45 minutes ago Claire went to get dressed so we can leave the house. She’s just finished putting her jumper on.
Category: Personal
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.
Lib Dems In Ceredigion
Lib Dems win in Ceredigion over Plaid Cymru, by 219 votes, after a recount. Our little election party just took off…
A Diversion From The Election
Looking for a diversion from the fun of tonight’s vote-counting? Here’s Wikipedia‘s "List Of Frivolous Political Parties.
Dan’s Dingbats Challenge II
Hot on the heels (that’d make a good dingbat!) of Dan’s Dingbats Challenge I (results and answers here) comes Dan’s Dingbats Challenge II! The dingbats are, on average, a little easier (and a little more logical), but the penalty for skipping one or getting it wrong has been increased to 40 seconds added to your time. I’m the only person who’s seen them this time around, so Claire is allowed to compete this time.
Will Suz, Andy and Paul struggle to steal first place from one another again? Will Statto or Ruth jump in and take the lead? Will Hayley and Gareth pull their respective fingers out? There’s all to play for…
Paul Is The Most Fucking Random Person In The World
Paul M: fucking nutter. The most random person you’re ever likely to meet. But you’ve got to love his sincerity.
This morning, I’m happily sat at my workstation, staring, as I do, at program code and pausing from time to time to check the RSS feeds of the usual crew, when the phone rings: Matt answers it; it’s Technium reception – they’ve got a parcel for us. Ooh; that’s exciting, but Matt’s deeply involved in some code so I offer to go and collect it. The arrangement here among us lazy folks is that the receptionist puts the parcel in the lift, and one of us toddles along the corridor and takes it out of the lift on this floor.
I stood outside the lift and listened as it came up to the first floor. The door opened, and I lifted out the parcel… and that’s when I noticed the first strange thing: the parcel was addressed to me, personally (which is very unusual) and the address was written entirely in marker pen (rather than being a printed label, as most goods delivered to us here are). I’m not expecting anything; least of all at work: I never give my work address to anybody. Who could have sent this?
I opened it and laughed out loud. It took just a second to realise what was going on, as I recalled a conversation in the RockMonkey ChatRoom yesterday lunchtime…
[11:38] * Ava_Work goes to nuke food
[11:38] <Ava_Work> Hmm… spaghetti hoops on toast for me, methinks…
[11:39] <Pacifist_049> You’re microwaving spaghetti hoops?
[11:41] <Ava_Work> Yup.
[11:41] <Ava_Work> Why?
[11:41] <Pacifist_049> Philistine
[11:41] <Ava_Work> So…
[11:41] <Ava_Work> …how else can I do it?
[11:41] <Ava_Work> And think carefully now…
[11:41] <Pacifist_049> Pan
[11:41] <Ava_Work> A pan. Which I don’t have. But let’s pretend I did. How would I heat it?
[11:41] <Pacifist_049> I know you don’t have a cooker at work, but that’s not the issue here. It’s the principle, damnit!
[11:42] <Ava_Work> So; as it pisses YOU off so much, feel free to bring me a pan and a cooker. Then I’ll do it your way, which is – in the end – preferable.
[11:42] <Ava_Work> However, it doesn’t piss ME off enough that I’ll go hungry rather than nuke spaghetti hoops.
Click on images for larger versions.
The parcel, as shown above, contains a pan, wooden spoon, loaf of bread, tin of spaghetti hoops, and a strangely familiar electric hob.
Which is a fab gesture, although if I use it for my lunch today I’ll have to do so on the sly, on account of the fact that the Technium facilities manager is in today and this particular piece of electrical equipment has not been electrically safety-tested.
What the fuck. Thank you, Paul!
Geek Night This Week Is Sunday
On account of Bryn being a pest, Geek Night this week will be on Sunday, not Friday. Would people who read this ensure that people like Binky and Fatty get told, ‘cos I’m not sure they read my blog. Thanks.