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Me, Katherine, Jon and his girlfriend Hannah all went to see Ash at the Birmingham Carling Academy tonight. I have to say they were absolutely brilliant - possibly the best band I have seen live, bear in mind I haven't seen that many but I was very impressed. It got quite hectic in the gig and was very pushy quite far away from the stage not what I expected with Ash but well I got in to it. However I had to get out of there after the first 3 tracks as my knee, which I injured when I fell over and has been giving me considerable pain was hurting quite badly (especially after it ]got kicked).

Ash played lots of Meltdown (their new album) which was good including Vampire Love which I really like. Overall Ash were fantastic from start (Meltdown) to the end (Orpheus) and then coming back to doing an encore which finished off with the classic Burn Baby Burn - they even played Petrol on the night - something neither me nor Katherine were expecting.

Oh and I still haven't mentioned the warming acts, The Crimea and Saves the Day. The Crimea were fantastic - they did seem a little nervous though, but they were great - I really liked White Russian Galaxy, never mind it having a fantastic title it is a wonderful song. I even brought The Crimea album as I left - I brought it of the keyboardist!! I am well pleased, well I think it was the keyboardist. I hope they make it big, well even if they don't I know I will be going to the next gig of theirs I get opportunity to go to - they were great.

Yes I have a headache and yes I went to a party last night, umm must be a hangover then. I don't get hangovers often - guess I just didn't drink any water and had too much to drink. What I am actually going to blame is Mario Kart! I haven't played that game in years, well obviously I am not talking about the new version on the Gamecube which hasn't been out that long. As ever it is still as much for fun but I swear it was the reason I have a headache - not the alcohol (honest!).

Last night was great - lots of beer and some cracking music. Yes I went to Snobs, me and Jordan since we both have other halves were on our best behavior so that means drink lots so you aren't able to either worry about women!! No we did not get that bad. The music as ever was great however as soon as it got going it was stopped. There have been no moshing signs for a while now in Snobs but I have never seen them enforce this. Last night they did during absolution by Muse. It started getting going and as soon as they noticed the bouncers were in and the music was off - now they are taking the fun a way from it.

Not only that but they insisted on playing crap, dodgy rap and stupid beats. Umm I am afraid I am not liking Snobs as much anymore.

Today was a quite strange day, fun though. It even ended up with me and Scott getting interviewed at the observatory about it and what we do there. It was quite fun but oddly nerve racking! Hopefully I will get to go back soon to do some detail imaging, now that will be absolutely brilliant.

My week of celebrations continued today. I have had a busy day, with a long Astrosoc meeting and Introduction to Course 4 nevermind building the mount for the solar filter. Then on to Sadie's BBQ and party - she had air hockey!! It was a really good party lots of food and lots of me playing air hockey and drinking beer so I was happy!

As you may know Venus will transit the Sun on the 8th June an event which occur last in 1882. This is a once in a lifetime event. Venus can actually now be seen to be approaching the Sun by the LASCO instrument onboard the SOHO space craft:

It has been one of those days, you know the ones when you have intentions of getting stuff done but end up just sitting around doing nothing. It is hot today - well at least my room is. At moments it has been unbearably hot, hope it stays like this - with no clouds till Tuesday - but I guess it won't the weather never does what you want it to.

I also have to chose what 4th year project to do - yes it doesn't seem like five minutes but now I am approaching my 4th (and final) year at Uni. I guess I better start thinking about what I want to do afterwards - hopefully a PhD.

See: http://www.newscentre.bham.ac.uk/releasePrint.htm?releaseId=1206

Fame at last!! :-)

Well we are now approaching probably the biggest day the society has ever had and its me in charge. Well all I can say is our little boat has now become a large dreadnaught and anyone who gets in the way will get hit by an old telescope tube :-) The ship has not sunk we are growing day by day and all I can do is thank everyone who is in the society for making it what it is. Now lets hope we can pull tomorrow off without blinding anyone.

What a day! I am shattered up at 4. Interviewed live for Radio WM (twice), interviewed for BBC Midlands and BBC One, interviewed by the Birmingham post. Countless photographers about 1,000 people about. Oh and not to mention Venus Transiting the Sun, what a day! Absolutely unbelievable. It went far beyond my wildest dream, I am so happy. I am also so glad we managed to get so many people to view it. It was wonderful. One of the best memories I have at the moment is of a young boy obviously not knowing what was going on but you know his mother at some point in the future will tell him that he saw the transit - a once in a lifetime (even his) experience. Wow!

