Monday, September 17, 2007

Alpacas and cello strings

Argh. It’s been a bit insane at the moment. So where the bloody hell have I been for the last 10 days?

Let me start with saying that for the last 2 years we’ve been writing the new version of our software, which we'd code named "Alpaca". Why? Well, unlike Java, which codenames all it's latest versions cool sounding names like "Kestral", "Tiger", "Mustang" and other fast and interesting things, we decided that, not being anywhere near that cool, should start with the letter A, and name it the stupidest looking animal we could think of. Look at this thing:

Frankly, it's fucking pathetic.

So right this very minute, we’re now on the hairy edge of releasing Alpaca, and have got a code freeze in place for this Wednesday. So we’ve been frantically trying to bug fix for the last few months, which means I've not really been around to blog. Despite having done cool things like stay at the Hotel Li, for a fun weekend of re-aquainting myself with booze (yes, at the dinner table at a very lovely restaurant, whilst Li and C were chatting, I actually turned to the bottle of wine, looked at it sitting in it's silver wine bucked, chilling in icy water, stroked it lovingly over it's white napkin and whispered "oh Alcohol, you crazy thing. I've mised you too. You know I couldn't stay mad at you for too long"), getting my arse slightly kicked at the Sex and the City board game... (which turned from a proper game to a quiz show style affair, with C being the quiz master, and Li and I having to slam the table in lieu of a buzzer everytime we knew the answer. By this stage we'd had a few cosmos, so it was all loud, blustery, and painful for my poor hands), lots of shopping, and saving babies from death.

Tonight, C and I went to the Magic's house to play beautiful music. Well, to play some music. ELLSO starts again this Saturday, and obviously I've not picked up the cello for the last 3 months. I've been the cricket that sung for the summer and has nothing to show for it in the winter, or something random like that. So tonight we decided it would be a good idea to get together, having a drink, and a good bash at our instruments. Would have been lovely if, whilst trying to tune my cello, I hadn't thought "Oh i'll just turn the peg a bit", causing the peg to slip, the string to never get back in tune, and eventually, after much fucking about with the peg, for my A string to SNAP. So much for the practise. Instead C and I alternated between playing cello and playing the piano, and Mag held the treble end up by playing violin. It definitely was a nice way to end my day, since it had all been a bit shite up to that point.

So that's really all i've been up to. An even faster, cliff notes special:

Book I'm currently reading
: "The Colditz Story" by P. R. Reid. I've been up to the bit where they attempt to escape at the end for 2 days now. You'd think I'd have finished it, but I keep falling asleep. It really is a great book, but it just makes me sleepy.

Game Currently Playing: Halo 2 on my xbox. "Arbiter, you don't know who you're shooting at cause all the grunts look the same? Arbiter, stop shooting at our ship. It's supposed to have a hull you know. Arbiter, stop fucking about in general"

Last historical thing I toured: The Royal Albert Hall, where we did a private tour, going backstage and underground, for free grâce à the London Open House festival this weekend. Ok this was a bit of a brag, rather than a cliff notes special

Thing I'm most looking forward to right now: Hmm.. sleep? Pie and Mash for lunch tomorrow? Sleep right now? Tricky..

Thing I'm least looking forward to right now: Hmmm... not being able to sleep?

If you have a cliff notes special on your life, then please by all means, post it and let me know, or just leave me a comment. I'm especially interested in the last 2 categories. Whilst I clearly dodged the answers, please leave me proper ones!

So that's it really. A fair bit on, but when our software is out the door, there will hopefully be more imputus and time to blog. Busy, busy, busy.

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