanism so if the computer crashes or something, then safe defaults are applied. For example if power fails to the light control system, the standard wall switches will take over.

But in the future, I want to have extended functionality, in the form of computer controlled thermostat, controlled curtains, some kind of security system, and perhaps icing on the cake would be a personality.

The house would inform me of things happening and give me options. A few examples follow;
When the door opens and I walk in... "Welcome home, Matt. Do you wish for me to turn the kettle on for you?"
"Matt, it's 2pm, the cooker hasn't been used today. Unless you used the microwave, you haven't had lunch. Do you want me to turn the oven on to 200 celcius for you?"
"Matt, sorry to wake you at 5am, but theres someone in the computer room. Your calendar says noone is over tonight. I think you're being burgaled. Do you want me to flash the computer room lights to cause the burglar an eppileptic fit?"
Ding Dong. "Matt, in case you didn't want to answer it, that's your mother at the door."
...and perhaps even "Matt, you're staggering a little. Have you been to the pub?"

You might thing, especially with the previous paragraph that I'm just dreaming and being silly. But I've ten months to make this a reality and I've never been more serious about a project before!

Where will I be in 12 months?

I predict that the next 12 months will see the biggest changes I've had in my life so far. In 12 months time, either successfully or not, I will have finished my degree. I'm "contracted" to work for my company for a minimum of two years.

Initially I was worried that I had tied myself down too much in agreeing to the "sponsorship" system I'm under, but now I'm really happy about it. I'm eager to get my teeth into a few projects and it's lovely to have the security of a job at this stage. So many people I know are unable to get work after graduating.

But that means I'll have to be living in the area of Hitchin/Stevenage/Letchworth. Which could be quite akward. I simply cannot live with friends for that length of time, it wouldn't be fair on their families. So I have two options. 1) Rent a flat 2) Purchase a property.

Renting is such a waste of money, it's pouring my hard earned cash down the drain, it's pointless and I will avoid renting as much as possible. So I'm going to have to buy a house/flat.

So. Resigning myself to the fact I'll be having a small hour or flat, I have begun to design the interior. Details to follow.

But the roof over my head is only one small part of life. Some would say not even a necessary part of it. There is so much that could be different next year.

Moving into the real world will be scarey, but I'm not frightened. The thing is, for once, I'm looking forward to see where I go, where the decisions I make - both big and small - take me. Here's to the future.

There is an issue.
It's causing me some trouble.
I'm unable to talk about it here.

I'm already falling back into the apathetic frame of mind where I can't be arsed to do anything but sit, listen to music, snack on crisps and ice-cream and piss about on my computer.

Right. Dinner [21:25]. Mince and Rice confirmed, I think. Then washing up[23:15]. Then tidying room. Then Big Brother watched. Then reading a book for a couple of hours [now]. Then a nice sleep. [pending...]

Permission is dealt to anyone I know to hit me on sight if I don't do the above tonight.

I've arrived back in Southampton this afternoon having spent a very long weekend in Hitchin. It's been the most welcome and fun break I've had in Hitchin for ages.

On Saturday and Sunday, I was at Rhythms of the World (The biggest free UK music festival I've spoken about previously). It was such good fun. Some of the bands I really liked include Salsa Celtica, Cello Man and Jambience.

I even bought a Jambience CD that was on sale. But unfortunately it doesn't include the violin guy that I thought made the band so good. So I sulked at that.

But the rest of the festival weekend was fantastic. We even got a little of the Festival Experience when Catie's hot water broke and we couldn't shower. Thanks to Naomi's family for letting us use theirs on one of the mornings.

I think my favourite part of this weekend has been, though, the return of Laura from her four and a half month round the world trip. I've really missed having one of my best friends around so it's wonderful to have her back.

Looking through the photos her and her travel companion Rob took, I'm so so jealous. I've got the travel bug and I so want to just up and leave for the Summer. Trouble is I have other responsibilities.

I was initially intending to come back to Southampton on Sunday night, but my lovely friends persuaded me to stay night after night. It was so lovely to be wanted around, really cheered me up from the depressing lonliness I have in Soton with so few people about.

I can't wait until I'm up in Hitchin again in two weeks for Lookies birthday.

All in all, this trip has left a long-lasting smile on my face. I'm feeling happy. :D

Spiderman 2 has to be the most poor film this year so far. It's so so bad. The acting is alright, I guess, compared to a lot of films out recently. But the plot is worse than poor.

It's fairly similar to the first film, where Peter Parker can't admit his love for Mary Jane Watson and goes though emotional trouble whilst figuring out what to do. That whole subplot is dissapointing. At every opportunity, inserted into the film is the most potent cheese I've ever watched. The love story tries to be deep, but it comes across as boring, slow and unemotional.

You've got the necessary badguy who gets out of his depth and ends up being controlled by a 4 armed robot attachment welded to his body. The cheese in the film even comes though with Spiderman and the Baddy. At the end, when the baddy is about to die, Spiderman finds times for his moments of wisdom and enlightenment.

I shall certainly not be paying the overpriced cinema ticket cost to go and see this film on the big screen. Since the first film was so big, I guess most people will want to see it anyway, so I suggest you download the film rather than pay to see it.

And to top it all off, destroying the Fusion Reactor at the end had no basis in physics what so ever. The fusion reaction manages to be drowned in water, whereas, apparently, the water would just fuel it.

Now that was fucking exciting. Here I was, beer in hand, doing a little coding with the sun beaming through my window, slightly tanning my left arm as the door bell rings out.

