Curry and registration week

ManLUG curry

A few weeks ago, a group of us on the ManLUG IRC channel (#manlug on irc.oftc.net if you want to join us at any point) came up with the idea of getting the group to go out for some social events, as the meetings themselves tend to be rather formal and a bit intimidating if you don’t know anyone. Floating the idea on the mailing list got a rather mixed reception, with some people wanting to go for a Chinese or Thai meal instead and others saying that Fridays weren’t a good night for them. Undeterred, we pressed on regardless and arranged to hold a social event on the Friday just gone.

The evening started off with us meeting at The Clarence pub in Rusholme. I only expected two other people to turn up, so it was nice to see a small trickle build up into a group of six of us after about an hour. We stayed for a couple of drinks before setting off to Sangam for food.

As usual, Sangam put on a good show – it’s certainly one of the better curry houses, although don’t go there with a big group of students as they don’t have many large tables and you’ll be lucky to get jugs of water, even if you ask. The chicken tikka I had for starters was spot on, as was the chicken korma for the main course, and I think everyone was of the opinion that it was a damn good meal all round. The gents toilets were also spotlessly clean, which is always a sign of a properly run restaurant.

After the meal most people set off back to The Clarence for another drink but I’d planned to meet the Megs at the Friendship Inn so I headed off towards Fallowfield. It turned out however that I’d just missed them as turnout had been so low that it had been called a night at 10pm. Unfortunately I’d already bought a pint before realising this so I had to sit outside by myself drinking it before the rest of the way home (in fairness it was a warm night and the pint was very nice).

Registration week events

I know a fair few CS people read my blog, so if you haven’t already seen this the registration week timetable is now available for download (mirrored on FileBucket if the CS site is unavailable for any reason). I’m afraid there’s eleven sessions for us to attend, not to mention the appalling organisation of Friday which involves three one hour sessions but is timetabled to such an extent that you can’t really leave the department between 9am and 4pm). Unfortunately all the sessions are compulsory for everyone in the third year so you might want to bring along a book or your PSP. 😉

Data Circle

In other (relatively minor) news, I’ve launched another of my sites, Data Circle, from where I’ll be commenting on the latest technology news and keeping people up to date with releases of software such as the new Firefox and Thunderbird betas. Multiple author support is enabled, so if you want to contribute just register for an account and you should be able to post drafts which I can then approve, or alternatively if you want to add things regularly I’ll grant you posting permissions.