Boffin Blog

E-mail change

2005-08-23T13:45:00.000+01:00

Just quick thing to post. I've now signed up for a new hotmail account that allows for me to have a 'business' email address. So if you ever want to write anything to me, my new email address is boffinblog@hotmail.com

Give to charity, you know you'll feel good...

2005-08-23T13:32:00.000+01:00

Well, I've made contact with Geoff from geofftech.co.uk. He has a great blog, when he updates it, and has inspired me to blog myself. If you're doubting his reputability, he's the world record holder for travelling around the entire London Underground system in the quickest time possible. If that doesn't impress you, he managed to get 500 people to each give him 50p not for charity but so that he could buy himself an iPod. Why couldn't I think of things like that?

Anyone I finally emailed him to find out where to send my 50p as part of his post-50p collection where all the new 50p's will go to charity for the tube bomb relief thing. Anyway people just dig deep and give that 50p to charity. You'll feel so much better.

In accordance with the wise words of Geoff, I've been told to never beg for comments. So I won't. I'll just keep updating silently until someone will comment.

I know this post sounds like I just got stuck up Geoff's arse but I couldn't think of anything better to write about. Probably because nothing better has happened since I last blogged.

Comments, please

2005-08-20T13:09:00.000+01:00

Please, please anyone who happens to stumble upon this blog, please just leave a short comment about anything to do with this blog. Please.

Okay, enough with the begging for now, both yestersday and this morning were pretty uneventful. Today me and my dad went to PC World to see how ludicrously high their fees would be to try to fix the old piece of shit that is my dad's computer. The thing packed in months ago and we have the suspicion that its due to too much dust clogging up the fan that cools the power bit.

Upon walking in we head stright to their 'PC Clinic' area where we were quoted the grand total of £65 just for a 'consultation' to find out what was wrong with it, then probably add another £60-70 to actually fix it. Seeing as the thing was a Windows 98 and there was only one really important file on it that we couldn't get back, we decided it was futile to spend£130 to fix that thing seeing as a new computer can cost as little as £400 with much better spec than what that thing has.

After confirmation that it was well and truly dead, I wanted to go ahead with plans of buying a new video card to fit in my computer to set up a 'multiple monitor' system using the old brick of a CRT monitor that was left over from the broken PC. However, after actually dragging the brick upstairs and positioning it precariously on a little crappy side table, I decided that there was no point in doing that either as it would cause so much mess with blocking paths around my room. Realising there was no point in buying a new video card for that reason, I tried to convince my dad that I should still get it merely to update the piece of tripe that was inbuilt on my computer. Not a bad price too - £40 for a 128mb nVidia graphics card, much better than the paltry 32mb thing I have running at the moment, or at least thats what I think it's got. But realising that we were a bit tight on money at the moment thanks to holidays and extra family, I begun to not see the point of buying a new one as I don't really play any games on the PC, as I think that they're mostly crap, and any good games are more than likely to come out on PS2 anyway.

The final thing that I did really want to get was the new Apple mighty mouse. It's absolutely fantastic and as long as it would've worked with a PC, I would've bought it, although the lazy buggars at PC World obviously didn't have any as it was only released a fortnight ago. To see what I'm ranting on about, you can find it here.

Zen Micro case

2005-08-18T20:19:00.000+01:00

Having spent yesterday and today forming my case out of peppermint tins and foam padding, I am finally revealing it to the world.

This is the outside of the case. I was looking around trying to find something worthy to stick on the front when suddenly I remembered the sticker that came with my Shuffle, and now in proper take-the-piss fashion it adorns the front of my new Zen Micro case. (Said to be the main rival to the iPod mini, for those who don't know).

This shows the inside of the case and shows the layers of padding ready to protect my Micro from any falls and scratches.

Here we see the humble beginnings of the case with the back detailing the various ingredients used to make the mints. Oh by the way, I don't actually use the Apple headphones as they are completely shite, I use a pair of Sony Fontopias instead. But I just wanted to show how very Appley it all looks, again in a take the piss style.

And finally here is my Creative Zen Micro complete with peppermint Apple-fied case, glowing with an irradescent blue light.

