Blog – Page 380

Thoughts Of Tuesday

Cycling home last night I realised once again quite what a happy bunny I am. I enjoy my job, for which I am paid very reasonably. I live in a town that I love, and I’m surrounded by good friends. And, above all else, I have the love of a beautiful woman whom I love and adore with all my heart. When I got home, I told Kit, Bryn and Paul (who were already at my house, playing Super Monkey Ball 2) quite what a happy little creature I was. They didn’t seem particularly impressed.

Kit continues to get better at Super Monkey Ball 2. He kicked my arse at Monkey Target 2, in which the aim is to land gliders on small targets at sea, at least as much as I beat him. Might need to get some Super Monkey Practice in.

Andy’s latest journal entry is weird as ever. Slightly trippy, but inspirational nonetheless. I have a thought for a similar tale of my own, published to this site, but with an interesting twist upon the typical “serial story” theme. If I can be arsed I’ll make it happen. No promises. I have lots of other stuff to be getting on with.

This morning, picked up our insurance report from Daton Systems, who I’ve given a link because they didn’t charge me for the privilege. This report claims that the laptop is a write-off, which lets us stop the insurance company bugging us about having claimed it as such and bought a new one without any evidence.

Better get some work done, now, I guess.

Monday Morning

Another new week. I’m surprisingly jolly about it. Spent the morning so far discussing corporate image with my boss.

[quiz results removed]

Gotta love Mondays.

I won at Mario Party 4 again last night. But Claire didn’t come second… she came third, beaten to it by Paul. You’d think she’d be pleased. But no.

She kicked all our asses in a Flag Rally at Cel Damage, though. D’oh!

Paul In Aber

Paul made it to Aber. Woo and indeed hoo. He, Bryn, Kit, Claire, and I went to the beach and drank beer and ate pizza to celebrate. Then Claire and I took turns in an inflatable dingy and I got soaked as a wave leapt over the side. You’ll probably see their reports of this on their journals, soon, too.

The wiki I was coding got finished. Sadly, only a few of you who read this will ever be allowed to see it, but it’s pretty sweet.

Plothole appeared in the story on Andy’s LiveJournal – he has me drinking tea, which, as everybody knows, isn’t going to happen on account of (a) caffiene being a really, really bad thing for me and (b) I don’t particularly like tea. Have reported this to him and await feedback.

This made me laugh: type Weapons of Mass Destruction into Google and you’ll get this page. I laughed lots.

Hawaii

I’m scared. Kit is researching the laws governing marriage in Hawaii, and I’m not exactly sure why.

“Hey; you can get married at 15 in Hawaii!”

Meanwhile, I’m currently coding a wiki engine. For those of you who aren’t in-the-know, a wiki is a collaborative network of web pages that anybody can edit. They’re fun, if a little anarchic.

Back to the code…

Anonymity For Beginners

Somebody obviously didn’t understand the idea of the BBC’s story on annoying work colleagues when they posted the following comment: see how they signed it off –

Why are there so many ‘Anonymous’ comments above? If people are so concerned about their colleagues, then say so with the courage of your convictions rather than snipe about them anonymously!
Anonymous, UK

Raised a laugh among my work colleagues, anyway.

Seagulls, Part II

Seagulls are stupid. A pair had laid an egg on top of a church steeple near where I live, and, sure enough in true saw-it-a-mile-off glory, as soon as the chick was able to waddle around, it fell off. Saw it waddling around on the grass last night, it’s mother trying to find a way to get it back up.

She – later joined by her partner and a couple of other gulls – soon came to try to see us off before we could formulate a plan to rescue the chick from potentially becoming a cat’s dinner. Ah well; we have an oversupply of seagulls anyway. Perhaps letting this one get munched (assuming any cat dares try to get past the big mommy gull!) makes up, in some strange and twisted cosmic karma, for the bastard gulls who shredded my bin bags back on the 24th June. Perhaps not.

Philosophy

After a long day at work, went to a couple of pubs with Kit and Claire and discussed philosophy, in particular people’s value to the world. Later, Claire cried.

Be proud of yourselves. Goodnight;

Mobile Phone Dangers

I can understand the warnings that you should not drive while talking on your mobile phone, but this extract from a report by the BBC about phone usage in Japan really says it all:

“People in Japan use their mobile phones to do much more than talk… …only this weekend, newspaper ads warned phone users to avoid walking and writing emails at the same time.”

Late

Running late for work. Was supposed to get up and take laptop to Daton as part of an insurance scam, but I’m still at home after having woken up late. Still, Claire’ll be at work until about 1am today… in Newtown… so there’s no benefit to me coming home early. I’ll work late.

Updated Troma Night at long last – this web site chronicles the things I get up to on termtime Saturday nights.

Suppose I oughta go get this laptop sorted and put my paycheque into the bank, then get my lazy layabout arse to work.

LiveJournals

Many of my friends here in Aber seem to have their own weblogs on LiveJournal. I’m almost tempted to download the (open) source of LJ and set up AberJournal, a site for Aberites to post their journals to. Could be cool.

