Louisa Parry :: Journal

Went to WYLUG tonight and since everyone was fiddling with EeePCs (or however it’s capped), I thought I’d grab some photos of the group at play. There were five of the machines in total flying around so I labelled it an EeeeeeeeeeeeeeePC session.

If I wasn’t already looking at paying out for a new laptop (suitable for use a desktop) in the near future, I suspect I’d be tempted by one of the Asus machines - but as it is, we’ll probably wait until the next generation (or so) before “investing” — let everyone else be bug testers first and wait until the manufacturers have “shared” their good ideas a bit.

Anyway, my real reason for posting this message is that I’ve uploaded the photos from tonight to my Flickr account (including one of a rude but happy Potato Guy) and set up a WYLUG Flickr group for sharing WYLUG snaps in the future. Doing that also reminded me to upload some photos I took at the summer social last year. Hopefully I’ll add more in the future.

When I moved to Leeds in May 2000, I made a friend through work. Actually, I made a number of friends through work - I made more friends in that the six months in that job than I did in the rest of my (five and a half) years at the university combined - but for the sake of this post, I’m thinking about one person in particular.

We weren’t bestest-best buds or anything but we had a laugh together. He used to hang out in my office quite a bit during the day, we’d sometimes have lunch together in the department’s senior common room and we went to the pub together from time to time on various department-related outings or celebrations. After I left, we continued to meet up every couple of months at pubs or department parties and the like until, eventually, other stuff got in the way and we drifted apart.

About three years later, I was walking through the university at the end of the day, heading the back way into town to avoid the crowds, when I saw someone that looked like this person coming the other way up the cliff of steps. Given a few years had passed and the turnover of people through the uni is so vast, I wasn’t sure if it was him so didn’t say anything to be on the safe side. Then I saw him again on another two occasions in quick succession - same place, same time - and I realised it definitely was my old friend — but by then I thought it would be weird to say hello or acknowledge him because I’d essentially just ignored him the first two times. Of course, since we then passed each other just about every night for months, it was as equally awkward continuing to not acknowledge each other.
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At hideously-early o’clock (8.55) yesterday morning, a knock on the door awoke me from my slumber. Not expecting delivery of anything or anyone, I couldn’t be bothered getting up to answer since it was likely to be a spammer (we get lots of annoying salespeople around here). But, like with the cats I so utterly adore, curiosity got the better of me eventually. By that time though, there was a “we missed you” Royal Mail card on the doormat and the postman was halfway down the street and I had to chase after him barefoot and in my pyjamas. That was fun.

Anyway, the registered letter of horrid-awakening-and-cold-feet turned out to be my Manhattans Reunion tickets: the pieces of card which will whisk Andrew and me ten years back in time. I am still intrigued but nervous about this little event but on the whole looking forward to it.

For anyone that cares (and I know a number of people have come this blog recently through searching “manhattans reunion” or the like, so they might even if no one else does), that photo-booth picture up there is what I looked like when I frequented the ‘hattans all those years ago (mid-1995 to end-of-1997). Looking at it from this angle, I’m the one of the left; my right hand man, of course, being Andrew. Actually, that isn’t really what we looked like at Manhattans: that’s what we looked like at about 3am on a Monday morning at the Hartshead Moor services on the way back from V97 in Leeds after 48+ hours without sleep. We still went to Manhattans that night.

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Contrary to popular belief that I’m a chocolate fiend, I don’t often peruse chocolate bars selections in shops these days because 1) I don’t frequent that many shops (or leave the house much for that matter), and 2) if we have chocolate, we tend to buy a big block and eat it a few squares at a time.

This is why it’s taken me a whole SIX DAYS to discover that Cadbury’s have relaunched their Wispa bar on the back of a public campaign.

Wispas were discontinued in 2003 when Cadbury’s rebranded all their stuff “Dairy Milk bubbly” or “Dairy Milk with caramel” etc. I was gutted when they did this because, without a doubt, Wispas are the best chocolate bar for dunking in tea and the “Dairy Milk bubbly” bars just didn’t perform in the same way.

As with most solid chocolate, Dairy Milk, with or without bubbles, is too heavy to absorb enough liquid to make tea dunking a worthwhile melting experience - but conversely, the bubbles in Aeros and the like are too big and they melt too fast. Wispas were the optimum middle ground between the two sub-standard extremes.

So anyway, I got a bit over-excited when I spotted them for sale again yesterday. I bought two and the Leach and I are currently enjoying them with a nice piping hot cup of char. Smashing.

Did you, like me and Andrew, frequent the “indie room” (aka the little room) in Manhattans in Southport a decade ago? Did you walk with a bob to assorted Britpop tunes, sit down when James commanded and lie on the sticky, sticky floor to Radiohead (??)?

If so, you may be interested to know that some Facebookers have organised a reunion night for later in the year.

I haven’t joined the Facebook group because I have random issues with the system (and not just that Microsoft now owns part of it) but pending final confirmation of diaries and public transport arrangements, Andrew & I will be there on the night. I’m a little nervous about the whole idea to be honest but also rather intrigued…

• My 18th birthday night out in Manhattans - a nostalgic write-up :)

Dear the very small cross section of people that both read my blog and use our bathroom,

Next time you’re in there doing your whatever, you might smell something strange. Assuming you’ve not eating asparagus recently and your bowels aren’t acting strangely, the smell is probably our toilet roll. Yes, our current toilet roll provision is perfumed.

Scented toilet roll is apparently the new gimmick for people who need to differentiate from all the multi-layered, quilted, printed, themed and cushioned options out there and I bought it by accident. I worry about the people who buy it on purpose. Do they have such issues with their poop that they can’t possibly let a piece of tissue that smells of shit go down to the sewers? I mean, what on earth would the people at the sewage works thing of them?

Another worry I have is the build-up of sickly smelling chemicals will cause damage to the environment - I’m certainly not going to be composting the inner tubes as I usually do as that seems to be the bit that is actually soaked in the perfume.

Anyway blog-readers-and-bathroom-users, have fun during your waste product expelling, push the flush a couple of times in quick succession to get it to work and don’t forget to wash your hands.

Yours,
-Louisa

PS. Apparently ‘faeces’ is a pluralia tantum - it only exists in the plural, you never have a ‘faece’ - while ‘urine’ is a singulare tantum, you don’t get ‘urines’. There’s something to ponder while you’re on the pot, eh?