Dance

"Jack-and-Jack-off" for the win

Seems we have more petrean dancers (Mike's girl and her friend)

We learnt to switch lead/follow in Lindy today. I want to do swing-outs as a follow now too.

Gill didn't seem too happy tonight. I asked her about it after, and she said it was that she doesn't like steal dances, or dancing as a lead. I hope that's all it was, but... *shrugs*. She asked me for a hug, and said she was going in search of beer. I would have joined her for one, but I have a supervision tomorrow at nine... so I spend until midnight on facebook instead. It's really odd when I hug her, because we almost feel like a couple. I quite like it.

I'll do something with my life after exams. I promise.

Windows Mobile Woes

I had yet another 'can't launch new programs' fuck-up by windows mobile while I was sending an email to Liz, so I don't know whether it sent or not. I'm not in the mood to re-send, because mail mobile has a habit of sending things multiple times and saying they've failed.

In other news, I am forming a better idea of what I want to d over the summer. A PyKDE telepathy client would be a good larf. I would also like to see how many lines of code I can write an IM client in. It might be in the style of sparrow IM, if that's any good, but probably more likely to be in the style of the 'ed' text editor (possibly with sound). I would also like to get into the back-end stuff, and help with the MSN connection manager, but probably only if it would simplify the creation of a feature-complete IM client(a command line client with voice/video support would be a comprehensive win :D).

I think I *might* do a bit of linux-on-my-phone stuff, but probably more as a way to give myself a second machine for test purposes than anything else I'm more likely to just wait until it gets a bit more mature, and use it then. If I can get a flash disk image off George Wright, I will probably do that.

Okay: chances of me going dancing on jesus green in this weather?
Slim to none.

Library=annoying

It's disgustingly hot, and the guy sitting next to me is typing one-handed, in a very loud fashion. I expect I'm typing faster than him, and I'm using a keyboard a tenth the size.

I really need to clear out my room so I can work there instead... But then I can't have the cribs. Rubbish!

For the lolz

If catching a falling leaf is worth a year of good luck, what is it worth if you catch one in the face when you're cycling to college for lunch?

Mouthwash list of warnings:
"Not for children under 6 years of age.
Do not swallow. Avoid contact with <s>eyes</s>
plastics containing polystyrene."

Who else wants to try that, just for the lolz?

Liny Hop

I saw Catherine Kemp at dinner, but I didn't manage to catch her and tell her about Lindy hop.

We learnt a cool move called an RJ, which might make swing-outs easier to lead/follow. Georgie missed out on it though.

Everyone was tired (myself included), and I wasn't leading very well at all

I really need to work on my posture... What I really need is for someone to take a picture/video of me whenever I look crappy, and show me so I can see what I look like... Which brings me onto my next point: I thought of a really good idea for a 4th year project: a webcam-like thing that can record someone doing a dance move, and listen to the music, then play back the video with 4,6,8(or multiple thereof) count delay, such that it is still in time with the music, and also keeps it so that it stays on the same step of the basic as you were just on. That way, you could do a swing-out, and then watch yourself, while you are still dancing. Listening to the rhythm to count the beats seems do-able, especially if you limit the genre of music. Settng the number of beats to delay by hand would not be too cumbersome, but it would be cool to make it recognise feet, and work out whether you're in a 6 or 8 count basic. Eventually, getting it to do grouping of dance moves in an N dimensional space, so that you can tag them would be really cool.

You get the idea though.

*laughs at himself*

yeah, so I've done it again.

When will I learn to only post blogs via email?

List of links to check regularly:

python MSN (including telepathy):
here , and here

python telepathy client (gtk):
here

alexreg:
here

theorb:
here

friends:
here

In other news, I didn't get the job at data connection, and decided against the dancing-relationship thang. If the UROP thing falls through, I will probably try to learn German and hack telepathy over the summer. Might stick around for more of aKademy than anticipated if I can get an open-ended train ticket.

And thus concludes my weekly hit of wasting time on the interweb

Revision, and lack thereof

*cries* why must I be so unmotivated?

I like going to lectures and doing examples papers, because you learn so many interesting things, but doing past exam papers sucks, because all it does is remind you how much you didn't *actually* learn. 'tis rubbish!

Meh.

I also haven't heard back from DataConnection, and I didn't go to pick up fliers today from Johns. That's not too bad though, because I've just found out that I won't be getting an opportunity to hand them out on tuesday, as I am going to a curry evening instead. I'll just have to pick some up on wed.

