Fucking Car Alarm

Somebody’s parked a car opposite our house and left it there, last night. It keeps on setting off it’s own alarm (a noisy horn-and-siren affair) – about once ever two hours, for about a quarter of an hour during the night. This morning, it’s been consistently going off for the last half hour: it keeps being deactivated, but then coming back on again. Does anybody know how to break in to and deactivate one of these things?

In other news, I bumped into Matt a last week, who some of you may remember as going out with Ceris (the scary) and having lived in Ty Isa with folks like Kit and, briefly, Paul. Anyway, we were catching up, and he revealed that shortly after Kit left (Matt didn’t know that I knew Paul), somebody tipped off Enviromental Services about the state of the house, and they’ve since all evicted by the council. It’s fun to know things.

Letters After My Name

Results day today, and so I finally get to find out whether or not I get a degree in exchange for my last five years at University. And I do. I’m now entitled to put letters after my name, which is nice.

I’ve got a lower second, which is (I know) less than I’m capable of, but considering my resits and other lark last year, it’s exactly what I expected, so that’s great. Was damn pleased to see that my dissertation got a first.

Now I suppose I’d better get on with the rest of my life.

Back From Malawi

Yay! I’m back in Aberystwyth!

For my next task, I’m going to have to sift through over 7 hours of video footage of my trip, to produce DVDs for the consumption of the cycling team. Which is nice.

It feels good to be back in Aber (it feels good not to be eating nsima!). To give me a proper ‘welcome back’, and really make me feel like I’d returned, Paul greeted me by telling me that the Troma Night web site was broken and that I had lots of work to do. Thanks, Paul. Just what I needed to help cure this jetlag.

18 hours of travelling time is a great way to fuck up your system.

Anyway – you’ll all be hearing much, much more about my Malawian exploits over the next week or so, but for now, I need to start decompressing this video…

He’s coming home, he’s coming… Dan is coming home

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

This repost was published in hindsight, on 11 March 2019.

Claire wrote:

Owing to Kenya Airlines being arsey, Dan will now be home Monday, instead of Wednesday! Yaaaaay! Pity they couldn’t do their tour of Zambia as well as Malawi, but it means he’ll be home early. I’m going to pick him up from Preston. If anyone wants a ride, feel free, since he has not got much stuff with him.

Had my first day at work today, 8am-1pm shift. The boss is really nice and made me cups of tea and lunch. The people are nice too though the children are sometimes annoying. I think I’ll learn a lot about how to deal with kids before I’m finished! Working again on Saturday, and then 6 days a week from then on.

Going out for curry tonight, should be good. I have sunburn from sleeping on the beach yesterday. My hand is a bit swollen, but I put on after-sun and I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t hurt anymore though.

Can’t wait to see Dan. I didn’t realise quite how much I was missing him until I got a message from him and I was so happy that he’s coming home. It lifted a huge weight from my mind, like I thought he’d been mauled by tigers or something because I hadn’t heard from him in days. I was counting down the days, and before long it would have been in hours, but now it’s only 42 and three-quarter hours until I see him!

Hurray!!

Off To Malawi!

I’m off to Malawi!

I’ve found my bus ticket (stupid train strikes), my passport (stupid immigration laws), my juggling balls (stupid… no, wait… juggling is good)… I guess I’m ready to go.

Contrary to my assumption that my bus would be leaving from the bus station, it’s apparently leaving from Plascrug… which is… somewhere… hmm…

Anyway, y’all, take care, have fun without me, blah blah blah, be thinking of you. Will try to update this blog (or at least phone-in an update that can be appended as a comment) while I’m on the road. And sorry I couldn’t get Product ‘X’ working better than it does before I left.

Hugz & kittenz;

It’s Not Just A Games Console…

…it fits in your living room, detects intruders, and has a 3-year warranty!

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, go have a play with my latest software toy, Product ‘X’. Eventually, we’ll be able to replace both innovators and (more importantly) marketers with a system like this: it generates instant hype!

I might have to write an add-in for it that lets it automatically fill in patent application forms. =o)

Go play with Product ‘X’, and tell me what you think.

It’s Like An Umbrella, But It Can Be Deployed Within Minutes

This’ll be a giggle. I’ve got a little project on the go that should amuse you all for a good few minutes (we’ve all been laughing our socks off here at it this evening). Given my way, I’ll be deploying it tomorrow afternoon.

Pre-Malawi Update

Here’s the state of play before I leave Aber for awhile, in answer to all the questions that people keep on asking me and that therefore I ought to answer in a centralised manner, here, to save them from doing so (and me from repeatedly having to say the same replies):

Yes, I leave for Malawi on Wednesday the 16th on June, early in the morning. Yes, I realise that this is Claire’s 21st birthday, and for this reason we’ve re-scheduled her birthday for the more convenient Tuesday 15th (meaning that she’ll get one day longer of being 21 than most people get… except for those for whom their 21st falls before February in a leap year, or after February the year before, I suppose).

No, I’m not taking my bike: I’m acquiring one out there. Yes, I’ll be back on the 30th June, string-and-balsa aeroplanes permitting. Yes, I’m aware that (despite now no longer being illegal) long hair on men is still frowned upon in some parts of Malawi, and I’ll be concealing mine tucked-under a hat.

Yes, the side-effects of the lariam have mostly stopped, now. I still have interesting sleep patterns and really, really weird dreams (I haven’t been blogging them because they’ve all either [a] been more disturbing for those who’d read them even than the one about Matt was, or [b] because I’ve only remembered fragments of them).

Right; and on that note – I have things I need to get on with. I’ll post one more update, at least, before I leave for Malawi: other than that, I’ll be quiet on the blog front for the next fortnight.

I’m Not The Only One

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Badger badger badger,
Mushroom mushroom.

Apart from Claire, is there anybody else who doesn’t find that funny? Claire claimed that nobody does, but both Bryn and Paul laughed.

Beach! Fire! Yay!

Come join us on the beach for fire and beer, if you’re still in Aber!…

The Importance Of A Sensible Patent System In Europe

If Haydn had patented “a symphony, characterised by that sound is produced [ in extended sonata form ]”, Mozart would have been in trouble.

No ePatents
Click Here — Sign The Petition

Just thought I’d share that link with you. This is something which could eventually affect the way we all use computers. To those of you who don’t recognise these images or have no idea what I’m on about, I urge you to read about the issue of software patenting in Europe.

The difference between a patent and a copyright

Thanks for listening.