Shiv's Blog

More catching up.

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:44:00 +0000

So, once again I am faced with the prospect of trying to get several months (at least it's not years, this time) of events into a single entry without boring everyone to tears.

One of the most interesting things to happen in a long time was my trip to China:

Tienamen Square - China '09

The Great Wall - China '09

Summer Palace - China '09

Ding Ling Tomb - China '09

The trip was for work relating to the COLAB project between Leeds and Beihang Universities but there was some time for sight-seeing. There was also loads of amazing food to be had, some of it nice and spicy as well. I would have loved to have been able to have more than the 5 nights there that we did have, but you can't really complain when a trip is for free. I flew back from China on my birthday and as a result ended up with a birthday that lasted 31 hours... this would have been great, if not for Air France messing things up and having to spend well over 20 hours of it travelling back to Leeds to get back almost exactly at midnight. The longest birthday ever, in many senses.

Having got through all of that, it then seemed to become wedding season again. As is occasionally the case, I ended up at a wedding where I didn't know either of the people gettting married at all. This is a real issue I have with the way Indian weddings are done. Even still, I managed to eat the nice food and managed to get an interesting array of deserts for myself:

Sanjeev and Amy

I also got to go to Sanjay's wedding to my latest Bhabiji, Priya. The whole process was good, even if Vijay did take delight in telling me that I was dressed up like a genie:

Sanjay and Priya

The only bad thing about all of this is that apparently, I'm next. While there's been no huge amount of pressure from anyone or anywhere, all the little nudges and winks and "when are you getting married then" comments add up. It's not that I'm averse to the idea; I just hate the concept that my life should run according to someone else's (or many other people's) schedule. Still, it would be potentially stupid to not even meet someone that is being suggested to me. As someone once said to me many years ago in a drunken conversation; she could be smokin' hot. Even getting beyond all that, the chances that all the various astrological superstitions and other barriers to potential introductees are overcome, there's still the problem of this person being able to tolerate me, at the very least. I'm not exactly holding my breath.

I'm sure there's a ton of other stuff I'm forgetting. The main thing in my mind at the moment is that all of the people in Blackpool are (thankfully) on their way to a recovery following what sounds like a pretty horrendous crash on the M1. Especially the kids. Hopefully I will be able to get round there and lift people's spirits with my own special brand of entertainment.

Finally, I will say congratulations Roger Federer. It was sad to see Roddick almost crying, but I did want Federer to win. It was an epic match.

With apologies to Piku

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:03:00 +0000

So apparently I'm the worst uncle in the world ever.

Not only did I forget to mention Piku's birthday on here in December but I seem to have no pictures or anything to put up for it either. I'd like to take the opportunity to apoligise from the bottom of my heart and beg for forgiveness.

It all happened quite a while ago now, so my memory is a little bit hazy. I do remember that we tricked Piku into thinking that nobody else was coming and that she'd have to make do with only me (what a horrible prospect!). Anyway, I got Piku the following toy:

There's a trick to it of course, but the idea is that it should look like it's just floating in the air.

Hopefully the next time I'm in Blackpool, Piku will have mastered it.... though it is pretty tricky to get right.

Back in blog

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:23:00 +0000

So, not as soon after the last posting as I would have liked but it's better that the year or so break I took, right?

In true blogtacular tradition of days gone by, I'm writing this on a train coming back from an outing with someone(s) awesome(s?). I was over in Manchester visiting Sarah and Martin. Various circumstances have conspired to ensure that this is the first time we've met up since before Xmas. As a result, there was the inevitable exchange of gifts, which is often a cause for anxiety for me... I'm never sure that I've bought someone the right thing and there's always the dread of your gift being totally outshone by the gift that has been got for you, showing you up as totally not understanding the other person as well as they do you.

In the end all was well; I was hella-happy with what I got. There's a guitar tab book filled with the greatest hits of guitar hero. Finally I'll be able to look down on people who love the game and say "play a real guitar" and show them how. Surely learning the whole book of songs won't take me long. The other thing is a weird tower building game where you have to pile up hedgehogs.

Trust Sarah and Martin to find something totally nuts and awesome all at the same time. Kit and Pik will be subjected to this amazing thing at the next opportunity. I think that "Venn That Tune" went down pretty well... I know that I would have loved a copy for myself.

Other than that, I've been trying to be good and not go traveling all over the place every weekend. I have a thesis to finish correcting and it's not going to do itself. Having said that, I was in Sheffield with George for this weekend just gone and it was one of the most nutso weekends I have ever had.

Geordie certainly keeps interesting company. There's plenty of things I can't relate on here given that some pretty young people actually read it on a semi-regular basis. There were some interesting firsts that I can talk about; My first football match AND my first ever fish finger sandwich. There was also plenty of SingStar... in fact, I think I found someone who might just love the game as much as I do. Arran (one of the ladies of the house I was staying at) seemed to be screaming for literally minutes when the revelation that I had brought 12 unplayed SingStar discs with me came to the fore. I do love bringing joy to the world through the medium of fake karaoke that somehow seems to think that I am a pretty good singer. It kind of helps that the singing was done in pajama-based attire. Nothing like getting comfortable before belting out some Madonna or something of that nature.

There has been the suggestion that I go back the next time that Geordie is down that way. The prospect fills me with a certain amount of apprehension as well as enthusiasm. There was plenty of fun and games, but nothing got too out of hand. Apart from the whole Adam (random 20 year old boy that ended up under our "protection") situation.... the less said about that the better I think.

