2004-07-11 partially recovered

Alone, And With…

People who are in on the Secret Of The Jukebox will be delighted to hear that I’ve had a good long hack at it tonight (hence it being 4:30am) and I’ve managed to get heaps done and ready for Paul to break test, including but not limited to the new “Alone, And With…” engine, which doesn’t seem to suffer any longer from the age-old bug that gives it it’s name.

I’ve just finished listening to some old hard-to-get Goo Goo Dolls albums that I acquired a little while ago. One is silly over-punky shouty hard rock stuff; very coarse and unrefined, much unlike their later stuff. The other, ‘Hold Me Up’, is much recommendable: some tracks I’d heard before, some stuff I hadn’t heard, all very very good. In particular, enjoyed ‘Laughing’, ‘Kevin’s Song’, and the older version of ‘Two Days In February’. Toy.

And You Thought Adam Was Difficult When He Was Drunk…

Do you remember a few weeks ago, when Strokey Adam came around drunk? Well, it turns out it could have been a lot worse – see this news report about what drunken elephants can get up to [BBC].

My Internet: Architecture And Operation exam went well this morning. I could waffle on about Aggregatable Global Unicast Addresses in IPv6 for hours. But then I ran out of time.

Troma Night tonight – yay. The flat’s a tip. Must do some tidying this afternoon. All help welcome.

For Sale: Wireless Network Cable

This auction on eBay Germany (you can use Babel Fish to translate it if you like) seems to be trying to sell a Wireless Network Cable.

(and, for the benefit of Adam, who won’t ‘get’ it: a wireless network, being wireless, doesn’t have cables – this is geek humour that even you can understand)

Is This Paul?

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[this post was recovered on 12 October 2018]

Take a look at this article from the BBC, about Aberystwyth train station, and tell me – is that Paul in the frame?

Speed Camera Clocks Motorist At 406mph

As this article [The Sun] shows, a man was caught speeding in Cheshire this week at 406mph.

Quite impressive, I thought, as he was driving a Peugeot 406, who’s maximum speed is listed as being 129mph.

I suppose it stands to reason that we Brits, the nation who currently hold the land speed record of 766mph [CNN], would be the first people to have a speed safety camera pick one of us up at over half the speed of sound. And such a clear picture, too…

Despite the obvious mistake, a spokesperson for Cheshire Safety Camera Partnership has stated that they will still be taking legal action.

Post-Modernist Geography

Adam will no doubt correct me on this, but I didn’t think there could be such a thing as ‘Post-Modernist Geography’ until I saw this young lady’s page on it. Read the page.

It doesn’t really help Adam’s argument that Geography is a subject worthy of mention, does it? It makes it all fluffy and arty. Hmph.

Thanks to those of you who have been forcing hugs upon Claire for the last 24 hours. She seems a lot happier now. Having finished her first two exams seems to have helped, too. =o)

New Troma Night Website Up-And-Running

The new Troma Night website is now up and running. All existing Stars are requested to go and register for the new site to retain their Star status. And give suggestions for Saturday’s films while you’re there, using the new “What Shall We Watch?” feature.

And see you all Saturday!

Almost Finished The New Troma Night Website

Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m about two-thirds of the way through the development of the new Troma Night website (between bouts of revision). Should be ready within the next 12 hours. Fab.

If you’re a Troma Night person, go visit www.tromanight.co.uk tonight (Wednesday night).

Hugz;

Troma Night Website

I’m working (at long last) on updating the Troma Night website. Going OK so far, about a third of the way there. Am contemplating pulling a long, late night and seeing how much of it I can get done at once. Ideally I’ll have it all sorted for next Troma Night, on Saturday – including the new webcam feature! We’ll see…

In other news, Claire’s looking a lot happier now that she’s put the revision to bed for the night.

Claire Seems Distracted

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[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Claims tiredness. Suspect she’s stressed about upcoming exams. Hope that it’s one or the other.

A handful of my friends keep posting entries to their ‘blogs rapidly, in quick succession. Have you heard of putting things in the same entry?. Save your friends from scrolling themselves to death!

My first exam, Monday (Formal Methods In Software Engineering), went better than expected; should have done quite well. Feel confident about The Internet: Architecture And Operation on Saturday morning.

In other news, my new soundcard arrived, giving me an audio system which doesn’t (a) short-circuit and cause my computer to crash from time to time, (b) give me quite painful electric shocks when I connect things to it and (c) gives me stereo sound all the time, without switching to mono for no apparent reason. In addition, I have a ‘front panel’ with heaps of cool-looking connectors, MIDI ports, etc. And a few tweaks later and it works fantastically with the …

Mushroom Mushroom

Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger.

Only When I Sleep

I remember fragments of a dream from last night:

I was back with Reb (the ex- I complain about); we were living together in a place in Aber. But I was secretly plotting to kill her so that I could escape with a pretty female train ticket inspector (entirely a figment of my imagination), who’s name I forget – could have been Louise. I remember a little a rather complicated scene in which Reb and I found ourselves on her train, and the plan nearly come out.

In any case: as far as I remember I woke up without having managed to murder Reb. More’s the pity.

Troma Night

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[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Troma Night last night was a success, as was the Troma Night WebCam (Alpha Test), through which Paul could participate, despite his unfortunate absence.

We watched three Studio Ghibli flicks – Spirited Away (hadn’t seen this before: really quite impressive, but not quite a Totoro-beater), Tonari no Totoro itself, and Princess Mononoke. Everybody and his dog brought beer, so we all got pleasantly sloshed; the pizza was great, we still have mountains of Pringles (mmm… revision food), and altogether the night was just fab.

Ruth brought her boyfriend: GBH, or TNT, or something like that. I’m pretty sure we called him every three letter acronym under the sun during the course of the evening. He’s now the third Troma Night Partner to be brought along: let’s see if he ever comes back (none of the others – Kit’s …

It’s All Psychological, Or Why Men Buy Little Blue Pills

An article on the Register amused me this morning. Go read it.

In other (slightly more geeky) news, there’s a plan to put a wireless internet point in every lamp post. It’s a very clever idea. If the market’s feeling healthy enough, it’ll grant the conceivers some venture capitalists, and it’ll go-ahead. Here’s hoping.

The Student Loans Company Are Wankers

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[this post was partially recovered on 12 October 2018]

Well, they give me money, so I can’t complain too much, but regardless…

My student loan should have been credited to my account on Monday (12th). Paul got his on Sunday! But when mine hadn’t come through by this morning, I got a little concerned. So I phoned them up on the enquires number listed on their web site.

“You have called the Student Loans Company. For enquiries regarding your student loan, press 1. To change your bank account details, press 2. For any other enquires, press 3.”
I press 1.
“If you are calling on behalf of a third party, we must advise you that they must cal personally owing to customer confidentiality. If you have any general enquiries, please visit our web site at www.slc.co.uk. Thank you.” <click>
WTF?

I call again, and this time press 3. Some confusing buttons later, I get through to a nice Scottish woman called Alison. It turns out that they had the incorrect sort code for me (and they had known this for several months [sort code had come up invalid upon entry] – but hadn’t bothered to phone or write to me). How had they gotten the sort code wrong? Well; they’d read one of my …