One final thought - this time not from me:

Oh! then farewell, thou beauteous queen!
Thy sway may soften natures yet untamed,
Whose breasts, bereft of the native fury,
Then shall learn the milder virtues.
We, with anxious mind, follow thy latest footsteps here,
And far as thought can carry us;
My labours now bedeck the monument for future times
Which thou at parting left us. Thy return
Posterity shall witness; years must roll away,
But then at length the splendid sight
Again shall greet our distant children's eyes.

Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-1641)

After a bit of processing (to make smaller) I have posted the first of many of Astrosoc's photos of the Transit.

Here is the transit at egress, wow!

What a day!! Watch this space and the Astrosoc site for more pictures soon.

Yesterday we (Me, Kat, Matt, George, Louise, Louise's Sister and Dan) went to Alton Towers, like it always is it was lots of fun. We went on some of the large rides such as Nemesis and Ripsaw and for the first time they got me to go on Enterprise - this is the sort of ride I do not like. It was lots of fun and no bloody wasps because the weather was gloomy. Consequently we did not go to the observatory in the evening but since I was so shattered it was probably a good thing.

Well I am still awaiting to getting the tape, I am not in a rush as I will find out how badly I cam across. As for me being on Radio WM, here we go a picture of me being interviewed (picture taken by Mark Rowan).

The task I am referring to is putting all the pictures taken during the Venus transit online. I have done all the ones I have so far and has took ages. It is well worth it though. The pictures can be found at: http://students.bugs.bham.ac.uk/astrosoc/pictures/venustransit2004.htm

I couldn't believe that France beat us but it wasn't unexpected in my opinion. I was more gutted though by the reaction of some England fans in centenary square who got violent, what is the point? We lost - it is only a game! No need to get violent especially against your fellow fans and there is no need to destroy your own city. Again it is 1% of people causing the problems for the rest of the population - idiots. One of my friends reckons it is alcohol to blame. I am sure it doesn't help but I think these people would react like this no matter what, I wish they would grow up and learn respect for other people and their surroundings.

For more about the match see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/3787491.stm

It seems the worst trouble across the country occurred in Birmingham, I just can't believe how little some people respect their surroundings. All I can say is at least the fans in Portugal behaved themselves. I bet the police have stopped all the idiots going and now we have to deal with them, good - at least we will not get kicked out for our stupid 'fans' behavior.

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3802125.stm - the reaction was not limited to Birmingham and http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/sport/2004/06/england_game_13_june.shtml for the reaction in Birmingham.

I kept telling myself that even though I was having a few problems with my blog design it was ok like it was. Well to be honest it was starting to bug me and even though it is not entirely the same as my homepage, due to the archive function being slightly wider than the column size I wanted, it looks ok and is once again easy to view. I hope!

It is starting to get a little hectic here, getting ready to move house is not something I am not looking forward to one bit. Well at least I have my cds and dvds packed with those my computer and the xbox that's all I really need ;-)

I have to say it might only be football but I am glad Tony Blair is poking his nose into the behavior of English fans in Portugal. Lets hope some of them listen to him otherwise we might face being kicked out of the competition which would be an awful ending. We might get knocked out but I would like to see it happen on the pitch and not because of our fans behavior. I do however feel that the media really do overplay the actions of English fans and keep quite about the other nations fans.

That's it, it is over! I have my third year results. I got 64% - I am not entirely pleased with this but well that's not bad, I am on for a 2.1 at the moment. I can't complain with that. Obviously I would love to get a first but I just don't feel I am good enough or well have the motivation to work that hard - I have other things in my life. I am disappointed with a few of my results but well I will not complain.

All I can say is wow! How time flies. It doesn't seem like five minutes since a very nervous still living at home 18 year old first stepped onto the campus. I remember that day clearly I was so overwhelmed and scared but it was great. That day I met some of the people I hold dearest and have grown to be my best friends. I can only hope that the friendships that have grown from then to now and into the future continue to develop. I have some great friends, don't think I would be able to cope without them. Still to think three years has passed is scary. I have changed a lot, my life is very different - I feel for the better. One of the main things I am proud that has occurred to me during my time at Uni is becoming a Vegetarian. Something I had felt for a long time I should do and with my dearest friends support I have been able to take this step and boy I think my heart is pleased.

What a night, we didn't get back till 4am. I am shattered as I got up to meet my parents at 9 (so I could meet them for 11).

Last night was lots of fun, I drank too much but well I didn't spend too much cash mainly because we walked home - one of the reasons why I am shattered, it is a 4 mile walk and being drunk meant I probably walked 5 miles due to balance problems.