Speedily approaching Leeds station, so I will leave it there. Hope to relay all the amazing things I have been up to soon, but this weekend WILL be devoted to thesis, so there's not going to be much to say any time soon.

More Pics

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:46:00 +0000

More pics added to my ever-growing collection;

I've got some from Kit's birthday. We made a Toblerone and Malteaser cheesecake to celebrate. It was very tasty indeed.

Kit's Birthday

There are some more that show you how to make a Chinese-style curry sauce and my recreation of chicken katsu curry that you get from Wagamama.

Curry Sauce

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:36:00 +0000

So according to Kit, there are people who look at this and have noticed that it's been a long time since I've added anything. I haven't really got much to say at the moment, even though it's been a year and a half. Maybe this will kick start me in to posting a bit more often from now on.

I have however got a bunch of pics added to my picasaweb from the past several months, including some from my recent trip to India:

From India Sight Seeing 2008

More from me coming soon.... I hope.

Unless my laziness kicks in again.

Okonomiyaki

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:33:00 +0000

Made some okonomiyaki for dinner last night - for the past week or so actually - and thought I'd share the joy of it with the world. This is an imitation of the "London mix" available from Abeno in London. Contains bacon, cheese and salmon. Toppings are okonomiyaki sauce, japanese mayonnaise and aonori (powdered seaweed) all purchased from the awesome Japan centre on Piccadilly.

Okonomiyaki

I used the recipe here as a guide:

http://www.japan-guide.com/r/e100.html

but roughly halved the amounts of everything to make it a sensible size for on person. Much easier to flip as well, I'd imagine.

I wonder how many nights I'll have to eat this in a row before I get sick of it? Planning on adding mushrooms to the fray tonight.... how exciting.

Blog Catchup... Again

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:57:00 +0000

Oookay, it's been a while since the last blogtacular update but I have been kind of busy.

I managed to get all of my moving stuff sorted out and I am now (happily?) settling in at Leeds - both the city and the University. It's kind of weird living by myself, but my flat is so hella-awesome that it makes up for it.

Quite a few things have happened over the past couple of months, some of them with pics (and videos) to go with them.

There was a SingStar extravaganza at Irina's place before I left Manchester for good:

SingStar Party

This was followed by the eventual move itself and all the stress involved with that:

The big move

This left me with a couple of days of unpacking etc until actually starting at work. So far, there has been plenty to learn and lots of new people to meet. There seem to be SO MANY meetings that I have to go to but there was a very useful NGS face to face meeting in Leeds, which meant I got to meet almost everyone who is involved with the running of NGS.

I haven't actually got to see much of Leeds itself - I have been good and not gone out on a "school night" and seem to have been sepnding my weekends elsewhere. Vijay came for a weekend visit, which was really an excuse to get some help from me with some course work. I introduced him to Doxygen, which apparently impressed a lot of people with its auto-generated PDF documentation for his source code. Cool-e-oh.

Nicki was over from US and A with her family, including the new addition, Blaney. I have to say, he is possibly the cutest baby I have ever seen... Well done Nicki :)

I managed to find time to go to the Leeds Barenaked Ladies concert at the start of this month. Dragged Mitch along as well and, predictably, enjoyed it very much. BNL always put on a good show. I wish I had taken more pics, but I thought that they wouldn't come out properly. Guess my phone is better than I thought.

Barenaked Ladies

The Easter weekend was good. The university was closed from Thursday afternoon 'til Wednesday morning. I had Aradhna and her two (awesome) housemates, Janine and Sophia, round for basically a weekend of Wii/Gamecube/SingStar fun. Vijay turned up for some of it as well. Amazingly, we managed to get out of the flat at some point and even managed to make it (on foot!) to the local park where we managed to have fun on our improvised "obstacle course". I didn't take any pictures of this stuff for some reason, but Janine did. We then moved on the the skate park for our races, and ended up with injuries all round... happy days. I did take some "food porn" pictures though:

Steamed, Fried Dumplings

Oh yeah... WOKMANIA in Leeds totally sucks. Never, ever, ever go there.

Last, but by no means least, I spent the last weekend in Blackpool. Kitu and Piku, as always, were brilliant. Seriously, the best kids I have ever known. Their little brother, Krish, is getting on as well. Approaching his 1st birthday and walking already. He can't quite speak yet, but manages to voice his displeasure at my presence in his house quite clearly. Once we can have a sensible conversation, he'll come round - bribery will save the day if nothing else. One of the highlights was the appearance of a quad bike for the weekend... I loved this thing. Some of the girls (i.e. Vijay and Piku) fell off, and to be fair I cam close a couple of times, but there was no permanent damage... just more bruises to add to the ones from playing around over Easter.

And that's about it. A lot to cover in such a short space. I'll try to keep up with things as they happen from now on. Should be easier now that I'm settled in.

One last thing. I stumbled across a site that asks you a bunch of stupid questions to tell you which Star Wars character you are. This is how it turned out for me:

While I'm not sure I identify with this too much, it did remind me of my realisation that R2 D2 is basically the same as Kenny in South Park. I'm convinced that he's a foul mouthed little devil, but nobody (apart from C3PO) has any idea what he's saying.... not too hard to fill in the obscenities though.

Click the link and see who you are. I know it's stupid, but it's kind of fun :)

The Sound of Your Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:48:00 +0000

Okay, this is just too cool.

One of my favourit bands, Barenaked Ladies, has made their latest music video using submissions from various YouTube "celebrities" and have posted online for everyone to watch. They even encourage people to host the video on their sites. So I will.

One of my favourite songs off their latest album actually.

