May 2005 Archives

My New Route Home From Work

Tide permitting, I’ve been taking a new route home from work. It’s not much of a shortcut, not even taking 30 seconds off my time to get home, but it’s certainly a lot more fun than the regular route. Of course; it’s only accessible at high tide, and it does take a little bit of balancing…

Looking down on the pipe from the bridge.

The ladder up the sea defences can be seen at the other end.

There’s a convenient ladder at the Aberystwyth side of the river, that can be seen up the side of the sea defences in the third photo.

Uplifting Text Message

Content Warning

This archived blog post has been flagged as containing content that treats or depicts people negatively based on their appearance or identity. This wasn't okay at the time and it isn't okay now.

I don't believe it's acceptable to pretend I didn't write them by removing them from the Internet - insofar as such a thing is even possible. However, I also don't want to give them any more visibility than they already have.

Just received the following text message from my sister:

me and mum just saw Reb D and she was fat, and had clothes on that did not match, and Frizzy hair, and we thought of u. love us Xx

For My Mum…

Crusty Snacks
“Does she?”

Claire

45 minutes ago Claire went to get dressed so we can leave the house. She’s just finished putting her jumper on.

Toaster Death

Our toaster at work just blew up. It’s an Inspirations 4-Slice Toaster and I’d recommend against it to anybody. It’s actually the second such toaster we’ve had: Alex bought one from Woolworths so we could toast things and before long it developed a problem such that only 2 of the slots actually worked (the others just held on to cold bread). Later still, it exploded as it was turned on, shooting blue sparks in a plume up to the ceiling.

This new toaster was a replacement, and it soon developed the same “2 slices only” problem. While Gareth was making himself toast this morning he loaded up all 4 slices and I reached over to demonstrate that a particular two didn’t work… as soon as I pressed the lever down, there was a flash: a sparkly orange plume shot up out of the device and the circuit breakers engaged.

So now I can’t have my muffins for breakfast. And I’m hungry.

Could Be A Lot Worse

At least my week’s getting better towards the end. Extracts from an e-mail from my mum:

…work – complete nightmare, back-to-back meetings most days with no time to implement the outcomes and so much work looming I don’t know where to start… …XXXXX is pregnant and leaving in a month or two (not to be replaced) and XXXXXXX’s contract is finishing soon which leaves….. er…. ME to do Banner support for the University (a task undertaken by teams of up to 20 at other Unis)… …One of the puppies is seriously ill with Juvenile Cellulitis and currently has a head twice the normal size and filled with pus… …antibiotics four times a day…. which means I have to go home every lunchtime… …we were raided by foxes and all the chickens have been taken… …to cap it all XXXXX is terminally ill (cancer) with only a few months to live…

My week seems just peachy by comparison. Hang in there, mum!

Andy’s Dingbats Challenge

Remember my dingbats challenges? (challenge 1, answers; challenge 2, answers) Well; Andy took my engine and made one of his own, which I forgot to link to earlier. Anyway, go take it if you like, but the answers are probably out by now.

It’s a little bit more random and weird and off-the-wall than mine, mind.

Busy Busy Busy

It’s going to be one of those weeks. I can tell: I haven’t finished stuff I was going to do on Monday morning yet. It’s not helped by the fact that we’ve had various computers fall over and we’ve got two French students (as part of the Leonardo da Vinci scheme) who need leading-by-the-hand for a couple of days. So much to do!

Still; Knightmare Night tonight; that’s always a giggle, and we’ll probably get to the end of season 3 and start season 4, which is the first one with pre-filmed outdoor scenes, the “dragon flight” sequence, the eye shield, and Pickle.

IXUS 5 Repair Guide

This is a repost promoting content originally bookmarked via del.icio.us. See more del.icio.us imports or more things Dan's reposted.

Bookmarked via del.icio.us: IXUS 5 Repair Guide.

Paul Mann Categorises The Wiki World

Paul seems to be celebrating finishing his hand-ins by categorising the entire RockMonkey wiki. Go see the newly-improved RockMonkey category structure, starting your explorations at category root…

Geek Night

Last night’s Geek Night was fab: thanks to everybody who came. I didn’t win a single game, but that’s not what it’s about at all, really, is it. Kings & Things was fab, and it was great to get to play Tigris & Euphrates again (and lose for a change, damnit, at it). It was also great to watch the Illuminati game opposite, in which Andy destroyed the United Nations and Sian (who seemed to quite enjoy it, the happy little conspiracy theorist that she is) fought to control “weird” groups, and then there was the Chrononauts game with Jimmy and Pete, and… it was a fab night, anyway.

In other good news, Andy‘s going to launch his version of my Dingbats Challenge, soon, I gather, having receive a little technical support from my version in getting it set-up. Watch this space.

And finally – people coming to Knightmare Night tomorrow: fear not! For time turns and season four is on it’s way… there shall be at least two more Knightmare Nights hereafter!

Right; back to it… but first, lunch.

Hollywood Pizza

Hey, I was just looking at Troma Night‘s last Hollywood Pizza receipt, and I’ve noticed that they’ve stopped writing the full address at the top of the receipt for the delivery driver. Now they just write “Cambrian Place”.

After 75+ Troma Nights, we’ve finally managed:

To be their only customer in Cambrian Place: or, at least, their only customer worth mentioning on a Saturday night.
To get them to regularly bring the pizza straight in and up to the living room, if we leave the door unlocked and put a sign on it requesting this, and tip the delivery driver.
To know who we are based on the size and time of our order, and so not have to state the address, sometimes.