On which note, please go see:

This particular entry in Andy’s journal, on account of it being hilarious, and,
Strokey Adam’s new journal – he’s just gotten one for the first time.

I’ve just woken up, and I’d better go to work.

Spooks

Work. Ho-hum.

Watched two episodes of Spooks at Bryn’s new house. He’s just moved to Aber to start his year in industry at the national library. Spooks is a BBC TV drama series about MI5 agents generally kicking arse. Apart from the enormous holes here and there – like the techniques for following somebody (ride a motorbike behind them for their entire [circular] journey), the unlocked access to a credit rating agency’s database on an open terminal in the middle of a room, and the inaccuracies in the way that certain activities were performed – it’s okay. I’ll certainly have to watch another episode or two sometime.

Later, stood talking with Claire and Kit outside Barclays, a random stranger appears next to us. “Very nice,” he mumbles. Kit turns to him and greets him, perhaps only to find out who the fuck he is. “Hmm… are you three…” he begins, then gestures at the flower pots near the lamp post, “Very nice.” He then turns and disappears.

You know you’ve been in this town too long when you don’t find that kind of thing weird any more.

The Return From Lancashire

Spent the last four days in Lancashire and elsewhere in the North of England, visiting my folks (among other things). Details follow…

Sunday 29th June 2003
Dan’s Mum’s House, Preston
Helped fix my mum’s fence, and enjoyed the challenge of removing a pigeon from her gutter. This stupid bird, it seems, on a collision course for the house (shitting on the window as it came), struck the roof with sufficient force to kill itself, and then rolled gracefully into the gutter, where it became lodged.

Using a clever combination of metal rods and string, Claire and I were able to lasso it’s foot from one of the upstairs windows and, a few pokes later, lob it’s rotting corpse down to my sister, waiting below.

My dad kindly let me take one of his bikes – Silver Machine – back to Aber with me, which’ll make getting to and from work a lot nicer. Must buy a lock for it.

Got back at about midnight. Claire spent most of the night tied to the bed, which was fun. Enough said.

Back From Lancashire, Continued

Spent the last four days in Lancashire and elsewhere in the North of England, visiting my folks (among other things). Details follow…

Saturday 28th June 2003
Dan’s Mum’s House, Preston
More video games. Yet again I won at Mario Party 4. Claire is starting to get really pissed-off with always coming second-place. I don’t think she’d mind being last or second-to-last all the time, but coming second-place time and time again really seems to annoy her. Particularly when I proceed to dance around the room chanting “I am the Party Star!” at the top of my voice. Ah well.

Horton Tower, Horton
Went with Claire and my family to see the annual symphony orchestra at Horton Tower. It wasn’t as good as last year, but it was still fun. Taught Claire to waltz.

More to follow…

Back From Lancashire, Continued

Spent the last four days in Lancashire and elsewhere in the North of England, visiting my folks (among other things). Details follow…

Friday 27th June 2003
Dan’s Mum’s House, Preston
Played on Claire’s Nintendo GameCube with Claire, my mum, and sisters. I won at Mario Party 4.
Went to meet the managing director who’ll be taking over from my dad upon his retirement. He didn’t seem remotely scared enough by the idea that if my dad fell under a bus (oh; the irony of a transport consultant being run over by a public transport vehicle), I’d be his majority shareholder, nor did he seem to believe all the stories the rest of the staff told about me. He’ll be taught to fear me, yet… <evil grin>

Later, met up with Andy, Dan’s AvAngel.com co-webmaster, and played more video games, before going out for KFC and to see Bruce Almighty at the cinema, which was a pretty damn cool film.

Finally, retired to my mum’s house for yet more video games. I won at Mario Party 4. Again.

More to follow…

Back From Lancashire

Spent the last four days in Lancashire and elsewhere in the North of England, visiting my folks (among other things). Details follow…

Thursday 26th June 2003
Linux Expo 2003, Birmingham
Sorted out Claire’s bank, packed bags, and set off for Birmingham to the last day of Linux Expo 2003 at the National Exhibition Centre, to meet up with Gareth and some other geeks to talk about a project on which my input could be valuable. Gareth is going to come over to Aberystwyth next weekend and we’ll knock together a prototype of the system we’ve suggested.

Claire got scared by the vast numbers of stereotypical geeks (and the distinct overdose of testosterone in the air – she was one of only three women in the whole place), and by the fact that, unlike normal, she couldn’t understand one in three words spoken. I smiled. She’s got a little way to go to earn her geek stripes, yet.

Bon Jovi, Manchester
Arrived late at Old Trafford – missed the support group, but in time to try to find standing room before Bon Jovi came on-stage. All-in-all, a good concert: Claire was a little short for standing on the pitch to have been a good idea, and the sound quality was a little below-par owing to a lack of adequate repeater speakers, and the only beer available was Budweiser and Boddingtons, but it was still a pretty good gig. Went to a Manchester pub afterwards before catching a really, really late train home. Got to bed sometime after 3am.

More to follow…