OS X - Because it’s X-tian baby…, originally uploaded by NoirinP.

Out of maybe eight or nine laptops I saw in Ovoca over the weekend, I think all bar one were Macs of some description!

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I got back yesterday from the TCD Christian Union weekend away. It was amazing, on several levels.

I haven’t taken (m)any photos in a very long time. I took a few one day, playing around with Stephen’s camera, but nothing of note… I decided to bring a camera along this weekend, in the hopes of getting back into the habit - during the summer semester in Munich, the three things I wouldn’t leave the house without were keys, transport pass, and camera.

I was a bit worried about space, so I decided to take my Canon - a not-so-small PowerShot. I was glad in some ways, because it meant that it could fit in my pocket, and so I had it with me all the time. However, it was also a nuisance - the amount of tweaking I could do to settings was pretty limited, and it’s slow. I missed some really nice shots because it just takes so very long to take a photo, some more because I had a choice of nicely exposed or sharp, and a few real beauties because I had no way of telling the camera “I want you to focus on these two points, and ignore the rest”…

It was really quite amazing how many Macs were to be found - there were iBooks, PowerBooks, and at least one MacBook Pro… I couldn’t even count the number of iPods in evidence, and the speaker had a very cool iPod HiFi, which would nearly make me want an iPod!

However, I reckon my next big purchase is going to have to be some fashion of camera… What I want is something with the functionality of the Canon 400D, with the form factor of the Ixus 50… Suggestions please?

As of yesterday (November 1st), and inspired by Suw, I’ll be giving up sugary drinks for three months. My definition of “sugary” is anything with more than “trace” sugars per 100ml. Alcoholic drinks aren’t included, although I tend not to drink them that often anyway…

Wish me luck - and if you want to join in, feel free to sign the pledge, any time before November 22nd! I’ll need all the encouragement I can get, so here goes!

I’m just back from the St James’s - I went to visit Grandad, only to find that he’d been discharged a few hours previously… Oh well, but at the same time, I’m kind of glad - I’ll talk to him later on, and I just can’t bear hospitals, even when I’m not the patient!

The last week has been chaotic, to say the least! Stephen & I visited the airport, but decided in the end not to elope He headed off to Mountain View first thing on Monday morning, and seems to be having a ball. I miss him, lots, but thankfully it’s only for three weeks… (Only!? ONLY!?!) As if that weren’t enough chaos, we have no broadband at home, and our interim-phone-service dies today. Turns out switching to Smart wasn’t so smart after all - here’s hoping Magnet sticks for a bit longer! “Number porting in progress” has been the only status they have from Eircom for a fairly insane amount of time, so who knows when we’ll actually have internet access again… Wah

College is going, well, heavily… Currently, I’m trying to come up with novel things to do with databases - and if that were only half as much fun as it sounds, it’d be a whole heap more fun than it is. I joined two societies this year, and I’m doing ok on balance, keeping active in one of them Everything else has gotten slightly neglected, but next week is the big-plan for fixing that… (We’ll see how that goes!) I’m also halfway through trying to update my CV, and figure out some of my options for next year - getting out of this ‘college’ place is definitely on my list of priorities!

I’ve got a weird sort of a cold - every morning and every evening, I’m headachy and cold and snuffly, and my glands are all swollen… Once I’ve gotten up and have been going about for a while though, I’m usually just fine… How odd?

I got the bus home late-ish last night, feeling horrifically sorry for myself… I started playing Puzzles, and ‘woke up’ at the Texaco at the end of my road, having missed my stop - but still close enough to home for it not to be a big problem… I went downstairs and asked the driver if I could please get off there, since he was stopped. He said “Next stop, lights are about to change”, and I shut up and let him drive. After he’d pulled off, he explained that he hadn’t wanted to get stuck in all the traffic, which I thought was fair enough, and I told him I’d just been chancing it anyway. After a moment’s silence, he said, in a very English accent “That’s bad grammar too, innit? You asked “Could I get off”. Shoulda been “Can I get off?”". A most amusing discussion ensued, about whether or not I was capable of getting off, and who precisely would be most likely to know A moment or two later, he suggested that “If you asked if you could borrow some money - and I said “I don’t got no money”…” and seemed really pleased when I said “Oh, so you have got some money? Can I borrow it?” - apparently the last person he’d tried to explain that to had taken two weeks to understand it The simple conversation made my day…

Oh people, amuse me? Or, y’know, bring back my bonnie to me, to me?