So what's new?

2005-08-18T09:20:00.000+01:00

These past 24 hours must have been some of the most productive I've had over the holidays.

If there are any readers out there who followed me over from my original blog on blog.co.uk, hi, and thank you for reading on.

Oh well, as I said this past day has included a lot of productiveness. Firstly, I actually went on a fairly 'nice' tour of London with my parents yesterday, which for once wasn't too bad seeing as the last time we tried, it somehow ended up in a big argument over something stupid.

When I got home, I made the switchover from blog.co.uk to eBlogger after seeing quite a few blogs being much better designed on eBlogger. I've now completed updating and copying over my previos posts just for anyone reading to catch up, if you want.

But probably the thing I'm most proud about is my new Creative Zen Micro case made out of a peppermint tin from M&S. I've been wanting to buy a case for it to stop it from getting scratched for ages but after trawling the web and finding either overpriced cases or overpriced, crappy, and American cases, I decided to follow the trend for making a case out of a mint box. Having lined it with padding and filing away any sharp edges, my Zen Micro is now as snug as a bug in a rug. (Yes I do realise how sad that sounds)

When the summer hols make me feel murderous and depressive

2005-08-17T15:30:00.000+01:00

Gradually the days wear on, Monday melts into Friday and suddenly you wake up realising that you've just wasted another week of your holiday. I'm sure many of you have felt that. The waking up two days before you're due to start school again then realising that all you've achieved over the holidays is to create a bedroom that looks like it's just been bombed by some terrorists, a social life that you started out wanting to have but then realising that your 'friends' don't really give a shit about you as long as they're having a good time, and obsessiveness with another blogger who is a complete wacko, but she seems so compelling. No? Might just be me then.

Ok fine then back to reality. What have I done since the last itme I blogged? I've been spending ever longer hours on the internet obsessing about this other blogger and I've been dragged into researching into her favourite hobbies, namely the london underground and photography. But she seems to crazy for me so I gave her blog site to Eddie, and I guess that that characters might suit better if they ever get to talking.

I've met friends three times, but other people that I thought I might be able to do something with, well I just can't be bothered. I've had a lonely enough summer hols, why change things now?

I've gradually begun to turn into some kind of techie geek thanks to these holidays. I now have learned how to use basic tools in photshop. And that's about it basically. Pretty shite!

As a sign of my complete and utter weirdness I'm going to close with a phrase that I kinda picked up (ok, I stole it) from that other blogger:

Touch in, touch out

p.s. Annie, if you ever read this I am sorry that I stole it, but it should actually be copyright of the London Underground.

p.s.s. Whoever keeps coming back every couple of days to check up on the website, please leave a comment in the comments section, please. If it's you Phil go on fuckng MSN once in a while. If I'm completely wrong and it is just random page views by different people, please feel obliged to leave any comments you want anyway.

Holiday pics

2005-08-07T17:38:00.000+01:00

Just a short post today. If anyone wants to see some of my nicer holiday photos just click on this link here.
Just to spread the word, I also wanted to carry on a trend which I've recently been seeing on other blogs: What's in your oyster card wallet? Basically it's just a way for you to realise the amount of shit you've got in it and if anyone has anything really interesting in theirs, take a picture and send it to jamieconti10@gmail.com. The most interesting will get 100 free credits for use on photobox.com.

In case you were wonderin what is in mine, I'm sorry to say that since I got my new child oystercard, I will now carry it in my money wallet and all I have in that is varying amounts of cash.

Hello again!

2005-07-31T17:36:00.000+01:00

Yes I know that it's been ages seen I last updated this blog, purely cause I couldn't be pissed to even though I've got nothing better to do seeing as I've already come back from holiday and am looking forward to spending the rest of the summer hols doing fuck hole.

Anyway just to cover any relevant terrorist news that happened in the mean time, all 4 people who were supposed to have carried out the attempted second bombings are now all thought to have been caught. This can mean one of two things; either we've frightened any more sick bastards who were planning to do more of this kind of thing. Or, those fuckers will want vengeance and will carry on trying to kill more innocent people. All i say is I want to see them try!

