Tuesday

The main thing about this week had to have been the SU elections for next year. Unlike last year, there was quite a bit of a contest for most of the high-profile spots (i.e. the sabbaticals!) leading to a lot of canvassing. This meant campaign t-shirts for all those involved; the creation of posters, some with fancy Photoshop work (Andrew the “Anchorman”), some just plain and boring (humanities guy); the guillotine was overworked for the first time in forever, chopping up all the pages into leaflets; and an insane amount of lollipops, sweets and other things filled with sugar that would have made all the ladies from the health fair look on in disgust.

Not to mention the fact that I apparently wasn’t in the database this year and so wasn’t able to vote – thank you again, you fuckers in the Registry… :angry:

Wednesday

The second day of voting for the SU, thankfully saw the place quietening down a bit. Posters were already torn down and the place was turning back to normal. At least until Clubs and Socs days next year :S

The afternoon was one of the more hectic ones, with both Airsoft and Games Soc having their AGM’s on at the exact same time. After hanging around with Games Soc for a bit until after 2 (AGM hadn’t started as for the lack of quorum), so for a quick run down to the Airsoft one, take a few show of hands votes, give Ordinary Member a shot and not win, then leg it back up with everyone to the Games Soc one as nearly all of them are members.

AGM was brief enough. Every position bar two went uncontested, and the only reason those two were contested was because of our nooby first year meaning just a little too well. Needless to say he didn’t make it. Oh, and I’m Console Ents for next year. Woo. To quote Robby: I finally made it. I’m not going to delve into how badly our resident noob lost in both his attempts, but let’s say it was near-unanimous.

And Games Soc won Best Society and the Clubs and Socs Awards. Epic win

Thursday

Thursday was mainly spent recovering from the night before. Lab gaming was a very subdued affair seeing as how firstly very few people were there, but also as the lab would be closing way earlier than usual because of a scheduled power cut the following morning. No matter, there were SU election counts and recounts to enjoy.

There was a good bit of tension as the Education and Welfare candidates were all around for the results of a recount which increased the winning margin from 3 to 4 votes. Apparently a future recount increased it even more to 6 votes! It was one of the tighest elections ever. I wouldn’t like to have been one of the candidates for that. I would have had to take out all my stress on Super Smash Bros. which the guys set up in the Clubs and Socs office…

BTW, we finally unlocked Toon Link, and thus all characters on the Games Soc copy of Brawl

Friday

Sleep. That’s all I can say. Oh, and Elly’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy party. There were a lot of white mice eaten

Saturday

A1 qualifying is the main thing that kept me up on Saturday. Starting third and second bode very well for the championship with Switzerland starting last and third. Also, Man U barely winning was not nice, particularly with Ronaldo only playing 22 minutes and thus wasting my captaincy choice for the week in the Fantasy league. :angry:

Sunday

A1 racing, more footy. A1 stewards are a bunch of fags. Filipe Albuquerque cannot drive.

Plus, I was invited home to Dunboyne by Aoife so that we could spend Easter Sunday as a family for dinner. It was nice to be able to go back home legally for a while and see everyone again. Aoife was especially pleased. Also, I found out that my mom was heading out to the US for another business trip the following morning, which did lead to a hectic night of packing… I did get to stay the night, so yay for sleeping in a familiar bed with comfy sheets

I managed to bring some more of my stuff with me to Santry as well, and with a little bit of playing around, managed to get my 360 connected to Live via my computer, so yay for being back on Live presence again! Not sure if the connection is ideal enough for playing on, so maybe we could test it out in a few custom games on my new Halo 3 map I’ve been forging in Sandbox?

While I have lived away from home before, during my first foray into second year, this will be different given it will be my actual home for the year (and hopefully longer!). At least I already know what it’s like to live on my own in on-campus accommodation and survive for at least most of the year without getting my head ripped off by roommates who don’t understand what my lifestyle is like.

The one main difference should be on the society side. While this year I’ve just sat and milled around in Clubs and Socs, this year I can actually say I have some sort of work to do there. Earlier today there were a couple of AGMs to attend, with both Airsoft’s and Games Soc’s taking place at the exact same time (and very nearly the exact same room). While I didn’t make it onto Airsoft’s – although I wasn’t exactly expecting to – I am now, eventually, Console Ents for Games Soc next year

I’m not sure how much of that is down to people wanting me for the job, and how much is down to the fact the only other choice was the newbie first-year I’m mentioned so much. While he does mean well, I think that he needs another year to… "mature". That’s probably all the detail I’ll go into since anymore and I may start to seem stalker-ish.

Hmmm, I was expecting more to be in this, but I guess it’s just not coming out at the moment. Ah well, there’s still a while to go until this year is over, let alone worrying about next year

So here’s how my week is laid out so far.

