Blog!ARU: Archive

Well, I notice that my last posting was way back on Monday so I feel I should write something. Hmmn, well, what to write? I'm starting to get that "I need a holiday" feeling again, which is bad as it's only 3 or 4 weeks ago that I had one but it feels more like 2 months. Work is getting a bit hectic, I'd like time to finish a given task before starting another, rather than trying to do 8 simultaneously! It makes me feel confused, I lose focus and thoughts regarding other tasks pop up whilst I'm doing something else. I think I'll take a day's holiday soon. I'm longing to get back out on my bike. Last month I had a little accident, nothing serious but it's just taken an overly-long time to heal. Apart from cuts and things the main problem was that I strained my thumbs pretty bad. That has made me think twice about going out on my bike since I couldn't easily change gear or get a good grip on the bars should I need to brake sharpish :o) My thumbs are still crook (to borrow an Australianism) but I'm sick of being stuck in the flat. I'm just waiting for the rain to stop some day! I need a haircut. It's Halloween today, but I forgot to buy any sweets for the little (and not so little) kids that knock on your door in costume holding large root vegetables with gruesome faces cut out of them (the turnips, not the kids). But, it's just as well since none called :o| My landlord is not going to replace my dodgy fridge, despite it having ruined one batch of food already. I have to wait until it does it again, which is nice. I've put on a couple of kilos in weight, probably because I'm not exercising. So, I guess I'll cut out the orange chocolate chip muffin I buy from the "sandwich man" at work every morning. Maybe I'll have an early night, a long and restful night's sleep would be nice!

The scene that didn't make it into the final edit of Star Wars.

Scratch Spider from Weebls-stuff.com.

I'll be brief, houses that have 1 metre-thick walls should not creak in the wind, even if it is gale-force outside. If anyone needs me I'll be under my duvet.

In other news:
Someday I'm going to laugh uncontrollably when confronted with a tray of light savoury snacks. People are clearly going to assume I'm missing something fundamental when I do. The reason, however, is rathergood.com/grease.

I have some music stuck in my head, it's the track playing alongside some cats in flat caps with accordians and xylophones.

It took me an hour to make my bed tonight - it was flat-pack after all! Very droll.

Whilst I write this the thought occurs to me that "Austin Allegro" is an oxymoron. Quite why this thought popped up then I don't know since I was actually going to talk about the weather.

The weather has been interesting today, yes it has, no honestly. Today has been the kind of day that forecasters would innocently summarise as "After a frosty start it will be warm with sunny spells and light breezes but with gales at times, occasionally cool. Intermittant heavy thundery showers with light rain and occasional hailstones. It will be mainly cloudy but with clear skies." In other words pretty much everything that the weather can do has occurred today. OK, OK, it didn't snow, there were no hurricanes, downpourings of frogs or various other aquatic life, sandstorms, drought, floods, blizzards, fog, tsunamis or tornados. Gees, you're soooo predictable.

Looking in my logs for this site, and ignoring the person who came here looking for "family naturism in iceland", I notice someone that went to /clj/imagerefresher/ and then stayed there on that 5-second auto-image-refreshing page for 1 hour 40 mins. Still, what's a little bit of bandwidth between friends eh?

... or OOP, except that the French do things differently: POO, nice roll-over effect as well.

Hurray! I've finally managed to set up mapped drives over my VPN connection to Work (Future Publishing). This, along with the occasional use of VNC, allows me to do all of the things that I could do at work to be done here on my home PC instead. This means, and it's the reason that I'm rather happy right now, is that I don't need to go to Work to do work - if you see what I mean. I can work from home, surrounded by peace and quiet, sitting on a comfier chair whilst virtually being in the office and having access to all of the facilities of our internal network. Now if I can only get my ADSL connection to run as a service, that would be the icing on the cake.