On to the cheerier subject of my recent holiday. I went to Venice with my aunt and cousin to go and stay with another aunt, cousin, and uncle who were there on holiday at the moment. All i'm saying is that I promise myself that I will never ever ever go on holiday with them together again. Quite simply they made most of the time we were alone together in the house completely and utterly a pain in the ass. You just don't realise the trouble two younger cousins can cause you. And the problem was exactly that; one boy aged 9 and one girl aged 6 both of whom their parents you have to live with for a week simply doesn't allow you to hurt them in any way possible. Otherwise the enivitable cries of mummy, mummy he's hurt me/us. Easy way out - never do it again, no matter where they're going.

While this might not seem cheery at all, the place where we stayed was absolutely amazing, but not faultless. We lived in a fairly comfortable little villa style apartment which is owned by an old couple whose other family are staying in other houses in the same area. Nice. Problem was the shower was freezing cold in the mornings and the little amount of hot water you could get was pitiful. Bad. There was a beautiful beach right across the road from the house which was mostly deserted apart from a few teenagers playing volleyball - often very nice girl teenagers in skimpy bikinis(shit I wish i was a bit older and could speak italian). Great. Problem was the area which my uncle insisted on staying in, while it had the nice girlies, wasn't very beautiful in terms of water quality. At first you only had natural things such as seeweed to contend with, but as the holiday progressed the water became increasingly filled with more and more sewage and dirt. However what really, really pissed me off was that on our final day, me and my two cousins took a walk along the beach. Now picture it as I saw it, you have a massive beach which is broken up every half mile or so by a massive stone wall that stretches out into the sea. This wall if the tide is correct, stops most sewage getting into a fairly large area of water. And guess what, we were always at the furthest point away from this barrier, closest to another barrier wall keeping all the sewage on our side of the wall, but at the other end , the water was absolutely perfect crystal blue with no hint of any floating toilet paper in it. Great! Well I really mean shit, but I was being sarcastic.

Anyway the rest of Venice was really nice and apart from the many mosquito bites which I got, it wasn't too bad a holiday.

Here's some pics:

All those darker coloured blobs on my skin were bites and this picture actually makes them look okay, but three days ago without any cream and in real life, not on a phonecamera, they looked terrible.

Imagine that view from a bus in London, didn't think you could!

They got those bastards!

2005-07-12T17:36:00.000+01:00

Well the news so far seems to point towards the fact that all four bombers probably died in their blasts. Personally I think that's fucking all they deserve as if they had survived what the fuck would the courts do to them? If any more of them bastards are found, I hope they bring back the death penalty just for them.

Just to continue on today's theme on commenting on news, one of the most sickening and appaling stories I read and heard about was the rape of three young girls in a park somewhere by a 15 year old boy. Seeing as I am 15 myself, I just can't see how this sad desperate loser could even do that to someone that could be his sister's age. I hope he gets what he deserves as well.

Oh well, onto my personal life, I finally managed to have a conversation with the new girl at my work experience. Actually I didn't have just one converstaion, I had three. Her name's Andrea, she's 15, she's in year 10, she goes to a mixed school in Mill Hill, and she's going to the Bario fiesta this weekend which is a fili festival which I'm going to be going to with my friends as well. The one problem? We're supposed to be going on Sunday while, she's going with her friends on Saturday like every other normal person. Ah fuck it! I'll change their ways. The one question I really wanted to ask? Does she have a boyfriend? - there's still tomorrow

What a week!

2005-07-11T17:34:00.000+01:00

Well firstly I have to start by paying my condolences to all those families who lost relative in the bombings of Thursday 7th July 2005.

I wanted to blog right away when I managed to get home on Thursday but I think the shock of the day hadn't yet fully sunk in. I like many others were very close to having been caught in all the chaos, had it not been for certain lucky decisions. Seeing that my work experience is in Angel, I used to take the piccadily line to King's Cross and change onto the Northern line for one stop, however on that day, the piccadily line had been closed down because of an earlier incident at Caledonian Road which I think was a suicide. Therefore I was forced onto a 29 bus which I took down to Finsbury Park station. As I walked down the stairs to the platforms, I thought to myself, that whichever train comes first - Victoria or Piccadily, I would take. That was at about 8:40am, thankfully the Victoria line train came first, and yes I realise that the bomb went off after leaving King's Cross, but seeing as I probably would have been in that bombed carriage, you can never tell.

