Over the last 2 weeks a few things have happened which i’ll write about! I applied for a few jobs for when i move back to Manchester at the end of this month and one of them, ICT Support Engineer at a Consultancy firm actually emailed me and asked me for an interview. After a preliminary phone interview they were apparently so impressed they decided to offer me the job outright - which means they obviously see something in me This is good because it means ill be earning roughly £150 a week working 16 hours part-time, which means no being super poor! Hurrah.

Aside from the employment, it was my 21st birthday! I went home on the weekend before my birthday for a huge family party. On the Friday, me and Fran went to the rugby to see Wigan vs Hull (her first game EVER of rugby!) which we won 66-6 - so smiles all round! On Saturday we had a big family party to which about 40 people turned up - family and friends! On sunday, i took my birthday money and a bit of my own and bought an Xbox 360, games, extra controller etc and ive been addicted to it ever since

We came home on the Monday night and had a fairly quiet one. On Tuesday i went for a meal with Fran to Frankie and Bennys which was great fun followed by a few drinks etc afterwards and other stuff

Rest of that week and this week ive generally just been wrapping up loose ends in Swindon - i packed up and sent home 40% of my stuff when we went back up to Manchester, and the rest of my stuff is gradually being torn down and packed up. I lost internet connectivity on the 10th August as we didnt want to pay another £20 for an extra month worth of internet, it just means i dont have much to do on my PC anymore - lack of internet and Xbox 360 has led to that! On a side note - Fight Night Round 3 is arguably one of the best console games ive played in YEARS - so addictive in Career mode lol.

As far as life goes, im just getting ready to leave Intel and Swindon, move back up to Salford - start my new job, and wait until October when i start my final year of my degree again. Its very exciting times in the world of Sam Marsh - stay tuned!

Well, Valentines day worked to plan eventually! Ended up going to Tesco with Jamal and Gibbons on the way home instead of co-op as Jamal was driving, only to find out that because i didnt have ID, they wouldnt sell any alcohol to the other 2? Shit rule. So Jamal ended up kicking off, and 30 minutes later he was getting chased around Tesco by a security guard lol.

Got home at 6.30pm and set up the house - got dinner cooking (Lasagne), got the wine in the freezer, candles, music, etc it was all very nice. I managed to convince Fran we were going out for dinner, so she was fairly surprised when she came round mine!

Went to Manchester on Friday on the train with Fran, and got into Warrington Bank Quay about 7pm where i met Ste and Shannon and went to the Hares. Didnt do much the rest of the night. On Saturday we got the train from Newton into Piccadilly and spent the day wandering round before going back to our hotel to check in etc. Went to The Printworks at 7pm for Dinner and ended up spending 2-3 hours in Lloyds before heading off to Tiger Tiger for the rest of the night which was fun. Got back to our hotel rather drunk at 1am, but it was a good night!

Spent Sunday doing pretty much the same as Saturday - i showed Fran around Albert Square, St Peters Square, Arndale area etc and it was pretty fun. Spent a few hours chilling out in the gardens near the Urbis as the weather was nice. Ended up eating in the Food Court as it was easier, and headed to Piccadilly gardens where we sat and chilled out till about 3.30pm. Went to Piccadilly where we got our trains home and ended up arriving in Swindon at 8ish. Spent the night chilling out at Frans as we were both knackered and went to sleep about 10pm. All in all a very good weekend!

Quite a busy week actually - went for a meal with Fran on Wednesday night at the Kyhber, followed by a few drinks in town which was nice. Thursday night we had our Q1-Do with CSO/RAS, at some bowling place in Swindon - needless to say i was shit but hey its bowling! Met everybody town afterwards, and had a rather good night indeed!Friday was spent recovering from Thursday night, although we did do the pizza hut challenge for dinner; with me coming second to Jamal in the slices race lol. Didnt do anything Friday, Fran came round and we just both crashed out lol Everybody was knackered from Thursday.

