Dan Q
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.
Fiona wrote:
You have made me both think and laugh tonight Dan. Thank you.
Thank you Paul, you got me in to this- it is my main way of being in touch with all of you.
Thank you all for posting, I often feel as if it should be me moving to Aber, I would be happy their.
I should study, but I’ll probably knit.
[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]
[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 …
If this all works to-plan, my recent changes to Scatmania will mean that every time I make a new entry, a link is posted to a journal on LiveJournal. This will allow my friends to monitor my blog from their ‘friends lists’, in AbNibs absence.
Good progress at work today, easily catching up on the things I didn’t get done yesterday on account of having been at the Royal Welsh Show.
AbNib is proving itself popular, but I’m still not happy with it: there are a load of really cool features I’d like to add, yet. But that’s a job for another day. I’ll be up in Lancashire this weekend for Andy‘s party and to visit my folks, so I can’t do it then, either.
Claire’s gotten herself temporarily sterilized with a fantastic hyperdermic full of progesterone and with the aid of the nice people at Aberystwyth Family Planning Clinic. Woo and indeed hoo. She’s (theoretically) a lot less likely to forget to have an injection every three months than she is to forget to take the pill: something she’s demonstrated herself to be very proficient at.
I’ve been excessivley stressed for the last 48 or so hours. I think it’s mostly a result of having no money and my paycheque still being a week away, and having to live off my credit card in the meantime (which I don’t like doing). Also that my crisp-wound in my mouth from the other day has developed into a spot which would probably heal faster and hurt less if I could stop playing with it, but I can’t. And that I’m not making nearly as much coding progress on Three Rings as I should be.
I have a strange urge to go for a long walk in the rain this evening. I hope it rains.
I’m almost ready to launch AbNib (main site may be down during development, but try the temporary mirror), a site dedicated to the weblogs of Aberites: people who live in or love Aberystwyth.
There are some funky new and cool features to come. But this is a weblog-community in the making.
Rock on.
I really hate uninteresting blogs. The kind which consists of a single entry every week or two, and every time it states “Sorry I haven’t made any updates recently. (insert excuse here) I’ve not been up to much recently anyway.” Every week! Sad but true.
That rant aside, here’s a fantastic example of exactly what I’m talking about.
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.
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.
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.
Happy with my new weblog, I’m launching it now. And, just out of curiosity, I’m not going to tell anybody about it, and see how long it takes people to notice.
Yes; I really am ‘just odd like that’.
Anyway – that’s enough goofing around on the internet at work for me… I’m off to goof around on the internet at home, interrupted only by a pint with Claire, Kit and Bryn, and a look at Kit’s newly-cleaned fish tanks. What an exciting life I lead.
Well; I finally did it. I finally got myself a weblog. After weeks of peer pressure by such friends as Paul, Alec, and Kit with their shiny LiveJournals, I decided to have one of my own.
Just to remind anybody who doesn’t already know that this isn’t, technically, my first weblog. My first one ran from 1998 to 1999 – before the term ‘blog’ was coined, and before it became fashionable to ramble on about yourself online. The “Avatar Diary”, on my old, old web site, was a source of perpetual interest from all kinds of people for some time. Well; until I got a scary cyberstalker (really, it scared me, and very little does), and then I packed it in.
I suppose now I’d better get something more productive done. I’m not getting paid for this.
A blog post, now lost, was published in August or September 1999, and discussed (among other things) the 11 August 1999 solar eclipse which I’d been lucky enough to witness from one of the few places on the path of totality that wasn’t plagued by heavy cloud on the day: Paris. This image, taken on that day (although never used in the blog post) was shared here in hindsight, on 25 May 2019.
Went to church with Alecia and Richard. There’s a weird experience for me. Tasted the new flavour of Juicefuls from Brewsters while I was in town – Strawberry flavour. They’re just as addictive as all the other flavours. Though I had intended to use the remainder of the day to finish tidying my room (the end of a mammoth task) and doing homework which is due later this week, I was instead distracted and played on Civilization II, watched TV, and other such mind-expanding activities. Went to bed in the wee small hours, after updating the Castle with my latest Åvatar Diary accounts.
Dan’s first blog post was made on this date. Its existence and the date of its publication can be derived from other sources, but its contents have been lost. It didn’t have a
title. It will have been available at http://castle.onza.net/ (and then later http://castle.onza.net/diary/) from the date of its publication through 1 October 1999.
This post acts as a placeholder in the unlikely event that its content can one day be recovered.