I'm weighing up the possible advantages and disadvantages of asking someone out from dancing. On the one hand: we seem to fit; she even made the effort of crossing the road to KBC to say bye when she had to leave while I was getting dirty food; she would probably enjoy 28 weeks later even more than me, but on the other hand: it would be fatally awkward if it didn't work out; she probably fits well with everyone; I probably wouldn't have time to treat her properly (where have we heard that one before? *sinking feeling*)

also, I still need to: learn German; get a few new pairs of shoes; find some braces, like the guy in the German eurovision entry had.

...and do more past exam papers...

Opera Mobile

Seems I have opera mobile. Much more configurable than IEm, but a bit of a resource hog, and still prone to locking up my entire phone(though I am running a beta).

Killer features missing in IEm include:
optional image downloads to save badwidth
images not displayed double-sized, so it perfoms like any other 640*460 res browser
multiple tabs (so you can lose even more information when it crashes. w00t)
google search straight from location bar

Still yearning for my beloved konqueror though, because even the engineering dept's linux desktops don't have it.

Job interview on wed. Should probably look at trains to london.

Dancing(the fateful post)

----As suggested earlier, here is the post that caused me to search for a blogspot-based blogging solution----

Alright, so I've not posted in a while. I also haven't been on msn for a while. This may or may not be because I haven't turned on yet this term. I'm currently posting from my phone, which is no doubt costing me an extortionate amout, but I feel obliged to post anyway.

Friday night was Jazz at Johns. 'twas great fun, and there were lots of petreans about (and lots of dancers. We pretty much took took over the Big Band room, and got a shout or mention after about every 3rd song).

I have decided that Jill (with the black converses and hardcore knitting) is my favouritest girl in the world at the moment. I always feel comfortable when I dance with her, because she's always smiling (as if at some private joke) whenever I dance with her, and she doesn't surprise me too often (though she does sometimes look a sorry sight when she's sitting out for a song... but that just makes you want to pull her up for another dance.)

The majority of people fit into one of the following categories:

Serious Beginner(Often has a look of intense concentration on her face, as if she's dancing for the practice rather than the fun. She looks annoyed if you do something she hasn't seen before, so don't over-do it. One or two new simple moves per dance is enough. If she manages to follow it, her expression becomes one of self-congratulation. It's often good to dance with her becuase if something turns out the way you wanted it to, you _must_ be doing it right.)

Fun-loving(even if you can't get her to follow everything you're doing, it doesn't take long to work out what will work and what won't, and she won't get annoyed at you for trying things. Simple variations on what she already knows will often get a laugh. Over-the-top movements like massive/miniture/bouncy/low-down steps done to a familiar rhythm are easy for her to follow, but if she doesn't notice you dancing them, it doesn't spoil the dance, becaue you're still dancing the same rhythm. She is the most fun to dance with.)

----And here ends what I could be bothered to save in the shitty faves, because there was no guarantee it would have worked. I now think I have a method for recoving things in future----

Serious Advanced (normally sports a polite smile, and is well drilled at saying "thank you" after a dance. She will occasionally be made to laugh appreciatively if you can do something interesting that works particularly well with the music, but she has been to all of your classes(and more), so there aren't many *moves* that will surprise her.
She will often work in her own quirky variations on what you're leading, which earn her either a laugh or a slightly confused look. It can be hard to tell whether this is her being [flashy | confused | bored | just comfortable dancing with you]. As a result, dancing with her can be quite intimidating. This is why steal dances are so good, because all you have to do is lead a few swing-outs, and she'll probably get stolen long before she gets bored.)

I only really felt like I was dancing well with Maria for the first time a few saturdays ago. I think her inherent flashyness and love of air-steps and jumps makes her one of the hardest people to dance the simple stuff with, but it seems that all you have to do is get her into a swing-out, and she's pleased as punch.

The rest of my original entry was concerning swing-outs, and why they're so hard to learn in classes, and why flash-gits like Maria are good at them. That will have to wait though.

End of LJ

With the arrival of a credit card advert, my faith in livejournal has finally departed.

I was expecting it to happen a lot sooner after the take-over, but maybe I just didn't notice how it was going downhill, because I never really used LJ in internet explorer until recently.

A few items of book-keeping need to be done before I really migrate which I need some help with.

1) Could someone with a paid account, please get http://alsuren.blogspot.com/atom.xml added as a livejournal feed, and tell me about it so that I tell people about it. That way, people can still get updates on their friends list when I post.

2) If anyone knows anything about blogspot, could they please tell me what they use as a friends-page equivalent? I will still check my LJ friends page, but getting all my friends in one list would certainly be nice.

Test Blog Post

This is the initial test post of my blogger hoozat. Hopefully it'll work as
I expect it to. We'll see.