GenesisDreams

The Church

Friends - Fun - Travel I went to The Church in London yesterday. I went to drink, to party, to have a great time. I am a sinner and I needed to be purified with alcohol. Here's the full story. Saturday morning, bright an early, about 3pm, Bruce and I finally dragged ourselves out of bed, shoved some clothes into our backpacks and headed off to the train station. We were on our way to London! After arriving at St Pancras we made our way to Bruce's sister's place (near Russell square) where we dumped our stuff, and had a quick meal of pizza. We had plans to meet up with Anna and Sarah that night. Slight tangent here, I don't think I've talked about Anna and Sarah before... Well while I was in Italy I met these two fantastic British girls Anna and Sarah. They were travelling the same sort of route I was, but more importantly they could party the same sort of way I was, so we ended up travelling together for more than two weeks. For those of you who have seen my trip photos, they are the two blonde girls that feature in a lot of my Italy pictures. Anyway they had just finished Uni and were enjoying their last free summer before they both took up trainee solicitor jobs in London. We had a great time together and promised to keep in touch when we were back in the UK. So back to the story… So we headed out to Covent Garden, to this really nice place called Henry’s to meet up with Anna and Sarah and some of their friends. The drinks were expensive, but the place was cool, and this was London after all. We traded stories, caught up with what we’ve all been up to these last couple of months, and generally had a really good time. Bruce and I knew that we were going to The Church the next day so we didn’t end up getting totally blind drunk. Just a little drunk. After Henry’s closed (at 11pm, again English drinking hours SUCK!) were wandered around, was going to go to the Garden Club, but the line was massive and it cost £12 entry. Again London prices, but yeah, Bruce and I said our goodbyes, stumbled back to his sister’s place (after a number of wrong turns) and talked to his sister for a couple of hours before crashing. At 10am the next morning we were up and about! Why this ungodly hour? Well we only have a little while before we needed to be at Church. The whole original reason for coming down to London was to meet up with my friend Bull and go to The Church. It was Bull’s second last day in the country, he had come up to see me earlier this month (see this entry) and I wanted to return the favour and see him off. He will be back in Australia by Christmas, his travelling days over for the moment. So he met us outside the tub station at Kentish Town and we made our way to the place of worship. The Church is an institution. It’s something that you simply have to do. It involves drinking, and more drinking. You worship alcohol in the best way possible. You can only buy drinks in multiples of three. So you drink, and then drink some more, then drink even more. There was music, and alcohol, and woman seemed to flash their boobies at a lot. The place is dark, there is sawdust on the floor, you think it’s night time, but it’s not. There were Aussies everywhere, as well as lots of Kiwis and South Africans. We were pissed by midday, and literally falling down by 4pm came round and it was time to leave. If you go to The Church you go to get drunk, there is really not much point otherwise. Fragma, you would have loved it. Once we left the Church we found a nice quiet bar near Kings Cross station called Scream. We had some more drinks, had some food and then got ready to go home. So we got back on the tube and completely randomly bumped into these other guys who we had seen at the Church, so we went off to a pub called Punch and Judy in Covent Garden with them, had even more drinks, and then did finally have to push off. We said goodbye to Bull, it was great seeing him again, and I’ll be really sad to see him go. So far I’ve only seen Bull, Jacqui and Morgs from back home and I hate it when they all have to leave again. So we eventually made our way back to Bruce’s sister’s place, grabbed out stuff, and singing Waltzing Matilda at the top of our voices, stumbled back to where our train was leaving from. We eventually got home (back in Nottingham) around midnight and I promptly fell straight asleep. What a weekend.

Hackers Of The World Unite!

Fun - University One of the subjects I am studying this semester is Computer Security. In fact it's almost the only thing I've been working on at Uni lately. I've split my time pretty much between it and Japanese. My other subjects can wait until swotvac, I'll do revision for them then. Anyway the coursework for Computer Security is a lot of fun. We each get given a computer in an isolated lab. We then have four weeks to set up a number of services on it (SSH/SFTP/Webserver) and make it as secure as possible. After that initial setup phase we have a four week "LIVE" phase, where pretty much anything goes and the aim is to hack into a bring down as many computers as possible. No physical attacks are permitted, and we aren't allowed to do denial of service attacks either, but other than that, everything is fair game. So far my computer has fared really well. It's stood up to all attempts to break into it (well those that I know about at least) and the services run as they should (most of the time). The fun really isn't in securing your own system though, it's in hacking other people's. Having a stable and secure machine as a starting point to hack from helps, but I've personally put most of my energy into attacking other people. And it paid off. This afternoon the poor little box at 128.243.27.248 was penetrated and... TAKEN DOWN! I know whose machine that IP belongs to, and trust me, they deserved what they got. I am not going to go into how access was gained (because it's long winded and a little complicated) but the end result was their box being totally trashed, everything deleted, forcing them to do a full rebuild. Oh the joy! I shouldn't be getting so much pleasure from causing a lot of trouble to other people, but I do. It's so much fun. The thrill you get when you gain access is fantastic. It's such a rush! You know you might be noticed at anytime, that your connection may be shut down. You are working against the clock, and you want to do as much damage as possible. I think I've awoken my inner sadist. It was far far too much fun inflicting all that pain. They will need to spend hours and hours rebuilding they machine now. Poor them. Anyway I think I got a bit carried away. It was worth it though and I learnt a lot. Hackers of the world unite! Note: All the hacking involved in this course is done so as part of the curriculum and is authorised by the University. We are only allowed to hack in a special lab and it is isolated from the rest of the world. What we learn to do is illegal and no I don't do it outside of the labs. Listening to Orbital – Halcyon & On & On off the Hackers soundtrack. Of course.