Shiv Kaushal

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 02:21:00 +0000

I am now officially me.... virtually anyway. Feeling bored at 2am, I decided that what I needed in life was my very own domain name. Hence I now have http://www.shivkaushal.co.uk

The trick is to try and get Google to take the bait and start ranking that URL high up in searches for Shiv Kaushal. Hopefully this post , with its subtle use of links, will start the ball rolling!

Anyway, I need sleep!

Blog Catchup

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:45:00 +0000

I think the chances of me actually catching up with past events in proper detail so I'll just make a short (ish) summary of events from the new year post 'til now so I can get to the good bit. Almost everyone I know already knows it though. Makes it seem kind of pointless in a way.....

Anyway! After the awesome new year celebrations, I was up working with Steve doing my usual server configuration and other bits and pieces. One of the schools was to have a new IT room with the usual complement of 30 PCs and one projector/smart board combination, but the electricians were unable to finish on time, so we were left with not much to do there and had to leave it until a later date. Following that, there was a visit from Martin (alone, initially) and eventually Sarah as well. Always good to spend time with them, even if we did seem to spend a rather large amount of time walking around... We were showing Wolfgang, one of Sarah's friends, the delights of Manchester. Among these was a space invader that Sarah hadn't managed to get a good picture of in the past. I had my trusty new phone to hand to catch the moment, and here is the invader in all his (?) glory:

After saying my (internally) tearful goodbyes to Sarah, Martin and Wolfgang and getting absolutely DRENCHED..... TWICE.... I found myself in Blackpool for Kirtika (aka Kitu) birthday celebration as well as a celebration of Lodi. Lots of nice food was on hand and I ended up staying for a couple of days to help out with homework etc. I found myself re-living the experience of teaching Anu fractions, decimals and percentages all those years ago. It was kind of enjoyable but also a bit trying - it's probably the first time I have made Kitu (and Piku) sit and study and have to fend off their attempts at wriggling out of it. In all honesty, they probably took a lot longer to do the work than they should have and there was far to much giggling (from them) for it a proper study session like the ones I was subjected to. Anyway, I think that they still like me and that they actually learned something new. Not only that, I think that they, Kitu at the very least, were HAPPY that they had learned how to do these things. I felt really very good about myself for a change :) I also got to spend some time around their new (ish) baby brother, Krish. He still cried whenever I went near him, but at least the amount of time it took to happen seemed to be getting longer! There are some pics from the Blackpool happenings here:

Blackpool January 2007

I would have stayed longer, but I had to get back to Manchester to get a job application in on time. A few days after that, I got an email saying that I would have an interview (at Leeds university) in just under a weeks time. In the mean time, I had to put that out of my mind since I was preparing for a visit from AK followed by a fancy dress SingStar party at her place.... Oh yes. So I managed to get hold of some slightly tattered blue jeans, a white t-shirt, a leather jacket and some HUUUUGE and hideous sunglasses to go as George Michael. I didn't manage to get hold of any crucifix ear rings, but I went without shaving for a good few days before the event to make up for it. The party itself was good - SingStar is never bad - there was even sushi to be had.... how cool is that? I managed to pollute/corrupt/subvert many of the people there with White Russian, which was kind of funny. I don't have any pictures of the party - I was too busy singing to be all trigger happy with my phone - but I will try and get hold of some and get them online.

A couple of days later (23rd of Jan) I was on my way to Leeds for my interview. Not only was this interesting because of the possibility of getting a "real" job, but also because I would be hopefully meeting up with Mitch. Anyway, the interview went quite well... a few tricky questions, but that was to be expected really, but on the whole I felt reasonably happy with the way it had gone. It was a bit odd having lunch with the other people applying for the job, but it was certainly an interesting experience. Anyway... after around 5 hours and 2/3 interviews I was free to relax with Mitch. While we were in the student's union playing pool (me not sticking out in my suit at all), I got a call offering me the job! So I am now officialy going to Leeds to become "Grid Support Officer" for the NGS service and White Rose Grid. Exciting and kind of scary all at the same time. In case you are wondering exactly what that will entail, you can get a look at the job description here.

Now, I'm in the process of trying to sort out all of the details of moving (bills, new place to stay etc.) and to finish off my thesis. Neither is happening at a rate that is to my satisfaction. Possibly the only plus side to all of this is that it has made me actually start organising my in a more efficient way - I'm using Google Calendar to map out when things should be happening in order to make sure I get as moved as possible to Leeds before I start on the 1st of March. They wanted me to start on the 1st of Feb, but that was just not enough time for me to get myself sorted out.... The extra month might not be enough either! The weeks since finding out and the coming weeks seemed to have filled themselves with events and house hunting stuff to such an extent that the thesis is taking more of a back seat than I would have liked. Although it's all very stressful, it is exciting. Getting it all down in blog form makes it all seem a bit more... something, not sure what.

At least I'm mostly caught up now. :)

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:06:00 +0000

Happy new year!!!!

I know, I know... it's more than a little bit late, even more so than my Xmas blog. I have been busy with various bits and pieces around the country, I'll get to in a bit. First though, I am basically going to go on and on about how awesome the Nintendo Wii is.

I was in Blackpool for new year, where the main room of fun had not only a very well stocked bar (lots of white russians for me - yay!) but TWO tellies. One of them was hooked up almost permanently to my PS2 and all of its SingStar goodness and the other was arranged for Vijay's newly purchased Nintendo Wii. At one point, I was actually playing SingStar and Wii Tennis at the same time, which was a lot harder than I was expecting. The whole Wii experience (Wii Sports, Monkey Ball and Wii Play) was great. Within each game there were bits that didn't work too well (like the unpredictable golf swings) but the stuff that worked worked amazingly well. Wii Tennis seemed to be one of the most enjoyable games, especially for 4 player hilarity. For some reason, even though you can play the game sitting down everyone would end up standing for it.