On answering, some random tells me that my fence is on fire. It turns out that it's one massive fuck off fire. As tall as the huge tree we have in our garden.

Lots of tiny little pikey children had gathered around the access passage at the rear of the property to look at what was going on. They say they didn't light it, but Mister Fireman says he's as sure as God that some propellant was used.

The flames were absolutely massive. Wider than most americans, taller than my Dad, hotter than an oven. But the firemen came to the rescue, moments before the pots of paint in my shed exploded. I can't beleive how quickly it was spreading. Christ, I fear to imagine what fire could do if it didn't crackle so loudly or if it wasn't bright enough to hurt our eyes or if it lacked that tell tale smoke.

What drama. What damage. What gorgeous hunks in uniform!

Now here's something I haven't spoken about here yet... My Second Year Results.

I could list all the individual module marks I got, but that would just be drivel. Overall, I got a rather lucky 68.9%.

My initial reaction was dissapointment. I've worked so so hard this second semester to get my grade up to a 1st. I thought I deserved it, myself.

But having had time to think about it, I'm mostly happy with the mark I've received. Mostly because it's still a decent mark considering the social life I lead at Uni and because I've improved from the first year.

But I'm upset because of a number of reasons...

The least is that in one of my modules (Communication and Networks), I thought I did brilliantly in the exam. I thought it was the best exam I've done in my educational career. And I didn't think my coursework was that bad either. But overall in that module I got 61%, my lowest mark. And I don't think it's right, not for one moment.

The second reason is that I'm just so fucking close to 70%. I'm one percent off a first. That just pisses me off. Especially with the latter point about my Comms and Nets module. But also because of my next problem...

I've had 4 exam periods in my time at Uni now. And what makes me most angry about my results is that this semester I've tried so much harder than I have ever before since I started school. And I've done worse in alot of modules than I did in the first year when I wasn't trying one bit. There is absolutely no correlation between the work I put into a module and the mark I get out of it. It's really crap.

When I can't see the fruits of my labour shining though when I get my results, what hope have I got in the future if I put effort in? It drains my motivation for this degree course when I know I get better results in some modules when I do no work than if I put 100% effort into some of them.

BUT. THE MOST FRUSTRATING AND DISGUSTING THING... is that (as you should well know) my name is "M Chapman". There is another "M Chapman" on my course. A Martin. A friend of mine. When I phoned my personal tutor for my results, he gave me the above details but stressed that these might not be correct because there has been a mixup between Mac and I. Now this in inexcusable, in my eyes...

These exams count towards our final degree level, which set us up for life. It's the most major thing that has happened to most of us. And it seems the department doesn't care. At University, we've given unique id numbers. Mine is 402175495. It's a huge number. 100,000,000 combinations. There could be one hundred million people at the Uni and not a single duplicated ID. (There are currently 20 thousand). So why on earth were Mac and I confused?!

If I hadn't lost my interest in my degree, I'm sure I'd be complaining. I'd be interested to see what Mac has been told about all this.

For the first time since I originally made this website, I accidentally pressed the delete key with my ickle finger, instantly wiping out a huge post I had written. If this hasn'd happened, you would be reading a bright and cheerful post about the excitement of the past three weeks for me.

A day doing nothing much has brought on a level of apathy I haven't experienced in months, so I shall condense what I remember writing....

Thank you to all my friends for the past few weeks. Thanks for all the drink, food, good times out, conversation and above all company. It has been so wonderful to see you all, my love to everyone.

I also wrote a nice apologetic paragraph to those who I missed (Especially Karen to whom I had promised meeting up with). I did, I believe, say I'd be in Hitchin for Rhythms of the World and I will do my best to meet then.

Right, so that's that. I'm off to have a bash on my drum kit...

Here, on Arleens website, you can see the photos of my new TShirt that were taken yesterday.

Yes, it was expensive. But it was payday and I've wanted one of those shirts ever since I first walked into the shop. And if get one now, whilst they're costly, it means not many people have one and it'll be unique. If I had waited 2 years, they'd be priced at 50p each and everyone would have one.

So now I have new levels on which to be extravert and embarrasing to everyone I'm with. Excellent.

So I'm back in Southampton. It's nice to be back. There's something I quite like about it here. I feel like I belong in some strange way. That's not to say that I don't feel in place with my parents or when I'm visiting friends, but I feel good when I'm in Southampton.

On my way down to Southampton, I stopped for the afternoon and evening in London. Andrew, Little Richard, Arleen and I met up at Picadilly Circus then walked up to Hamleys. I love that shop so much. There are always loads of toys on display to play with. I particularly liked the HUGE Scalextric track.

After that, we went up to Camden Town, alternative capital of the country, I'd guess. I really like so much of the stuff available both on the market and in the locks. I introduced the other three to Cyber Dog and their wonderful world of unsual "cyber" clothes.

Every time I've been into Cyber Dog, I've had my eyes on a tshirt which has a scrolling LED text display on the front. This time I bought it. It's such good fun and I shall be wearing it on many a clubbing occasion. I'll get some photos up of it when I'm next out.

Then we went off to the Purple Turtle for a few drinks. The Lego has been removed from the tables, the space hopper has disappeared and the Space Invaders machine switched off. Such a shame. But during happy hour, it's still a great place to stop. Especially that Mornington Cresent is just a minute walk away and the Northern line leads straight to Waterloo. So it was an easy stagger back to Southampton.

This wasn't what I wanted to talk about in this post, so I'll come back later. Anyhow, if anyone's still around, I'm up for films/pubs/whatever. Give us a bell.