Childishness

Personal - Quotes

"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -- C.S. Lewis.

This is my quote of the moment. I don't know what it is, maybe living in this house, with these friends, with this lifestyle, but I think I am becoming younger by the minute. And I am loving it.

Memories Unwind

Friends - Travel Bon Voyage Ads! When I got out of bed yesterday (*cough* gogo ni-ji made desu *cough* ) I logged on (who am I kidding, I am permanently logged on), checked my email, and found a surprise waiting for me. Ads had sent me an email 30 minutes before heading off to the train station to begin his Great Eurotrip Extravaganza! TM. I had talked with him before about it, traded emails containing travel tips and suggested itineraries. I just didn't realise the time has flown by so fast and that departure time had arrived. He should be in Spain about now, with plans to meet up with Morgs. So I just want to say good luck Ads! Have a safe trip and lots of fun along the way. Don't be afraid to screw up, take things as they come, and simply enjoy yourself. I am sure you are going to have a fantastic time. I'm looking forward to meeting up with you in Paris in December and catching up on the year that was back home that I completely missed out on. I can't wait to see you again mate. Take care. Written while listening to Perfect by The Smashing Pumpkins.

First Snow

Friends - Fun - General It's snowing in Nottingham! I was walking back from Uni this afternoon and it started to rain, then it stopped raining and started to snow! Eventually the snow was think on the tops of all the cars, and Nikkie, Viki and I had a big snow ball fight. I must admit that I was a snow ball virgin, but I held my own, and it was great fun. It was freezing cold, and we were running up and down the street like lunatics, but I wouldn't have traded it for anything. We were acting like children, making heaps of noise, and people kept looking out of their windows at us, but still, it was fantastic. I want to do it again. I am not looking forward to the cold of this England winter and this early snow fall doesn't bode well for a mild season. However if I would like a white Christmas, I would like to walk through the streets of London in the snow, and I would like to have more snow ball fights! So I will bare with it ^_^ Listening to Shimmer by Fuel.

Good Luck!

Japan - Television Good Luck! is a 10 episode Japanese mini-series about a Japanese pilot who has just got his wings. Nash recommended it to me, and truth be told, I loved it. I don't know what it is about J-Drama but it's addictive in a way that is completely different to western shows. The plot was interesting, the characters engaging, and the ending theme song was cool too. Also it was strange to see Shibasaki Kou as Ogawa Ayumi, last time I saw her she was killing people in Battle Royale! Anyway having actually almost mastered my katakana and hiragana now, I found I could pick up a lot more while watching the show, I could actually read sings, thing written on bits of paper, the karaoke lyrics at the end of the show to go along with the theme song. I also found my comprehension of what they were saying to be a lot better. My vocab is still pretty much nonexistent, but now that I have a greater understanding of Japanese grammar I could at least make more sense of the sentences and understand why things were said the way they were. I did mention I was studying Japanese as one of my subjects this year didn't I?

The Edge of Reason

Movies Our house went to see the new Bridget Jones movie last night. Minus Graeme who for some reason stayed at home. Nikkie somehow managed to convince us all to go out and see it, and I am shamefully glad that she did. I really liked this movie, but maybe that's just the weird mood I've been in for the last couple of weeks. Graeme and Viki are cooking a roast chicken for dinner tonight. The smell is wafting all the way up here to my room. It's been so long since I last had a roast. I can't wait till Mum comes over for Christmas.

More Orange County

Television Well I aquired episode two of the second season of everyone's favourite series The O.C. Again all my housemates crammed into my room as the drama unfolded. The girls think that the "garden boy" is fit. Silly girls ^_^ Edit: Woops, I forgot, they read this now.

Oh No!

Friends - Metaposts My housemates have discovered this blog. The end is near!

Old Friends

Friends My friend Bull came to stay with me for a couple of days earlier this week. He is currently working at a Walkabout pub in Bromley Kent. Typical Aussie traveller type gig. He is heading back home in December though, so I wanted to catch up with him before he left. We got drunk, very drunk. I'll upload pictures soon.