So, what can I say.. Presents, drink, family and a nice open log fire. Christmas has been a MORE then welcome break from Uni and paid work. It's been wonderful to chill out and relax for a bit, even though my back has been rather bad.

Today Zoey (an ex) and her fionce visited. It was absolutely lovely to see and chat to her, we haven't spoken properly in years.

Also, yesterday (Boxing Day) marked the end of my 5 month experiment with Laura (lovely lady) in which I've been logging my drinking - completely and utterly, every alcoholic drink. She and a few other friends from Hitchin are visiting me in Southwold to see the New Year in and I shall be getting the results then. If you're reading this, be sure to check back in a week's time to hear how damaged my liver really is!

And, since it's the 27th, I have 4 days left to think up some resolutions. Perhaps the shocking news on New Years Eve will mean "no alcohol" is one of them.

We shall see.

So they've been a bit lenient in the office, they've got local radio on instead of Christmas CDs. However, just two days from Christmas now, the radio station is playing Christmas shit almost every other track.

Not only am I still being subjected to Christmas music all day again, aggrevating me and raising my hatred for Christmas, I have to listen to Fucking Local Radio Adverts.

Roll on the New Year a normal quiet office!

I don't think I've ever written a blog entry with an allcaps title. But I got back from lunch about an hour ago, and the music had stopped. I had notices and silently appreciated this.

BUT THEY'VE JUST START PLAYING IT AGAIN. FOR SANTA FUCKING'S SAKE!

University has done something peculiar to me. (Apart from pickle my liver.) I've learnt all about computer security, about RSA, hashes and signatures.

At work today I'm writing an XML protocol that allows us to remotely update our product from one server to another. I want to make the protocol secure because of what I've learnt. However, due to the reasons I was outlining in my last post means that I'm struggling to find the motivation to do it properly.

I mean... who's going to attack our product anyway?!

I can think of only a few situations where Christmas music is applicable.

• 1st December to make me realise Christmas -is- coming and that I need to think about getting people presents and cards.
• Short car journeys during December lasting no more than 10 minutes
• Whilst cooking the Christmas meal
• Whilst opening Christmas presents
• I can even stand a track or two whilst I'm doing a quick bit of shopping during Christmas.

But Christmas Music Should Not Be Played All Day In The Office. I already feel ill from my annual mossfever and I am struggling to concentrate. With the constant drivel in the background I can barely even think.

And as soon as one CD finishes, someone in the office says "Wendy, music's stopped." or "Put another one, DJ Wendy."

I say "Where's the nearest shotgun. Let's pump every speaker full of shot!"

I'm actually quite impressed with Google's Page Rank. My full name is only mentioned two or three times on this website, yet a google search for "Matthew Chapman" brings my site up 4th. Yay.

Fucking pidgeons. I hate them. They woke me up, pecking at my hotel window. Bastards wanted to come into the warm. Freeze, I say. And I'm not even confident how their name is spelt.

Also, the "Christmas" music playing in the office is driving me insane, literally. Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer is currently playing. It's so crap! Someone help me!

The thing I hate about getting up on cold mornings in this house from my toasty bed is showering. When it's freezing in the room, I usually like it, the nice fresh clean air. But our shower stops me wanting to get out of bed.

When you first turn it on, the water flow is cold, especially on a cold day when the air outside cools the pipes. So the bottom of the bath fills up with horribly cold water before the hot starts to come through.

Not wanting to wait for a couple minutes, wasting time and water, I get in straight away. And the cold water gets all over my feet. And I shiver, and the hot water doesn't heat me up enough, it doesn't get deep into the skin.

I'm sat in my towel at the moment, because my feet are too cold and numb to put socks on. But I guess I should get moving, otherwise I'll not get to the Alley to meet Clare and thus be late for the conference committee meeting.

Procrastinating earlier, Chris and I grabbed my huge box of matches and went into the back garden.

We created a curving line of matchsticks, in a nice artistic fashion. We then lit one end of the about 8 inches of dominoe sticks of fire.