Despite the Internet (capital 'I', you'll notice) being full of reports of Wii remotes flying through the air and causing damage to tellies, windows, furniture and people there was none of that apart from when we were a bit cramped and Palu swung his hand into a chair. The point is that not once did any of us drunken, excitable and generally wreckless people manage to even let go of the controllers mid swing, let alone send it flying through the air fast enough to get it lodged in someone's brain.

Although the Wii experience was Wii-ly, Wii-ly good the whole of new year was made great by the people I was with. Nearly all of my cousins from my Dad's side that live in England were there and it's the first time we have all got together without any of the "old folk" around to get in the way and explain to us what they think a good time is. As well as that, there were the star attractions of Blackpool, Kitu and Piku. The whole thing was so much fun and even though we all had free reign and seemingly limitless supplies of alcohol, nobody got wasted and nobody did anything stupid. Probably most amazing was the fact that nothing got broken.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a tradition of sorts where we will all try and get together somewhere or other once a year at the very least. I can't wait until the day comes where I get to try and organise such a gig... I have been learning how to cook some interesting new things and think I could even handle the vegetarian requirements and make some tasty bits and pieces. If not, I am sure that I'll get by just making food for myself.

There aren't any pictures I am going to make publicly available from new year. For some reason (and through persons unknown) all the pictures on my phone from new year are of people sleeping - and I didn't take any of them. Anyway, such pictures are not usually very flattering so it's wouldn't be nice to post them without everyone's permission. I do have some other snaps that I can put up, but I need to catch up with all the stuff I have missed out on posting so far.

I am sure that my millions of readers are holding their breath in anticipation of my amazing pictures and tales of adventure and intrigue.....

Belated Christmas Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 23:05:00 +0000

Yay! Christmas came, the geese got fat and I did, in fact, put a penny in an old man's hat - he was playing some rocking tunes in an underground station.

Sooooooo... I have had a very eventful few weeks, much like everyone else I would imagine. There was the dreaded group meeting, where everyone in the particle physics group stands up for 5 minutes and talks about (i.e. justifies) their existence in the group for the past year. On the evening of the first meeting day (with free lunch - woo hoo!) there was the group xmas dinner. I managed to convince people that going to Revolution (a vodka bar, for the deprived people who don't know) before the meal itself, and the night got off to a great start. The dinner was at Cafe Istanbul and was awesome. After the meal, we ended up in a club called Mojo. To be honest, it probably wouldn't have mattered where we ended up - we would still have had an amazing night out. There are, of course, many pictures to be had of the evening, some of which can be found here:

HEP Xmas Dinner

The next day was a bit horrible, not only because of my horrendous headache when I woke up, but also because I had to give my presentation that day. Like most presentation situations, I got overly nervous about it and felt like I messed it up a bit. Even though it was a group of people I know pretty well, it was still an awful experience. The lameness experienced there was very quickly replaced by the awesomeness of having Daniel and Sabrina over for dinner. So quickly that I was only left with 30 minutes to cook up a storm after getting home from the meeting. They didn't seem to notice it was rushed and even complimented me on my daal. "This daal is fantastic!" Not bad for a boy - not as good as mum makes, but still.

The day after that, I was on my way to London for the xmas period. The whole experience was made all the sweeter by the fact that I knew that the new Zelda game, Twilight Princess, was waiting for me. As if that wasn't awesome enough (which it was) me and Aradhna managed to cook up a Christmas dinner of sorts which was truly fantabulous. It can be viewed in all its collaged glory by clicking the following thumbnail:

After the "big day" had come and gone, I went out for food, food and food with Sarah (best. day. ever.) including a trip to the Japan Centre, which has a whole floor that sells food and fish we managed to avoid seeing. Looks like we might have to go there again... It's a tough life. The sushi there was excellent, if a little pricey. I think that Ikkyusan is probably better value overall.

Other than that, I managed to get a much needed new coat. Me and Anu braved the January sales and went hunting and managed to come back with a kill that managed to satisfy me, my sister (she "wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with me in it") and even my mother. Wowza indeed.

After that, it was back up to Manchester to prepare for the trip to Blackpool for New year celebrations..... more on that later. For now I need sleep!

Kitu's Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:13:00 +0000

Hooray!

Today is Kitu's birthday!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday tooooo you,

Happy birthday dear Kitu!

Happy birthday toooooooooooo youuuuuuuuuuu!

Lots of love,

Shiv

New Phone! Graduation! Hangover Get!

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:38:00 +0000

Yay!

I have my new phone. It's a very spangly Sony Ericsson k800i, designed with picture taking in mind. The camera is pretty good, but the whole thing is made so much better by it's awesome flash - in a reasonably sized room it makes pictures taken in darkness come out as if lights were on. Awesome.

Like most camera phones, it's not so great outdoors at night, even with it's flash. Having said that there are some pictures to feast your eyes on that I took on Thursday when various people from the year above me were graduating with their PhDs. Clicking the following picture will take you to the web album.

Graduation December 06

The pictures show gowns, drinking and eating that all took place that day. What it doesn't show you is the SingStar hilarity that ensued after - accompanied by home made Irn Bru WKDs.