I have to say I generally prefer the music on a Friday at Snobs, less bling bling ("I am gonna bust a cap in your ass") and more bang bang - less rap / dance crap and more indie / rock.

Alex, my loving girlfriend, posted this http://www.dogtoyormaritalaid.com/ on her website http://elektron.krioma.net/ yesterday. Now this is weird. Unlike her I got 3 wrong, I can't believe she got them all right. It is funny and oddly disturbing. I even managed to get 10 out of 14 on the hard one better than her as she only got 9! Haha I beat her.

My review of the Crimea's gig at the Birmingham academy has made it on there site! I guess some people out there actually read what I post - shocking ;-). I have to say the Crimea were good on the night and I can't stop listening to their album.

See: http://www.inaudible.co.uk/archives/00000340.html and this page http://www.inaudible.co.uk/crimea/pages/links/links2.html

Let's hope the important people out there, the media, are grabbed by the Crimea.

Now it's time for me to get off to Uni for my first days work on my summer project.

I have to say it feels strange working at Uni. I am doing a job for them but everything is really relaxed even more than for normal project work. We are being treated like members of the research group (even though what I am doing is really teaching work) which is great. I even have my laptop plugged in to the network, oh the fun I am having. The terminal room, where I am working, is full of cool looking Sun machines running Solaris which are impressive until you actually start using them - thank god I have my laptop. Think it might be time to dig out the linux on it!

As for other things, come on England. A nice win and a I might even start to recognise Wayne Rooney's talents - but still grudgingly.

Owen playing well, courtesy BBC Sport

I have to say today was a much more useful day. I managed to get back into IRAF and some of its strange ways. I am enjoying myself but am getting annoyed with the lack of software at times on the Sun computer, luckily I have my laptop and can always access other computers for the software. I still haven't got over that, that I can login to other peoples computers and use the software of their computer - surely there is some sort of security concern there. Well I am sure the people who run the network know what they are doing and so is totally secure.

In other things; Italy are out, yes! Hopefully this will make things a bit better for England assuming that we are able to beat Portugal on Thursday. I have to say many will say that the 2-2 draw between Sweden and Denmark was suspicious (the only way they could both go through if Italy beat Bulgaria which they did). All I can say to that is would you expect England and Scotland to go out and play for a 2-2 draw - hell no, they would want to knock each other out and Sweden and Denmark are like that in some ways. So any conspiracy theorists can go away.

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/3787525.stm

I think it is time for me to become annoyed with IRAF again. Shockingly I managed 3 days without any major problems but well I knew it couldn't last. Today I spent the best part of 2 hours trying to solve one problem to then solve it and then have another which has well and truly stopped my progress. Well at least I ate out for dinner at Bella Italia which was nice, why did they change there name from Bella Pasta? Me and Alex speculated that as Bella Pasta some idiot people might not have thought they served anything else. (also note there website http://www.bellapasta.co.uk/ is higher on google than there new domain http://www.bellaitalia.co.uk/)

As I type this I am listening to Radio 5 live, come on the Czechs and bye bye to Germany! I think England have an even great chance now. Just gotta beat the Portuguese tomorrow - umm that's gonna be hard.

Its that time again, England lose and go out. This however was not just a case of getting knocked out. It was a case of being completely screwed over by appallingly bad referring and again poor Sol Campbell's (as my mate said Shaft) winning goal was disallowed. The question is why?! I can not understand why it was disallowed - makes no sense.

All I have now is a bitter feeling and yet another reason to hate Manchester United - Ronaldo - bloody smug idiot. The Portuguese are cheats, they dive all the time and get away with it - I can not believe it. I hope they do not win - some one like Greece or the Czech should now win - teams who deserve it because they play football and do not cheat.

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/england/3835415.stm

Well I guess they can be technically classed as my second international team since my girlfriend is Greek. Well I was cheering for them enough tonight - just ask her she didn't like it! Well done to Greece they thoroughly deserved the win against France and they played very well. I doubt they can win it but to be in the last four is an absolutely wonderful achievement for them.

For more see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/3830575.stm

As Cassini approaches the largest satellite of Saturn; Titan, dark regions have been identified. This is due to the much higher resolution cameras fitted onto Cassini. Lets hope this good start is just a start of many discoveries to come.

Here is one of the images released:

Yay, I am ill! Great all I need since I am moving house on Thursday. I am working from home today so that means I haven't really done much I think I will spend some extra time on it this evening if I am feeling better. As for the packing things are going ok since I don't have much energy I have only done a little and am shattered. Oh the other day we came across this strange thing:

We reckon it is gone off coffee - strange colour but smells like coffee.