And they went up, one by one, along the line. 'twas fantastic. I think we're doing it this evening in the dark with hundreds of matchsticks. I wonder if my camera will get decent photos!

Unfortunately, I didn't get as much work done this weekend as I wanted, but I did get a little done. Last night was great though, it wasn't anything overly exciting but I enjoyed it loads. We went to the Union quiz and lost. But I enjoyed taking part this week. Then I went back to Clare's house until about half 2 for a couple of drinks and a nice chat. It was so see some different people, I've not seen Clare or her housemates in ages. Also, her friend Mish was visiting, and she rocks loads. So the combination of great people, spontaneous evening (I wasn't going to go to the Quiz originally) and being in a good mood made the evening really great.

Although, I don't want to work today now; I'm all relaxed for once. So much so that I was going to join Mish on the train this morning (towards Bristol) and jump off at Bath Spa to visit Laura. However, I don't think my project supervisor would be happy with me presenting nothing to him in my final meeting before Christmas.

Previously when I've done the whole "I'm not going to drink" thing it's been because of being badly dehydrated the morning after, or because of a long stint of heavy drinking. I wonder if it works better if I -want- to stop drinking rather than being forced to, by something like a hangover.

I do fancy a game of darts though.

As a recent summary of what I've been doing, Thursday to Sunday in Southwold, Sunday to Tuesday in Knowle. Then since then I've been back, swam a few times, been to a few lectures, done a couple of bits of coursework and other related stuff and done a lot of thinking about my 3rd year project.

In fact, I'm scared I've not done enough on the project, which means I'll probably spend all weekend doing it and catch up with most people. I can do 4 days decent work in two days under pressure, but it'd take me 8 days to do the same work if I were relaxed. Which is annoying, since I always get ratty when I'm stressed.

I just hope my parents realise I'll only have about 5 minutes of each day to talk to them when I'm up at Christmas, and those 5 minutes are if I catch them when I'm on the way to or from the loo. So much work to do over Christmas. Shit. Fuck. Bollocks.

I'm up in Southwold yet again for the weekend. This time the main reason was to setup my parents new computer. They've got a nice Shuttle.

But this visit also conincided with Southwold's Christmas Light Switch On thing. Traditionally, Father Christmas arrives on some form of transport and then goes onto the town hall balcony and does a nice speech and talks to the kids and eventually turns the lights on.

This time, however, he went up and his words were "Merry Christmas everyone. Let's turn the lights on then, shall we? Everyone count with me. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1." The lights then turned on. "Lets sing some carols" said Father Christmas. After 4 carols (of which only the first verses were sung.) he said goodbye and left.

He didn't even do the whole "You didn't count loud enough" when the lights don't turn on first time. I feel cheated.

(Bloody drunked ramblings.)

This morning I received the 3 reviews of the paper I have submitted to the Multimedia Conference. I would put them up here to show off and boost my english-writing-ego, but that'd be arrogant.

They're excellent reviews and I'm all happy and feel a lot better about writing the prose of my 3rd year project now. Also, they've started my day really well. Yay.

Thinking back to paragraph above, I realise that I didn't mean they're excellent reviews. Since I'm all in English mood, I'll correct myself to "They all review my paper excellently". Heh.

Today I bought darts. Today I went to the Drummand Arms and improved my dart skills about tenfold. I could be considered about amatuer now.

But when I got back, I decided to watch a film. This film is released in the UK on the 10th, and it's called Garden State. It's a wonderful film, I really enjoyed it.

But after a couple of pints and a couple of glasses of wine, films like this make me feel all soppy. I miss everyone from Hitchin and all the people I've not spoken to in ages, including the special people from Dorridge/Knwole. I didn't realise until thinking about it, but over the past few weeks I've done nothing but coursework and the occasional social thing with my housemates. I'm falling into the whole trap of not keeping in contact again and I feel bad for it.

So, if you know me, the chances are that this evening I've been thinking of you and the memories we have together. I'm sorry we've not spoken in a while, but just because I'm silent doesn't mean I have forgotten about you.

xxx