Sarah and Martin were in town on Tuesday for her graduation as well, so muchos congrats to her as well. All these smug people with their fancy PhDs... you'd think it would be enough to spur me on to finish my own. Progress has slowed somewhat compared to previous weeks. Maybe the rest of this

This is the second weekend in a row that I am not galavanting around the country and getting frustrated by the train service. It also means that, other than the above, not much exciting has been going on. Hopefully the Xmas/New year fortnight or so will liven things up a bit.

Jumping through hoops

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 13:43:00 +0000

Okay... so I have lost my phone to some sneaky little $%^! (see my post from Monday), but I am now faced with the biggest bit of stupidity I have ever seen in my life. Orange (and probably all of the mobile service providers) are quite happy to send me out a new sim card and even a new phone if I upgrade my contract. "That's awesome", I hear you say.

Here's the catch; the upgrade deals they offer are rubbish. I found a deal I liked the look of from onecompare and they couldn't come anywhere near it. Okay, so what about ending my current contract and moving the number over to the new one. No can do apparently - the only way this can happen is if the new contract I get elsewhere is from a different provider. The problem is that all the best deals are on Orange, people I like are on Orange (they can call me for free off-peak if I am too), and I like the Orange Wednesdays. So now in order to keep my old mobile number - maybe I should just give up on that - I have to port my number to a different network and then from there back to Orange, but onto my new contract. How absolutely retarded is that? It's made even worse by the fact that things would be so much easier for me if I DIDN'T want to stay with Orange. Way to go on the customer retention there Orange.

When I asked the Orange customer services guy why I couldn't transfer my number from Orange to Orange, he told me that the deals I was looking at were to attract new customers. Oh, how very nice of them. Never mind the fact that their website proudly proclaims that "existing customers now get the same deals as new". I am not impressed one tiny little bit. As it happens, my new phone should be arriving tomorrow, IF the company I ordered from aren't as incompetent as the rest of the world seems to be at times, and I now have my PAC code to transfer my number.

For the first time, I am getting a Sony Erricson phone. It could be horribly painful to learn to use, but I am optimistic. There are lots of good reviews of it and it apparently has the best camera on a phone ever. Which should be fun.

All I need now is a pay as you go sim card for O2 or something to be my stepping stone and I am good to go. Apparently you can get them for free online...

I still think it's crazy that I have to go through all these steps just to keep my number. If I was any more outraged I might even write to OFCOM. Now there's an idea....

Yikes. I can't believe I am turning into a grumpy old man at the age of 25. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Happy Birthday Piku!

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:22:00 +0000

Hooray!

Today is Piku's birthday!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Piku!
Happy birthday toooooooooooo youuuuuuuuuuu!

Lots of love,

Shiv

:(

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:20:00 +0000

Another weekend, another train journey and yet another blog post. Despite my rather upbeat post I wrote when on my way to Loughborough, things took a turn for the worse when I got there. I was supposed to be meeting Vijay and Viney at the train station but after turning up at 8.30 in the evening, I found out that they were still in Basingstoke. In the end, I had to "amuse myself" for the couple of hours it would take for them to get there... I managed to find a pub where I could sit and read through some thesis stuff and have a quiet drink. By the time that Viney and Vijay turned up, I was 6 double vodka-lemonades worse off and enthusiastically helping a random couple I had met with their pub quiz answers. Things were looking up. The Chinese food we got from "Mr. Chan's" was awesome, followed by "Click" starring Adam Sandler - all was looking well.

The following morning (Friday), having had about three hours sleep, me and Vijay made our way to the nearest McDonalds for some breakfast - I know, I know... I just LOVE their breakfasts, especially the hash browns. Awesome... Or so I thought. Having stupidly put my phone on the table we were eating at, I got up for less a really short time to talk to Vijay and came back to a table that was one Samsung D500 lighter. LAME. It's not too bad though. I am past the 12 month point of my contract and was looking for a new phone, especially since mine was a bit broken. I had also just gone through the process of transferring all of the pictures/videos on it to my PC. The only real major problem with this is the hassle of being without a phone for a weekend and however long it takes me to choose a new one.

From then on, there were jokes aplenty forthcoming from Vijay and Co. about what the time was (I use my phone as my watch/alarm clock) and why I wasn't answering their phone calls. I did manage to salvage some enjoyment from the weekend though. That evening, we were at Palu's place, where I was helping him build his amazingly powerful new computer. After getting it up and running, we installed the OS and then started on testing out his shiny new graphics card with the best thing for it - games. The end result was that, apart from Viney, we all stayed up the whole night.

The next morning (Saturday) Palu had to go off to work and the rest of us went back to Vineys place to do some tidying, cleaning and gardening... Quite why anyone thought it was a good idea to give a petrol powered strimmer, which was actually leaking, to a sleep deprived person with a history of accidentally burning things, is beyond me.... in any case, after a rather large lunch and watching Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure (during which Vijay managed to get a few more hours of sleep) we got back to it. The evening was spent in a snooker hall playing some pool... Considering the fact that I'd had only 3 hours sleep in the past 50 I was amazed to find that I was actually playing better than usual - I was beating Palu and Vijay with reasonable consistency. Awesome. I almost found myelf agreeing with this guy that "Sleep is for babies." Kind of worrying, but I can almost see how he got to the state he was in if he really had been up for 5 days.

I finally collapsed in a heap at about 4 AM on Sunday morning and managed to start moving at 2 in the afternoon. A few more hours of "tinkering" with the new PC and a bite to eat later, I am now on a train on my way back to Manchester. I'm still a bit fried from the general lack of sleep and annoyed with the lack of phone in my pocket but on the whole, the weekend was pretty good.

