It’s just a jump to the left

It was a fairly busy day for me yesterday, didn’t wake up until about 11am (thanks to being up until 3am on UA, really must stop doing that… :), then crawled out of bed about half an hour later because I was tired but realised I couldn’t go back to sleep as I had things to do.

First item on the agenda was to go to man-lug, my local Linux Users’ Group (yes, I am sad enough to spend Saturday afternoon with a bunch of fellow geeks). Before that I had to grab a bite to eat, unfortunately the sandwich shop had closed at this point but the door was still open so I managed to wing myself a sandwich from the helpful lady behind the counter. I then jumped on the first bus going towards the university, only to be stopped half-way because the drivers were changing over and then there was some march in Rusholme (not sure what it was about, lots of people with big banners though) so we got stopped by the police and had to wait until the crowd had moved on.

At man-lug Dave Fisher of gbdirect gave a thought-provoking talk with the title “What’s wrong with free software?”. He raised a number of interesting points, some of which were common sense, others which I hadn’t really considered before. Paul Abbott then followed up with an interesting talk on Bolton TIC, hopefully he will get the help he needs to make it a great success.

After man-lug I moved onto the pub, walking all the way to the science park only to find out that the Old Abbey Inn was closed and I had a text off Lizzy saying “we’re in Kro” (which is about 100 yards from where man-lug is hosted!). As usual Kate and Lizzy were giggling in one corner, making us paranoid as always. Also, people kept coming into our part of the room, looking at either Julian or me, and then making a hurried exit! We’re not that bad surely?

After a while I went to pick up Ed from Salford, managed to get there and back in under an hour and a half which is quite impressive considering it’s a fair way plus I have to walk half of it. We then stayed in Kro to wait for Jon and Lucy, during which time Lizzy managed to nearly blind me by taking a photo with the flash on her camera from about three feet away. Eventually though the others arrived and we got a taxi to Cez and David’s house.

The party was pretty good, there was “mess” available to eat (a weird concoction of cherries, marshmallows and I think Angel Delight—whatever it was it tasted damn nice) and “extreme coco” to drink. For those of you who have not been initiated, Extreme Coco is basically loads of cocoa powder, chocolate ice cream, milk and sugar all mixed together to give you one hell of a glucose high. I was rather worried by how fast and heavily my heart seemed to be beating after just a couple of mugs.

After a while of playing Donkey Bongo (sort of like those arcade games where you have to use dance mats and keep up with the tunes, but using bongos instead), it was decided that we’d watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show on DVD. Much hilarity ensued, especially when the Time Warp came on and nearly everyone got up and started to dance (with the exception of Lizzy, who decided to take some photos instead!). It’s just a jump to the left… (and then a step to the right—I’m sure you know the words 😉

We also watched Back to Reality and Quarantine, two great episodes of Red Dwarf from series V. Mr Flibble’s very cross! 🙂

After Red Dwarf there was a short scuffle on the sofa before the majority of the group left. Unfortunately Ed and I hit the club throwing out time so it was actually quicker to walk than try and wait for a bus that had space on it, but even then it only took us an hour to get back which wasn’t too bad considering the distance.

Anyway, it’s approaching 5pm and I have got nothing done so I must get on with some work. 🙁