Tuesday

Afternoon – XNA talk

Originally the main reason I had planned to head to the XNA talk was because there was a promise of free games being given out. then I found out subsequently that it was none other than the Twitterati community’s own Martha Rotter giving the talk! So not only is it going to be a brilliant talk, but I have another blogger/Twit to add to the Baby Bear wall

Evening – Airsoft in the Warehouse/Airsoft Reloaded

I don’t know what exactly the place is supposed to be called these days, it was originally going to be the Warehouse, but the name may have changed… Anyway, it’s a new indoor airsoft place that opened up around Malahide somewhere, and this will be Airsoc’s first trip there. The handy part about indoor play is no trudging around murky fields and woods to play, and no being limited by the amount of actual light! I just hope I can apply some of my CoD4 recon skills to it…

Wednesday

Afternoon – Console gaming, Demonware talk

Consoles is almost like normal, except it only lasts from 1 to 3, because the talk starts then. Plus, it’s a Mario Kart DS tournament this week. Yes, the DS version. I haven’t played since my flash card last decided to feck up and lose almost all data on the memory card, and thus I lost a fully legit completed game… I’ll try not to have my “Always have Star” cheat enabled…

Plus, straight after consoles is the Demonware talk. I went to it last year, but there’s nothing wrong with going again! Plus, there may be more famous-esque people to add to the wall

Thursday

Evening – Q-zar or Lab Gaming

I’m not too sure which to go to. Q-zar is being done by Redbrick, and I haven’t played it in ages (actually nearly 9 years to be more precise!), but then again I’m heading airsofting on Tuesday, so they can be quite similar… All depends on who’s going, and also if there’s room. If not, then it’s the usual dose of lab gaming in C204. Although hopefully this time the new graphics card will have been installed and we can get some proper games on like CoD4, or some TF2

Friday

Evening – Bodies trip

Art Soc are arranging a trip down to Bodies on Friday night, which thankfully is also available to non-members. Plus having most of the committee as regular hangers-out in the Clubs and Socs offices is über win! Should be a good exhibition, according to other bloggers on the subject. I just hope that they do allow cameras – I would like to get a couple of pictures (not everything now, I’m not greedy!)

That’s most of the week, although things might still pop up even now. This is actually one of the more packed weeks I’ve had in college since, well probably since I started back in first year. You can see why I’d like them to be spread out quite a bit to stop all of this “clumping together” in one week lark from happening again! Especially when it will burn through the wallet faster than… ummm, insert your favourite quote involving something burning down here. I’m fresh out of ideas

Labs

Firstly, those first year labs still are only down on the L101 timetable. Although I do know by now that they will always come in, it does means that Tuesdays and Thursdays mean no computing building. However, lots of others also hang out in the Clubs and Socs office all day, so I do tend to go there from time to time. And sometimes work gets done, rather than people playing addictive Flash games, trying to get free booze from the SU president, and other general shenanigans.

Wednesdays

Thankfully, Wednesdays are getting a lot less cluttered. For starters, Snooker/Pool meetings were moved to Thursday afternoons, freeing up a clash, as well as filling the gap in the afternoon before Lab Gaming! Also, with the Warehouse scheduled to open soon for Airsoc, that will take Wednesday trips out, leaving just a fight between Karting and Games Soc. At the moment the choice of which to go to rests on the roll of a D10, with 7 sides saying Games, and 3 saying Karting. That and money, and room on the signups.

Fright Night

This Thursday, Film Soc and Games Soc will be taking over the Mezz for the whole night, featuring a lot of gaming and a lot of spooky films. I myself will be stocking up on energy drinks (Red Bull Coke and Lucozade!) and spending the entire night (or most of it) parked in front of a 360, with my own hard drive plugged into it

Gaelcon

I could have written a lot about Gaelcon yesterday, but I didn’t feel like it. What can be said about it though is that there was a lot of money spent on Yu-Gi-Oh cards (and making some half-decent Decks that could possibly last a litle longer against STOCS’ own “big guns”); a game of RISK 2210, where taking the entire Moon on Turn 1 and holding it for the entire game almost gave me the win; Monopoly with other STOCS guys where we got well and truly owned; John Doyle selling off all his crap (including a huge box of YGO cards to me for a fiver ), and other general board gaming-based things.

And the best bit of it all had to do with the limited edition Gaelcon mugs. On Saturday morning when Seán and myself arrived, we saw that they were selling mugs at the events desk. There were 72 in total, each having “xx of 72″ written on the bottom. But some of them were more witty than others. Essentially, if the number was something that could be related to something geeky, then the geeky thing was written in place of the number. There were dice (D6, D8, D10), some random acts of boredness (28 of, of, of… 72), and other gems – but Seán and I got, in my eyes, some really good ones.

I got mug number 3. On the bottom: “π of 72 (± 0.14)”.
OK, that question mark, is supposed to be pi ^

Seán got mug number 42. I think you can probably guess what was on the bottom

Hoodies

On a much less related note, there will be more DCU hoodies being bought soon. Before long, you should see me in an Airsoc hoodie, or a newer “zippie” Games Soc one

That’s really all I can think for now. Ridicule my lack of inspiration for stuff if you must. I am very good at ignoring comments filled with absolute shit (especially when written by people using Mac OSX, and Firefox 3 from within the DCU network!)