Now to get back to writing thesis and my slightly more mundane University existence.... there's always next weekend though. Woo Hoo!

Another Long Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:14:00 +0000

Yay! Blog time.

This time, I am on my way somewhere rather than on my way back. The long weekend syndrome doesn't seem to be fading at all. On the plus side, thesis work is progressing at a much more reasonable pace, so much so that I think I might even meet my own aim of getting all (might have to settle for most) of my writing done by the end of the year. First draft at the very least. Awesomeness. I am currently at 75 pages, which might not seem like such a huge leap, but it includes removing loads of bullet points and replacing them with (somewhat) coherent sentences, so I am feeling much happier about it. I have also managed to get some of the nastier diagrams out of the way and pasted in some screenshots so the whole thing is looking a lot nicer as well. Lots more screenshots to go in as well.

Currently, I am on my way to Loughborough to spend some time with Viney and Vijay as well as to help Palu build a shiny new PC. I will post some suitably gratuitous shots of PC "bits" laid bare after the event. Nice.....

Speaking of pics, I am now starting to use Google's image hosting service, it's a bit of a Flickr rip-off, but it gets the job done a bit more easily through Picasa - Picasa is Google's image organisation/tweaking software, which, quite awesomely, is available for Linux. I got the idea after seeing someone else's and realising that my Manchester HEP web space probably won't last forever. In any case, you can see the first lot of pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/shivkaushal and I will be migrating all my existing pics and uploading more new ones in the near future.

I am currently mourning the loss of new South Park and Lost episodes from the ol' USA. I am quite unhappy that there won't be any more of either until next February. Given that the lack of new shows seems to coincide with my sudden burst of productivity, it might not be such a bad thing. There are plenty of older episodes to keep me amused anyway... Must look up "Good Times With Weapons" some time soon.

That's about all for now. Apart from not being paid over £400 by the University that I claimed for some time in September. It's made worse by the fact that I am not really getting any money from anywhere since my studentship expired at the end of September (last payment was in July!). The rage starts to boil over from time to time, but I manage to calm myself down by thinking of flowers and puppies and other wonderful things.... yeah, sure. Seriously, not cool.

Shiv Kaushal - Singstar Liason

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:15:00 +0000

Long time no blog then... It was good going for a while, I guess, but I am slipping back into my previous habits quite quickly. I have had many interesting things go on since last time, a lot of which I am sure I will forget to put down here but I am sure that the following summary will convince the reader beyond any doubt that the life of a PhD student is anything but taxing. The thing is, it should be taxing - if I was putting in a reasonable amount of work, I would be finished writing up by now.

First off, there is the awesome news that Nicki, who you can see getting married HERE, has had another bundle of screaming joy. Blaney George Phillips was born on the 3rd of November and both are doing well. Loads of congrats and love to Nicki and Marc!

So last the last few weekends have been filled with SingStar awesomeness. The weekend after Irina's birthday/flat-warming, I was in Blackpool and got to introduce all the lovely people there to the phenomenon that is SingStar. I even got to play with Kitu and Piku (my amazingly fabulous nieces) and even had the sense to capture the moment in digital image and video form. There is a lot of that kind of stuff I have still to put up on my Picture Page, I will post again when I have it availble for hypertextual consumption. Not only was Kitu and Piku rocking the house amazing in itself, but I also had a new disc to enjoy - SingStar Legends. This brought the total number of songs at my disposal to 200 - killer.

That weekend also saw Birthday celebrations for my cousin, Amar, . The whole thing was lots of fun not only because of the large fireworks (it was on the 5th of November, after all) but also because I got to tend to a bonfire (awesome) and even saw Vijay dancing. There was also a guitar shaped birthday cake, which particularly struck a chord (groans all round) with me - more so for Amar, I guess.

After word got out that there was another SingStar disc to be had, Ella Fitzgerald and all, we were back at Irina's the following weekend. It was an absolute belter of an evening. I was introduced to the amazingness of White Russians and loved them even without having seen "The Big Lebowski". The huge selection of songs meant that we were singing away through the night and I got home after eight in the morning! The following couple of days were pretty messed up and unproductive for me but led nicely into Aradhna's fencing match in Manchester last Wednesday.

Keele Vs. Manchester should, I suppose, give me some kind of moral dillemma as to which team I should be supporting but I found it quite easy to cheer on Keele without any guilt. I really am dead inside..... Unlinke the unhappy outcome of the same fixture last year, Keele won, much to the delight of the team captain (Aradhna). While I don't fully understand what's going on sometimes (sabre is just too weird) I do like watching the fencing. I especially love seeing Aradhna, aka AK, do her thing "on the piste". There is such a slow, measured, calm and deliberate approach in her style that is actually quite menacing. I should probably never upset her ever again. Videos may follow soon.

This weekend was yet another SingStar flavoured one, but in Cambridge this time. Sarah's workmate Laura was having a birthday party with the added twist of being a cocktail party with a formal dress code. I had also been asked to bring along my bag of SingStar tricks and I was happy to oblige. After several large White Russians - having watched The Big Lebowski earlier that day - the music started flowing. Watching men suited and booted and women in fancy dresses - in the good way, not like vampire costumes, but even those can be good at the right time and place - watching them all sing away was really an odd sight to behold. It made dragging the PS2 up and down the country (or down and up in this case) worth it. Went to Ikkyusan for sushi buffet again with Sarah and Vijay, before getting on the train back to Manchester and it was even better than last time. Spending time with Sarah and Martin was great, as ever and I look forward to seeing them again soon - probably on the 12th of December when Dr. Sarah is in Manchester for her graduation. Can't wait.