It's now Monday evening and after having perhaps one of the most enjoyable as well as tiring weekends of my life, I have now got a lot to write about.

I'm sure you've all seen the terrible hundreds of pictures taken of bombings but as yet I still think that the picture shown on the front of a Sundy newspaper was perhaps da most shocking (you know the 'one second after the blast' headline). However I can't find that picture so here's one

or here's a link to the bbc's pictures.

Anyway moving onto a lighter note, my aunt, cousin and uncle came over from Canada at the weekend and like I said had one of the most enjoyable weekends i've had in a long time. I think it was good because we done all the touristy things - you know the London eye, Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, Trafalgar Square. But thanks to several key piccadily line suspensions, it was also a bloody hard two days of walking and standing on crammed buses.

Have you noticed now how crazy the bus drivers are going when too many people cram onto the bus. I think it has to do with new stricter rules since 7/7.

Well, they left extreemely early this morning to fly to Venice where me and my other aunt and cousin will be joining them in two weeks. It was so early that I didn't get to say goodbye this morning, but I had already made sure to say so last night just in case. It was back to work experience today for me and boy was there waiting a surprise for me.

Today, probably the buffest (prettiest,sexiest) fili (philippino) girl i hav eva seen was wrking in my office. Oh shit, I waould hav loved to hav had a chat to her but i get so bloody shy around her and in the end i had a pretty so-so day because i spent the entire morning in a freezing court room in the High Courts. It was amazing how bloody cold it was compared to outside.

God I hope tomorrow i'll grow som balls and chat to her. Who knows, if it gets gd, i'll be posting some pictures of her on here.

Working is a pain in the back

2005-07-05T17:33:00.000+01:00

I've now started my work experience at some solicitors - Bolt Burdon- down near Angel. I can now officially say that making a fucking photocopy of a file is now bloody second nature and boy am i pissed off about it. As a fucking "special treat" i got to clean out the fuckiong bins of all the bloody people in the office, of which there are about 70. Ah fuck it, at least next week i'll be goin out to the courts with a solicitor to help him instead. The one good thing about the job is the guy who i'm working with. He's used to go to my school so at least i've got something to chat about. However, one thing i've started noticing is that i seem to get quite a sharp pain in my back after a while standing still at the photocopier. Dunno why. I'll hopefully be adding some pictures soon.

Live 8 was shite!

2005-07-03T17:32:00.000+01:00

I mean really, a middle aged woman dressed in a low cut white top, swearing her fucking head off, trying to look cool by having two breakdancers with her, didn't give out quite the right message to me. If you didn't bother to watch yesterday, I was talking about Madonna.
Personally the two people who I thought did the best job yesterday were Joss Stone

and Robbie, who was the only person to really get the crowd going.

A bit about me

2005-07-02T17:31:00.000+01:00

Well just wanted to say a few things about myself so that you can understand a bit more about wat I'm chatting about.
.I go to St. Aloysius College in North London. If anyone reading this is an old student please feel free to contact me.
.I decided to form this blog after reading for the past couple of months another blog called Geofftech which can be found here.This blog will detail as much as I'll want to say about the day and I'll post as often as I can but seeing as I don't have a good digital camera at the moment, most of the picture I post will be pretty rubbish.

The one thing that I realised when reading other blogs is that you rarely see anything about where the person lives so here's a picture of the t.v. in my bedroom.

Live 8 today!

2005-07-02T10:28:00.000+01:00

Number of major things goin on today, none of which have anything to do with me. Obviously, biggest thing is the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, which I'm sure my mum will have the best of fun with when she has to battle with the 200,000 people leaving the concert at the same time she finishes work. Second is its Ladies Finals day at Wimbledon which I'm a bit pissed off about as I and many other people would have prefered to have seen Maria Sharapova playing for obvious reasons.