DDS Presents: The Master of the Thing
Howard Building, Downing College
7:30pm, March 12th, 13th, 15th and 16th.

written and directed by Shamini Bundell
starring: Lej, Tom Ash, Chima, Dan Jackson

7:00pm, bar opens
7:30pm, performance

ÆTHERIA: Downing Spring Ball
Downing College
9pm - 4am

8pm, VIP reception

I have not been loitering on the threadcorners of the Downing forums of late, but was drawn back by plaintive cries that varied between "that's odd" and "it's all gone horribly wrong". The latter may be a little sensationalist. Evidently a lot of work has gone in to the inevitable integration with the rest of the JCR site. Undoubtedly the move away from the popular phpBB system will reduce spam, but the heritage of the open source package was that its interface had been honed over several years with use by tens of thousands of people; even slight changes are likely to be a step backwards. Of most irritation will certainly be the new fixed width style which involves ridiculous amounts of scrolling on long threads as it uses less than half my screen. Teething problems are understandable, but one wonders whether its continued popularity is dependant largely on whether they are willing to invest the time required to accept various criticisms and re-implement several of the features removed in the migration.

Which is, incidentally, exactly the sort of pragmatic approach to change that we take at P-2006. The first calendar system, as I suspected, hasn't met the stringent standards you have come expect — it's gone. However, pre-empting this, I already had an alternative Gregorian idea in the works. Since it emerged that few would use it for navigation, this calendar is an entirely new feature for displaying events such as release dates for recommended films. Hovering over a date will reveal what's going on, while clicking will give you more information and often a link to the appropriate site for further details. Let me know how you find it, what sort of things you'd like to see there and especially if you have events I can help publicise. Meanwhile the Archives are being rearranged since the month-by-month list, despite allowing fast access, was becoming too messy. The new Archives page will allow you to select an individual post by its title or view a whole month's entries. You'll also find the Links page is finally being fleshed out into a full set. Work is ongoing with all this so bear with us but the end result looks to be extra functionality with a cleaner menu.

I've been impressed with the Empire at War demo. The Petroglyph team is composed largely of veteran developers from the C&C series and it shows. Although neither the ground nor the space battles feel particularly special in themselves, it is the integration of the two that makes the experience feel fresh and new. The creation of a persistent galaxy allows you to move surviving troops from one battle to invade another planet, or consolidate your defences elsewhere. There have been several attempts at RTS in the Star Wars universe before, but this is the first that fully encompasses that feeling of, well, actual star wars. And the chance to command some of the big screen heroes doesn't hurt either. I'd just recommend that you grab a torrent instead of Gamespot's painfully slow download servers.

The Cambridge Globalist AGM
Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
1pm - 4pm

Walk The Line theatrical release
UK general release
dir: James Mangold
starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reece Witherspoon

A Cock And Bull Story theatrical release
UK general release
dir: Michael Winterbottom
starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Gillian Anderson

Shopgirl theatrical release
UK general release
dir: Anand Tucker
starring: Steve Martin, Clare Danes, Jason Schwartzman

As not everyone was aware of Lej's holiday antics in a Scottish castle for a reality TV show, his sudden change (displaying such symptoms as fashion sense) may have been even more jarring. I had meant to provide info on the programme earlier, but it slipped my mind. Beauty and the Geek is an American import show in which nerds are mismatched with attractive women to compete in various challenges with a large cash prize at the end.

Lej suggests he was chosen due to his participation in the uni's table football society. Having survived several rounds of interviews he made the final shortlist for the show which was filmed over the Christmas holidays. Contractually obliged to secrecy, he remains tight lipped about the entire affair (aside from some details spilled to CUR1350), although the new-look Lej Mk. II has sparked much speculation that we may even have the winner in our midst.

The show airs on E4 at 10pm from February 7th, and later on Channel 4 at 10:30pm from March 31st. Meanwhile his teammates at Downing College AFC have thoughtfully put together an EBUK gallery for you to reminisce about the "good ol' Lej".

I'm currenly after an invitation code for Google Analytics since they're limiting new accounts for their site tracking service. If you happen to have a spare one lying around, please let me know.

It came to my attention after yesterday's post that not everyone is familiar with the concept of millionaire shortbread. It is, in short, the finest sugar delivery system ever invented and quite possibly humanity's only saving grace (given that they're the same species that invented the law lecture). Consisting of shortbread coated with a layer of caramel and topped with a generous portion of chocolate, it's the perfect kick to get you through that third lecture of the day. And it just so happens that the Nadia's café in the Law Faculty has a very healthy supply, since not everyone is in on the secret. Which probably accounts for Emily H's cunningly conceived joint tenancy law exploit today, which worked very well until I pointed out that one had to be dead in order to benefit…

The fragments section has been fully upgraded without much of a hitch (unless you picked a bad in-between moment yesterday). You'll notice a new calendar navigation system on the right which will let you access any day's post directly. I'm just trialling it for the moment, as a quicker alternative to going through the archives. I'm keen to keep the interface uncluttered so if it's not popular it'll go. You're the people who'll be using it though, so let me know what you think!

A crate of 20 bottles of Becks for under a tenner (Manager's Special at Sainsbury's) is a deal not to be sniffed at, but there comes a point somewhere around three quarters of the way back to college when you begin to question whether lugging it all that way is actually worth it. The answer, now that it's sitting in my room, is of course damn straight.

One of the advantages of the last site overhaul was that by using the WordPress backend for posting updates, I can do so when away from my computer too. This post, for example, comes to you directly from the Law Faculty between lectures. I've been holding off for a little while, but will be making the transition to the new WordPress 2 shortly. Allegedly it will make posting and administration far easier, though you probably won't see much difference at all (but I am getting bored of those dull smilies so keep your eyes peeled over the next few days). This may all result in some downtime and a few things breaking, particularly since the site's visual appearance is fully customised. Please bear with me and hopefully it'll all go smoothly.

My fireplace photo was a featured new addition over at morgueFile which was a nice surprised and attracted it more attention than usual. In fact I've just reached 1000 downloads in total. I really should upload photos there more regularly, especially since it uses someone else's bandwidth.

Rumours have been flying about a March release date for the new Tool album, but the official site has dispelled such rumours. They're still on schedule for a "Spring 2006" release, whatever that means, as stickers on the recent video singles proclaimed (UK release on 23rd January). I'd hazard a guess that we'll be hearing a new masterpiece from Maynard & Co. some time in May. Shrouded in the band's usual cloaks of secrecy, any actual information on the record cannot be obtained without reference to dark occult forces, the very mention of which may result in a Cthulian demonic entity rending the very soul from your core, leaving nought but an eviscerated corpse as evidence of your foolish curiosity. So security's rather tight then.

Right, I'm off to Nadia's for some millionaire shortbread before Contract…