Thesis has been crawling along, which is not surprising if you consider all of the singing I have been doing lately. I think I might have to crack and start putting in diagrams to pad it out. I did manage to find out how to put fancy fonts in through latex though and they are fancy. You can see an example here. Probably not the best use of my time, but I am thinking about starting every chapter off with something similar - there doesn't seem to be anything in the guidelines against such fonts.

Somewhere in the blur of the past few weeks, I also got a letter from CCLRC saying that I was on the reserve list for the job I had applied for and then another one saying that they were unable to offer it to me. Lame. Not that I expected much from my first interview anyway. I guess that the outcome is better than I was expecting, but nobody likes rejection. According to Sarah, I already have an unofficial job - one that seems to appeal to me. The job title will make more sense if you have seen Van Wilder, but I am apparently now to be referred to as Shiv Kaushal - SingStar Liason. Sweeeet. There are plenty of worse things to be known for, that's for sure.

Soft, Strong and...

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:16:00 +0000

Incredibly Long

My weekend was long-ety long - and not just because of the extra hour of sleep that people convince themselves that they are getting. The long weekend started (as they always seem to for me) on Thursday, with getting ready for my interview at CCLRC. Having left myself no choice but to wear a suit I was up early agonising over which tie to wear with my "trendy" lilac shirt. There were only four to choose from, but it still seemed to give me trouble.

I THINK that the interview itself went better than I was expecting, but I will have to wait a couple of weeks to see how well it really went. I got back to Manchester at around 7pm only to make my way home, change, pack some clothes and leave for the train station to go up to Steve's to help put with some stuff for the schools. The next couple of days were pretty intense and sctually gave me a headache from staring at a computer screen for two solid days. I don't think that has ever happened before.

After leaving Steve's feeling pretty drained, I got back to Manchester in time to go to Irina's birthday party where there was a SingStar extravaganza that lasted until almost 6 AM - including the extra hour that we had "gained". There are pictures of all the fun and games for anyone interested.

Needless to say, all of this left me feeling pretty fragile for all of Sunday and even some of today. Today is a new day though.. the physics admissions interviews started up and I got to restart my job of picking people up from the train station and doing a brief intro to Manchester and all of its goodness. Add to that that I found out that there is a new version of SingStar and things don't seem too bad.

Thesis progress over this period of time actually fell to an amazing low, but I promised that I would try and get some done tonight... I don't think it's going to happen though. After spending over an hour on the phone to Vijay and then writing this it's getting to the point where I am having trouble staying awake. I hope I will be forgiven for not getting any done tonight. I am hopefully going to be handing in my notice of submission form tomorrow, which really should kick-start the thesis work since it will give me a hard deadline to work towards.

Totally Lame Excuse

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 18:55:00 +0000

Well... The last couple of weeks seem to have slipped by without even a thought for my blog. I had such good intentions as well. My only defense is that I have been too busy/distracted by other things to write anything interesting.

So after the evil sore throat from hell, I was visited by a rather interesting stomach thingy that also inflicted itself upon Marta. Being the ~~stubborn~~ stupid person that I am, I refused to go to the doctors, since it was only giving me alternating hunger pangs and loss of appetite. I thought that the two evened out and that (as always) I would have to wait for an appointment so long that it would have sorted itself out anyway. I was right.

I have also been away from Manchester for the (long) weekend, due to the festival of Diwali. I'm not particularly religious, but these things are always a good excuse to have a good time with family so I do actually look forward to them in a way. The trip to London included the now mandatory visit to the Trocadero Centre in order for me to have a go on the arcade version of Drummania. Sadly, it was not switched on when we arrived (having walked through possibly the worst rain I have ever walked through) and I was not pleased. Me, Anu and Vijay managed to entertain ourselves with Time Crisis 3, Out Run SP2 and the arcade version of Mario Kart though, so it wasn't all bad. We rounded off our adventure with a few rides each on a mechanical bull! Here are some videos in the stupid 3gp format that most phones use:

http://www.hep.man.ac.uk/u/shiv/family/bulls/

We also managed to get to a restaurant called Ikkyusan in China-Town that runs an all-you-can eat sushi deal for £14-ish on certain days. The price includes other foods (Pad Thai, mmmmm) but the sushi is the star of the show and is actually pretty good, even if some people think it's slimy. I will be going there again sometime soon, I'm sure.

While I was in London,somebody tried to break into my house AGAIN. Not cool. They were trying to get in through a window, while Marta was in the house, and didn't seem at all deterred even after seeing her. It's all very worrying and quite upsetting, but luckily nobody was hurt and nothing got taken. It still makes me a sad panda....

I came back to Manchester to find that I have a job interview tomorrow! It's all a bit scary but hopefully all will be well. I was supposed to be going out shopping for interview-clothes today, but I managed to put it off so much that I decided that I had run out of time. I will have to make do with wearing on of my suits, which should be okay - it's hard to look bad in a suit really - but I really wanted to use this opportunity to make myself buy some things I have needed for a long, long time. I hate shopping for clothes, probably because I am (and also the reason for me being) so rubbish at it. It's a circular problem that I will break one day.

Yesterday was also the PhD viva for the Dr. FormerlyKnown as Sarah. Minor corrections aside, she is now no longer "one of us" and may soon start talking about students in a very unflattering way. Seeing someone else get through it all is really encouraging for me and kind of motivating, but I also have a feeling of dread that grows every time I talk to someone about how their viva went and what questions they were asked. I guess I will get to my own ordeal in due course. For now though, WELL DONE SARAH!

