Yay, it's my birthday today.

The weather is pretty poor here in the 'London fringe area' (fog, fog, and the usual British Winter mix of cold and damp), but that doesn't disappoint me today as I'm turned 17 - now legally old enough to drive a car in the UK, and... well that's about it (besides the stuff I could do at 16, etc.). I suppose you're interested in what I go (or probably not...) and unsurprisingly my main presents from my parents are tech related:
- Project Gotham Racing 2 (Xbox) - Lodos Freeview box (Free-to-air digital terrestial TV box) - PC link up for my Casio CFX9850G graphical calculator (now I can play games in Maths and Phyiscs and look like I'm busy...) And they also saved me a surprise: - a 20GB iPod, engraved with my name

Yes, I'm sure there are many envious people out there (or not... I've no idea how many people actually read this...) but this is my day to enjoy, so let me have my glory. Anyway, moved over from MusicMatch to iTunes on my laptop (Apple moved the software over since the PC version was launched) and getting used to the system of syncing everything in one go really quickly over FireWire (compared to my iPaq where the USB connection is slow to sync and anything other than ActiveSync files have to be done manually or via WMP).

Anyway, time to go and finally play PGR2 on Live...

I got my results yesterday, and for anyone interested, they are as follows:

English Language - AA (includes a grade for listening and speaking)
English Literature - A*
Maths - A*
Physics - A
Chemistry - A*
Biology - A
Geography - A*
History - A
German - B
Religious Studies - B
Statistics - A

All in all, I think I did well: 4 A*s, 5 As and 2 Bs (11 GCSEs).

I was surprised by English Literature (I got a B in the Yr10 exam and in the mock) and Geography (I didn't even finish the paper on this one!). I brought my Chemistry up from a mock B to A*, which is what I was aiming for, and I got my Maths A* as expected (its my specialist subject).

I have just received another 5 mod points - bringing my total to 15 in just over a week and a half. Quite impressive, eh? Still, I suppose (as I said in my last entry) it is because I neither troll nor occasionally browse; I'm the guy in the middle who /. are looking for when picking moderators. It is a hard balance to keep, mind you.

Well it seems I've gone from moderation newbie to a more experienced 'spent mod 6 points'. I got my first Slashdot mod point last Tuesday, and used them up by Friday. "Great" I thought, I'm now truely part of Slashdot. I wasn't expecting to get any more for a month or two, but two my surprised I logged in yesterday (Monday) morning to discover 5 more points sitting there, staring at me, saying "Use them or love them". So, 1 of them gone, I'm currently looking at whether I will get any next week. According to the conditions I must be browsing Slashdot enough not to be a passer-by, but going lightly enough not to be an obsessive troller... Its a hard balance to keep, but so far it has worked. :)

I finished my last GCSE on Friday; Statistics. The exam was alright, because, after all, it was only my specialist subject, Maths. Anyway, the exam itself is not important, its what it sybolises; the end to my GCSEs, and the end of my compulsary eduction. I plan to stay on to take A-Levels, but there will be a different feeling know I don't HAVE to go to school, and that I won't have some council/government officer turning up at my door if I miss a session without a good excuse.

However, now the exams are over, the question is what do I do now? I have about ten and a half weeks before Sixth Form begins, so it looks like I have two options: a) Do nothing or b) Get a job. Not that I need a job, of course, but then I wouldn't mind a laptop with wireless capabilities and a WiFi jacket for my iPAQ 3870. Still, two things that need to be done first; 1) finish off at school and do the Sixth Form induction course, 2) Finish my CCNA; I'm currently qualified in CCNA1 and CCNA2, but its probably best to do 3 and 4, and get the full qualification.

Finally got round to sorting out my slashdot preferences today. Despite being registered on the site for quite a few weeks (few people know this since I'm a reader, rather than a poster), I've only just sorted out my homepage news lists, etc.

My excuse?
GCSEs, of couse.

Indeed, these have taken up a lot of my time, especially with revision in the last few weeks. Hopefully, it should pay off with good grades in August. But for now, I'm just taking the exams, and after two more completed today, I now have 14 down, and just 4 to go...

Oh, and welcome to my first journal entry!