Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 - 20:26

Hooray! Hooray! It's a sat-ur-sat-ur-day! (Ahem!)

1. Work has been pah.. as I was saying, it's been a bit of a struggle. I spent most of Friday going through a big list of stuff that was outstanding, but there's just too much to do (which is somewhat disheartening). It wasn't an unenjoyable day sat in the office bantering and tying up loose ends paperwork (or rather, computerwork) wise, but.. I had plenty things to do in the lab too which I was unable to do.

2. It's stressy. This, in combination with what the occupational health nurse discussed with me, well it's worrying. I just need less to do, and/or people to delegate some of my work to. Alas I don't trust most of my colleagues to do some of my tasks - they're busy enough. It's going to be a tough next week what with various absences and my bosses being on site, and..

3. ...PAH! It's the weekend, I'm not going to think about it :-) Though I have had to bring some work home this weekend - mostly just reading, but some planning to do too.

4. In July 2009, Ferdinand Ambach, 32, a Hungarian tourist, was convicted of killing Ronald Brown, 69, by hitting him with a banjo and shoving the instrument's neck down Brown's throat. Ambach was initially charged with murder, but the charge was downgraded to manslaughter after Ambach's lawyer successfully invoked the gay panic defense.

5. I've not felt as horny this past week as I was in previous weeks. In fact I was having a quick shuffle yesterday evening and had to stop because.. well I was just struck with a sort of realisation that I was being gross.

6. There isn't a punchline to that last comment along the lines of "..well, I was wanking on the bus home", as I was just lain in bed at home. I just felt very 'blargh' and rolled over then went to sleep.

7. Got a letter today telling me that my student loan was paid off fully now (and had been since March). This put me in an angry confused state because I'm still having 25 quid a month removed from my salary. I anticipated having to conduct terse discussions with my company HR people again, ask them what they're playing at. This put me in a bit of a cacky mood.

8. Thankfully, more careful looking at the letter(s) later on showed that the loan paid off was the one from when I was at university between '96 and '99, not the later one which I took out during my PGCE. Looks like the one being paid off via my salary. Alas I've no letters saying how much of that loan has been paid off (the loan was sold to a different credit company, I think) so I'll just have to wait and see about that one.

9. Is the best way of ranking things based on the mean of their attributes, then the standard deviation? I mean, given the example football teams with defence/midfield/attack ratings of 8/7/7, 8/8/8, 9/7/8 and 6/8/8 a good way to rank them would be to work out the averages, and then the SDs, (ending up with 1st 8/8/8, 2nd 9/7/8, 3rd 8/7/7 and 4th 6/8/8) hence working out the relative strengths of each team, and the 'balance' of the side?

10. ..I have never seen that dress you're wearing, or the highlights in your hair that catch your rice, I have been blind..

11. Watched that Derren Brown 'How I Predicted The Lottery' show yeaterday, and.. well I was disappointed really. The show was fine if intended (and taken) as more Derren Brown showmanship pshychological influencing tricks (such as getting people to stamp on paper cups with knives/mice under) but that's not what it was supposed to be, I fear.

12. When he started spurting shit about how one could pick the lottery numbers (non-continuous values taken from a subset which must average out at 25) based on the phenomenon of 'the wisdom of crowds' as discovered by Galton when the mean guess of a group of people estimating the weight of cattle (a continuous value, taken from people being able to make an educated assessment of a weight, which was not contricted to a maximum or restricted to integers).. well I just lost a bit of respect for Derren Brown's ability to not talk utter bollocks. It made the show a big disappointment, and detracted somewhat from whatever trickery or clever showmanship he used to actually do the stunt.

13. Oh, and in answer to a reader t'other day, I never was a teacher in Southampton, just a doctorate student (though I did admittedly tutor medical students and run class practicals then) and a pursuader of female housemates to turn to the dark side and give in to the temptation of their repressed sexual desires.

14. Quite a few goals in the afternoon's games in the Premier League - 28 in the seven games played this afternoon..

15. Wolves travelled to Ewood Park, and were outclassed. Blackburn managed three goals in the first hour of the game, and were always in control from that point, even with a late Wolves consolation to make it 3-1 at the close.

16. Arsenal also went 'oop north' to play the millionaires of Manchester City, and the Middle Eastern guys seem to have bought a team worthy of challenging the top four. Adebayor had a great game, even with controversy, and City won 4-2.

17. Stoke welcomed Chelsea to The Potteries, and made a very very good hash of it, taking the lead after half an hour. Cruelly though, Chelsea's class showed through in the end, and at the very end Malouda scored a winner to make it 2-1.

18. West Ham went to Wigan (wasn't this the game last year where two were, or should have been, sent off?) and lost to the sole goal of the game, scored by Hugo Rodallega.

19. Liverpool hosted Burnley at Anfield, needing to get back on track (starting the day languishing in 7th place) and keep themselves in the hunt. A somewhat unlikely hat-trick here in Yossi Benayoun, plus a goal from Kuyt gave the home side a 4-0 win. Burnley look like they might be now facing reality.

20. In a potential relegation battle, Hull went to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland, and again the North-Easterners looked the more likely to survive (and may even be comfortably in mid table come May). It ended 4-1 to the red and whites, leaving the Tigers in the bottom five.

21. Bolton journeyed to the south coast to play Portsmouth, and had the best of five goals in an entertaining match. Gary Cahill got a very late winner and Pompey went down 3-2.

22. Looks like Troy Polamalu has fallen to The Madden Curse in rupturing his ACL (after a wonderful pick-off in the 1st quarter) during The Steelers' opening day win over The Titans.

23. Watched a couple more episodes of 'Teachers'. I like the policeman girlfriend (Maggie), and also quite fancy the character of Susan. That said, she's a sassy lady and would eat me alive.

24. Middlesbrough faced Roy Keane's Ipswich at The Riverside, and continued the bad start for the psychopathic moody Irish mancunt. Aliadiere got a couple as Boro ran out 3-1 winners and moved into second place. At five o'clock today the top three teams were the three teams that went down last year (in reverse order).

25. In the late Premiership kick-off of the day, (joint) table toppers Spurs welcomed the reigning champions Manchester U-shite-d. Bloody cheating Ferguson's fuckers won 3-1. Still, it kept up the average of four goals a game :-)

LISTENING TO:- Um.. Shed Seven 'Change Giver', because it takes me back to being sixteen again. Plus I've also been listening to Teenage Fanclub 'Grand Prix' for the same reasons.