Speaking of which, the thesis - almost forgot about that for a second! - has grown by a few pages since last contact, and not because I just added some figures either. The pace has been far from blistering over the past week or so, but it's hardly surprising all the distractions that have been coming my way lately. The interview tomorrow and plans for Friday and the rest of the weekend mean that this will have been an extremely lean week when it comes to writing... Next week is when the real work begins. Honest.

Final thing - I promised ~~Sarah~~ Dr. Dyer that I would post an image of one fo the extra characters from an anime called Yakitate!! Japan for her - here is Brad Kidd in all his glory:

I hate being ill!

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:12:00 +0000

I am sure if it has something to do with travelling on (dirty?) trains all the time, but I am ill again. Not good.

I don't feel too flu-y or cold-y, but my throat is absolutely killing me and I am really tired. This has put a serious dent in my writing over the past couple of days - i.e. I have done next to nothing - which is really annoying. I have gone out this morning and bought some blacksips - like lemsip, but blackcurrent - to see if that will help with the horrendous itchyness in my throat.

Perhaps now is the time to use the fallback plan of putting in most of my diagrams and screenshots - sure to bulk up the page count and has to be done at some point.

The Cliffhanger

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 22:59:00 +0000

Looks like the daily updates went down the pan.... The only real excuse I have is that I have actually been getting some writing (and other things) done so I haven't felt the need to tell myself off in public quite so much.

I am now up to 59 pages, which is not a monumental increase since Monday, but the past few missed-blog days have seen me get to grips with my first figure, table and bibliograpy entry. So lots of new LaTeX strings to my bow as well as a page-count increase. Not too shabby. Now the trick is to see if I can continue the reasonable pace into the next week and beyond.

The tension, I am sure, is killing oh so many people (AK and VJ probably) so I will keep you (i.e. them) updated.

Twenty Pages!

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 20:51:00 +0000

Horray for me! My thesis is now roughly twenty pages longer than it was this morning, which is pretty good going, in anyone's book. Most of it came from using a sty file from Sarah that puts all of the formatting as it should be according to University regulations and also adds some empty (for now) pages for a glossary, acknowledgements and other things. There was some real work though - I added a few pages about the Firefox extension part of my work and it felt good to get some actual words down rather than just writing in bullet points of what I will write later.

I am currently on 52 pages (including the empty ones) without any diagrams or screenshots of the bits of software I have worked on, which is pretty reasonable considering the fact that there are a couple of chapters I haven't even started on yet. I found a thesis in our group's library that is less than 100 pages and mostly diagrams. Not sure if I should be concentrating on quantity rather than quality, but at this point any measure which makes me think I might have a chance of finishing this before Christmas is a good thing. Ideally I will be finished before December the 8th so I can treat myself to a Wii.... how cool that would be!

Forward Planning

noreply@blogger.com (Shiv) — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 22:59:00 +0000

The weekend has been somewhat unproductive... not entirely surprising considering all the work I did during the week. I was sure to need some time to relax.

Saturday brought an interesting change from the norm - Matloob from Cambridge was in town visiting family and such, but managed to find some time to fit me in as well. After showing him the amazing awesomeness that is Drummania, we hung out for a while and went to watch Crank later on that day. On the whole I thought that the film was quite enjoyable but it was completely unwatchable for me due to the shakey first-person and third-person camera overload. For some reason watching such things (like Blair Witch Project or the first scene from Saving Private Ryan) makes me feel very, very nauseous. The same happens when playing certain games (mainly FPSs) on my PC. It's more than a bit annoying since it makes me feel that I am missing out on a lot of good films and a whole genre (and more) of video games. Ah well, nobody's perfect.

Saturday also saw the beginning of a third member in the household - Juhan is moving in. Which meant I had to move all of my ~~junk~~ stuff from the spare/guest room to make space for his mountain of things. Just moving my things up a flight of stairs reminded me how much I hate moving... I do not envy Juhan at all, especially since he is going to be cramming his entire flat into the smallest room in the house.

Today I was at my ickle sister's house yet again, making final repairs to her PC and installing Ubunutu.Hooray for Linux! I am sure that she only wants it because she found out it has a program that tests your hiragana knowledge. That and the awesome effect of a 3D desktop environment, complete with wobbly windows. Didn't manage to get the wobbly stuff in place before I had to leave to catch the last train (where I am right now) back to Manchester. I did manage to get her non-Microsoft Remote working with Windows Media Centre though, so she is now able to be even lazier and control her PC without having to lean towards it from her bed. Her PC is so much better than mine... I have no idea how that happened.

Anyway, that's my exciting weekend, which I am sure thousands of people will now feel compelled to comment on. I am really quite tired now - I am having trouble keeping my eyes open and the gentle swaying of the train is having a non-trivial effect on me as well.. I got up at 5.45 this morning so I could watch the Chinese Grand Prix and it is now well after midnight. Marta said I should just record it, but she doesn't understand that you just HAVE to watch it live. Especially now that things are so close at the front end of both championships.

I forsee this tiring weekend, especially today, having a knock-on effect in terms of tomorrow's thesis productivity. At least I will have an excuse for being asleep when I should be at work. If you were to look at it carefully, you might even start to think that this whole weekend was engineered by me to get a decent excuse for yet ANOTHER day of low productivity. But that would be far to clever for me to think of - I never plan that far ahead.