Goals for the next 75 Troma Nights include:

Improving upon point #2 – if we don’t call by 9pm on a Saturday, they should be at a point where they’re considering calling us. To help them in this, we will now always give them the landline phone number when we order.
To get a regular customer discount – we hear that the owner is particularly unlikely to provide this (a customer that orders several times a week hasn’t yet managed, but perhaps we can persuade him otherwise by mentioning that we’ve been approached by Pier Pizza (Pizza Royale) with a better offer… hmm, perhaps we should wait until Troma Night 150 first).
Getting them to suggest pizza based upon who is present (“Is Andy there? Okay, so that’s a Meat Feast…”) or, at least, to reverse this association upon delivery (“I’ve got a Vegetarian With Jalapenos On Half, umm… that for Sian and Ruth, right?” from the deliveryperson). Perhaps we could not take the pizzas from them until they’ve learned everybody’s names, and work up fromt here.

Dan’s Dingbats Challenge II – Results

Great turnout for Dan’s Dingbats Challenge II. Thanks for playing, all of you who did! Here’s the scoreboard:

Position	Player	Time Taken	Right Answers	Total Time
1	The Amazing Wonko Best score, great time to boot… beat Jimmy by just three seconds.	3mins, 42secs	13.5	4mins, 2secs
2	Jimmy Fastest overall time and a very good score. So very close to winning…	3 mins, 25secs	13	4mins, 5secs
3	Dimmer	3 mins, 51secs	13	4mins, 31secs
4	Claire	4mins, 36secs	12.5	5mins, 36secs
5	Paul	4mins, 41secs	12	6mins, 1sec
6	Gareth @ SD	5mins, 32secs	13	6mins, 12secs
7	JTA	5mins, 57secs	13	6mins, 37secs
8	Ruth Unfortunatley for her, her second attempt [total time 3mins, 1sec] doesn’t count)	3mins, 46secs	9.5	6mins, 46secs
9	Andy K	5mins, 6secs	10 (two half-marks)	7mins, 46secs
10	“scatman” (not me!)	4mins, 10secs	8	8mins, 10secs
11	Jen W	5mins, 52secs	8.5	9mins, 32secs
12	Matt @ SD	6mins, 24secs	8.5	10mins, 4secs
13	Hagen @ SD	10mins, 28secs	11	12mins, 28secs
14	Hayley	10mins, 51secs	9	14mins, 11secs
14	John K	9mins, 50secs	7	14mins, 30secs

Here are the answers. Click on any of the dingbat thumbnails to see the full-size versions:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Just like the previous challenge, this one began with a particularly difficult puzzle. The words “bird” and “two” appear inside the words “hand” and “bush”, respectively, and the equals sign states that they have equal worth. Devillishly difficult, but an impressive number of people got it. Half-marks for “a bird in the hand beats two in the bush”, because it was so very nearly there.

Three cheers.
Finally, a dingbat that everybody can get.

Rock around the clock.
It’s a clock, with the word “rock” repeated around it. Well?

Drinkin’ to forget.
The word “drink” appears in the phrase “24get” (“to forget”), so “drink in 24get”. Anything vaugely close got the marks, but “some kind of low fat drink” didn’t, and neither did “24 hour drinking”. Difficult.

Head over heels in love.
The word “head” over two (different, just to be confusing) kinds of “heels”, inside a heart (love). Most people got this one, but “feel it head to heel” and “grr argh” remain the two most spectacularly wrong answers.

History repeats.
I thought this one was really easy, but apparently it isn’t. “History follows history”, “history is history”, “two versions of history” and “past” are all wrong answers.

Mixed vegetables / tossed vegetables.
Everybody saw the word “vegetables” in here, it seems, and even “chopped vegetables” is worth a half-mark. I thought it would be tougher to put the word back together than it obviously was.

Once in a blue moon.
Easy, again: the word “once” on a blue-tinted moon. I’ve had complaints from two colourblind participants, but they both got it right anyway.

Green with envy.
More complaints from colourblind participants, one of whom had to hold up something that they knew to be green and squint at them both together to be sure they were actually looking at something that was green.

Capital punishment.
The word punishment written, quite clearly, in capital letters. “Punishment takes a lifetime” is very, very wrong.

Backseat driver.
My favourite from this set. It’s the words “seat driver” written backwards. Many participants hunted for inner words, anagrams, and all sorts, not bothering to try to read it from right to left. My favourite wrong answer was “Argh! It looks like revision! Help!”

Tickled pink.
Unpopular again with the colourblind participants. Nonetheless, everybody got it right.

Big Trouble In Little China
The correct answer, which only a few people got, was “Big Trouble In Little China”: it’s the name of a film. “Big Trouble In China” and “Trouble In Little China” miss the bigger (or littler) picture, and only get half-marks, while “Trouble In China” gets none. Get over it.

No harm in trying.
My second-favourite in this set; one which many people got wrong. The word “harm” is being crossed out from the middle of the phrase “tryharming”, which of course leaves the word “trying”, with no “harm” in it: therefore, “no harm in trying”. Wrong answers included “self harming”, “out of harms’ way”, and “trying to disarm”.

So, thanks again to everybody who participated, and big congratulations to The Amazing Wonko! Congratulations also due to Jimmy (great fast time – if only you could have shaved three seconds off it or got one more half-mark you’d have one) and Dimmer. Also well done to all those who participated in this and the last one, and got better as a result of the practice.

I’ll leave things there for awhile, but I think that Andy may be working on his very own “Dingbats Challenge” (or something like it) in the near future. Watch this space.