Well, as I write this post a very nice man is having a look at the insides of our front-door lock for the second time in as many months. Fortunately this time around I managed to get into the flat before it died, but still… here’s hoping I won’t have to see the nice man a third time.

Traditionally, this time of year is given over to taking stock of life, noting what happened in the previous year, and planning what you would like to happen in the next. It seems that, on the Internet, life is no different. Seeing as how my sheep-genes seem to be taking control, I feel that I should do the same.

2005 – the good, the bad, and the slightly unpleasant bits.
Well, 2005 has been a bit of a mixed year for me. Mainly good, but with a few things I could have done without. Known forever more as ‘the Year of the Thesis’, 2005 was, not surprisingly, heavily dominated by my completing an MSc in Archaeological Computing. Much fun was had, a fair amount was learnt, inordinate amounts of tea (and beer) were drunk, and a complete nervous breakdown was headed off at the pass. Just.

If anyone would now like to hold long conversations with me about the democratization of information, multivocality, hypertext authoring, social computing, wikis, archaeology, GIS, and a whole host of other scary things, then I am now fully qualified to talk about them. As much as the next person, anyway, so long as the next person isn’t Jerry Huggett.

Elsewhere in the land known as “the Past”, 2005 was also the year that I started Bright Meadow. Though you can trace the origins of the blog back through several geocities sites (which now exist only in the cobweb laden blog archives), April 5th 2005 marked the very first post at the new brightmeadow.blogspot domain, and at the close of the year, December 14th 2005 marked the appearance on the scene of brightmeadow.co.uk, a self-hosted, WordPress powered version of the blog.

2005 will also be remembered as the year in which:

• Moose and myself moved into Meadow Towers.
• I had fun seducing Canadians 😉
• I raised nearly £200 for the Race For Life.
• Curly Durly was forced to wonder if the universe hates her.
• I wrote of my beloved car back in February 🙁
• I watched far too many movies and purchased more DVDs than really I should have.
• I met some wonderful new people through the blog
• And I learnt that, whilst it is technically possible to fit six people in the back of a Nissan Micra, it is not advisable. Especially when you are attempting this in someone else’s car.

2006 – a space odyssey.
So what does 2006 have in store for Cas? That really is the 60 carat diamond question.

Off the top of my head:

• I’d like to put a few plans I have into action regarding the future of brightmeadow.co.uk
• I need to find a job, though I’d like to find a career.
• It would be nice to think about starting a Ph.D, but I don’t think I am silly enough to do that to myself.
• There’s a few guest articles I’ve been asked to write. I really should get on with writing them!
• More in the way of fiction writing should be coming your way. Maybe. Perhaps. If you’re nice to me.
• I really want to get my teeth into some proper coding. I have this bug in my brain for some application mods/new apps that I think might be quite groovy, but, well, I need to learn proper programming first! If anyone has tips on good places to start (i.e. a good beginners/intermediate book, or a fluffy language that won’t scare me too much), comment or drop me a line

According to the dude on Jools Holland last night, because this is a New Year without a new moon (rare, apparently), resolutions made this year will actually come true. In that case, mine are:

1. Get fit – yes, I know, unoriginal, but I’ve got the past three months of slacking to make up for. Loosing weight isn’t my main goal. Rather, I need to tone up what I’ve got. The loss of a few pounds would be nice though 🙂
2. Get some direction in my life. I need to find that… thing… to get me out of bed in the morning. I’m drifting right now, and I’m not a fan of drifting.
3. Lastly, just be happy. Easy to say. Not, in reality, that straightforward. Here’s hoping!

Anyway, that’s me. What are your resolutions?
Hope you all had a wonderful New Years, and here’s hoping 2006 has even more fun bits than 2005 did!

I have “Especially For You” by Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan going round my head at the moment. I have no idea why, and I wish it would go away! Help!

I’ll wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year now, because I am returning to the Land that Broadband Forgot (Somerset), and so will be stuck with an expensive and unreliable dial-up connection till I return in about a week.

Also, you know, I should spend some time with the family. I mean, I am going back to see them after all 😉

Eat lots, watch lots of bad movies, drink too much (if you are so inclined), and generally be merry.

The Cute Canadian has his moments, the latest being when he braved blizzard conditions to tromp into Toronto to get me some yoghurt covered pretzels, and mailed them to me to arrive in time for Christmas.

Don’t ask me to explain yoghurt covered pretzels to you. I tried on as a dare on time when I was visiting Brother Dearest in NY, and I got hooked. I think it’s one of those Marmite things – you either love them, or you hate them. They are also impossible to find in this country. Not “get them in a specialist store in London” impossible. “Google can’t find what you are looking for” impossible.

Always one to try and find the silver lining in every situation, I decided that the CC having to return to his native land for a short while was an excellent opportunity to feed my craving for salty, yoghurt-covered goodness. (OY! No, not like that you dirty minded so and so’s!)

A huge box of them arrived this morning, and I am having to restrain myself from gobbling the entire lot in one go. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

*does the Homer-drool*

(And yes, odd choice of Technorati tags, and very ugly formatting, but I want to check two things before I add them to the template proper. (1) how well this new Perfomancing extension works, and (2) if Technorati likes my new blog anymore than the old, and is indexing my tags yet.)

Technorati Tags: yoghurt+covered+pretzels, performancing

So maybe not a Ph.D (that comes next – maybe), but still an MSc.

Yup. Handed it in this morning.

Wish I could feel more excitement, but I’m just too exhausted.

Anyway, that’s me done. Excuse me if I don’t blog for a day or so. I just want to sleep. I might blog, but I also might not. I’m not sure.

First things first though, I can now install OS X Tiger like I promised myself I would when I got done. Yay 🙂

Ok, I am an odd individual. I printed out the final (bar typos and adding figures) version of the thesis last night, and what’s making my day?

Discovering that Macleans White’n’Shine toothpaste now comes in a clear tube.

Actually, if you think about it, that’s not such a bad idea. Never again will I wonder if there’s enough toothpaste left in the tube for one last squeeze (at least until I get another brand at any rate).

It’s been rather a disjointed couple of days regarding toilettries. Awful Radox shower-gel. Wonderful Macleans toothpaste. What does the rest of the week have in store I wonder?

And before you ask, no, I am not being paid by the manufacturers of my toothpaste to big it up on the World Wide Web. You’d think they’d have the sense to pick on a blogger with a readership of more than about five (ten maybe in a good week).

Feel free to ignore this Mini Meadow post. I am trying out a new tool from Performancing. I’ll let you know what I think of it when I’ve had a chance to play with it some.
First thoughts are though that it is quite snazzy…