Kind: Articles
Traditional long form content: a post with an explicit title and body.
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I’ve Been Q’ing For A Year Now
Post Offices, eh? But those aside, it's now been a year since Claire and I changed our surnames to the letter "Q". Here's a quick look back:
The Good Things
It still feels like it's "ours," and something that's ours alone - a great sense of identity and togetherness that we probably wouldn't have gotten … -
Self-Harm Awareness Day
There's a mailing list I'm on that just got a message that started as follows:
Subject: March 1st - Self-Harm Awareness Day
Just curious...
a) How many of you knew it was self-harm awareness day on March 1st and
b) Are you doing anything to mark it?
<snip>
It's pretty bad that the first response I thought of was … -
A Postcard From Jimmy
The first postcard has arrived from Jimmy's world tour (right now he's in Thailand).
On the front is a picture of some interestingly-shaped rocks which are apparently right outside the front door of the guesthouse where he's staying.
He writes:
Hello everyone in Aber!
Fly to Samai in Thailand. Grab a taxi (boat or car) to Lamai beach. … -
Best Bug Ever
On behalf of a client of a client of SmartData, I was responsible this weekend for moving a website over from one server to another. It's a monolithic old custom-written content management system, in Perl, which over the last four or five years has been passed from developer to developer and has begun to look …
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Valentine’s Day
None of the four of us (JTA, Ruth, Claire and I) had planned to make anything special out of Valentine's Day, which is why I was quite surprised last night to come home from work and find The Cottage kitted out with candles as part of Ruth's last-minute secret plan to cook a romantic meal …
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And The Rest Of Bulgaria
Oh yeah, suppose I ought to finish writing about Bulgaria now that we've been back a couple of days.
MORE SKIING: Aced The Wall in the end, and damn it's a good run - long and fast and challenging, even when you think you know it. Coming back up on the chairlift I met a couple … -
News From The Slopes
Fresh from the slopes, over GPRS (at charging rates starting at "two limbs"), comes this report from the Bulgarian Holiday Team (Claire and I, along with my dad and my sisters).
JOURNEY: Uneventful, but tedious - three and a bit hours on a plane followed by a five hour bus journey is pretty mind-numbing, although we … -
So That Was 2007
2007's drawing to a close, so I thought I'd better say a few words to mark it's passing, and what's it's meant to me. In convenient bullet-point form, here's what I've been up to this year:
January
I was a headline act at Gorilla Monsoon, Aber's now-dead alternative comedy "scene" event. … -
Out And About
Just to keep people posted aboutour whereabouts, here's Claire and I's travel plans for the next few days:
Friday (Today) evening: travel from Aberystwyth to Norfolk.
Saturday: Norfolk (well, Lincolnshire) with Claire's dad and his wife.
Sunday: travel from Norfolk to Preson.
Monday: Preston with Dan's family.
Tuesday (New … -
Further Disturbances From Dan’s Sleepy Head
Two more particularly strange dreams last night, probably owing at least slightly by the amount I drank at the SmartData Christmas meal, beforehand... and perhaps owing more to the phase I've been going though of consistently remembering what are usually quite trippy dreams. I've not been blogging them all (I had a dream the night …
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Another Strange Dream
Well, I'm in Derby (after a hideously long and complicated journey involving long train delays, diversions, and a taxi ride - lost - around the middle of Derby city centre) visiting my friend Katie.
And another strange dream for my collection. But this one isn't suitable for print (no, not in that way), so … -
Christmas Cards
[thanks to several people for the suggestion behind this post]
I've never really "got" the sending of Christmas cards, or, really, got "into" it. It feels like a waste of overpriced paper to line the pockets of big printing companies just to save you the bother of actually picking up the phone and talking … -
We’re Going Down
Another strange dream last night:
I was in a small aircraft (one aisle, two seats either side, about 80 seats in total, two jet engines, for those who feel the need to identify the aircraft in my dreams), sat by a window on the left hand-side, when the right-hand engine caught fire. The … -
A Quick Play With HTML5
I've been playing with HTML 5 a little this morning. It's really quite fabulous: a lot of smart design decisions have been made and it looks like - given a good few years to get things up to scratch even after the specification has been finalised - it'll really provide a lot of useful tools …
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High Places
Another unusual dream last night. I'd meant to blog about it earlier in the day, before it faded, but it's been a ludicrously busy day with one thing and another and I didn't get a chance. I slept kind-of fitfully, I think, and I'm pretty sure this dream came to me in two distinct chapters, …