Saturday was spent relaxing, watching TV and generally doing FA. Went for a curry with Toma, Emma, Andy Li, etc at the Curry Garden which was good, and went back to theirs to watch Inside Man - a generally chilled out night and importantly an unexpensive one lol!

Today im not doing much - watching the Mighty Reds at 2pm before going round to Frans for our traditional sunday dinner lol Laters.

Didnt get up to much really the rest of the weekend, spent Saturday doing not so much, had Fran round at night and we generally just chilled out - watched a film etc. Went round hers on Sunday for sunday dinner, watching MOTD which was fun lol.

Rest of the week has been fairly quiet. Confirmed our house at university for next year which is good, means i have one less thing to worry about, and the water board are coming round on Friday afternoon so hopefully that issue will be resolved too.

Ive spent most of last week and this week trying to get the Corporate Games rugby 7’s team sheet finalised for Intel, but its proving tricky to get people to commit.

Have got a busy few nights planned in the upcoming week; going out for a meal with Fran tonight, got a team night out tomorrow night @ some bowling alley thing, and then Friday im having Fran round before she goes to Portsmouth or something. Not sure whats going on on Saturday, we were trying to organise a Bournemouth/Cardiff trip!

Well, after spending the last week trying to get Vista to work PERFECTLY, ive given up. I re-installed 5 times, on x86 and x64, and installed chipset drivers etc different orders etc, and the sound card is still hissing and popping, onboard and Audigy 2 ZS Pro, ive tried different speakers, doing the same, different wire/optical, doing the same.

I therefore re-installed to XP, and voila - its perfect. Vista driver support is shiiiiiite, end of. Got my Fatality Pro gaming headset yesterday and played a little COD4 before heading out into town with Jamal to meet everyone, had a royally good time in Revs and strangely had no hangover this morning which was a plus! Having dinner with Fran tonight, to end a very crap, boring and frustrating week on a fairly good note lol.

Got my new PC up and running etc fine last week, and decided to test out how it worked and performed with DX10 Games, so i installed COD4 and started playing. All of a sudden, i get a BSOD and it reboots. Strange, so i did it again, and again got a BSOD, this time catching the name “IRQL_not less or equal”. I asked around and apparently this is a memory issue, related to bad RAM. Obviously this error only happens when the PC is executing very RAM intensive operations, such as COD4, but still it was annoying!

I took out the RAM to have a look, after spending 2 hours panicking that the PSU might not be powerful enough and that i’d just wasted £65. It turns out there is a tiny crack in one of the sticks of RAM from where i must have caught it with the scissors when building it, which has obviously damaged a trace in the RAM stick itself. I took out the stick in question, and voila the PC works beautifully, although 1 GB down

Aside from diagnosing, i havent done much else! Fran came back from skiing Saturday night so i met her at Intel off the coach and spent Saturday and Sunday night with her, even had her and her housemates cooking me sunday dinner which was nice! lol

The rest of the week has been business as usual, working 9-5.30pm and then chilling out at night, nothing interesting at all, yawn. We went out for a curry last Thursday to the Khyber with those who didnt go skiing; Toma, Jamal, Gibbons, Brad, Jules, Adjei etc. had a good laugh, although town was absolutely dead - according to the bouncers January is always a quiet month, so i dont think im going to bother heading out until after payday!

Didnt do much rest of the week, stayed in Bed most of Wednesday and then chilled out Thursday day. Went out for Cooneys birthday on Thursday night and had a banger with Jamal, Signorelli and co. Didnt stay at Frans as she was up at 7am, and i dont do mornings

Went round hers on Friday night and helped her an the girls with their bags etc as they were skiing! Had a surprisingly good night, even if i did have to wake up at 9am to help them get to Intel so they didnt miss their coach. Said goodbye etc because i wont be seeing her for a week, then went home and have been chilling out ever since! Its been pretty good!