Every month a magazine comes through my letter box called "Bath Life", it's a big glossy thing that essentially advertises expensive property and gifts. At the front is a key explaining what various symbols mean throughout the magazine. Trouble is, I think they were a bit too na?ve when it came to representing a double bedroom...

After reading an article on the BBC's news website about the software in mobile phones I noticed that the game Repton has just been released on the Nokia 7650. Wondering if a Win32 clone existed, and having a little trawl around, the best I've found is over at MinionSoft. Download all of the Repton packs and unzip them into the same directory, then run the obviously named .exe file. It was unplayable on Win2K SP3 (flashing white screens every second) but worked fine on Win98. When I was a wee nipper at primary school, I used to play this before classes first thing in the morning and then after classes in the afternoon, pretty much every day. 14 years later it's about to become addictive to a new generation of kids, and not so little kids.

Waking up this morning, and trying to decide whether or not the clocks have changed (nope, it's next week), someone was mentioning on the radio that more and more people are taking up the hobby (or should that be "way of life"?) of naturism. Apparently there's such a demand for it that more and more people are spending their weekends in remote countryside camps, doing things such as aerobics in the all-together. Now I think that's great. There's nothing perverse about the human body, only occasionally in the mind that goes with it. You came into this world naked and you weren't embarrased then were you? The thing that did come to mind though was that is this the right country to do it in? I mean, if you attempted to feel uninhibited today you'd almost certainly catch pneumonia.

Hats off to the bloke on the checkout in Homebase who, on discovering that my impulsively bought cactus had no barcode, bravely haggled with himself before settling at £2.50 - they were £2.99. Mind you, said bloke was quite obviously recovering from a night on the piss and probably wasn't overly concerned with the true marketable value of semi-lethal flora. He had that "I'm not sure if I'm going to hurl" pasty look, combined with a "I got up 5 minutes ago" appearance.

Today is a beautiful autumn day; it's sunny and refreshingly crisp, the trees are yellow, orange and red. Folks are busying around all wrapped up in big coats and hats, but it's warm enough for a t-shirt *. The mass of tourists is slowing to a trickle these days and the tour buses aren't running quite as often. In fact, despite it being Saturday, it could be said to be almost peaceful.

In other news: I seem to have misplaced my landlady. Somewhat careless a thing to do I know. I used to know where she was, but she disappeared 3 weeks ago and hasn't been heard from since. I only wonder because she's meant to be arranging to replace my geriatric fridge-freezer. It's geriatric in that it's very old, has a water retention problem and occasionally forgets what it's meant to be doing.

(* caveat: I'm from the North-East of England.)

[ They were £4.00 actually ]

Oh burger [MPEG 501Kb]

Something to chuckle at: High court hang-ups

Frank loved his new Internet-enabled fridge, but the unwanted food was becoming a problem...

Mike has confused me (it doesn't take much I know):
My old sixth form bud Andrew Urquhart has a blog (though, strictly, it's not).
WhatIs?.com defines a blog as:
On a Web site, a blog, a short form of Web log or weblog, is a personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site and its purpose. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors. The essential characteristics of the blog are its journal form, typically a new entry each day, and its informal style.
The author of a blog is often referred to as a blogger. People who post new journal entries to their blog may often say they blogged today, they blogged it to their site, or that they still have to blog.
What am I missing (context relative replies only!)

I've bought a bed. Trouble is I didn't know I had.

Deciding that in the coming months I would probably buy a new bed I've been browsing around various web sites looking to compare prices. Index had a rather nice solid pine jobby that I liked the look of. As I'm still paying off my overdraft, built up from when I first moved down to Bath, I thought I'd apply for their Flexible Account. Then if I decided to buy the bed from them then I could pay it off over 6 months interest free. So I applied for the card. I received the confirmation email regarding the account application this morning. "Great!", I thought, "now I can buy it straight away, if and when I decide to, without having to wait for the card application to go through first". On coming home from work tonight I find another email saying "Your order is confirmed as ...". Trouble is that at no point did I think that I'd actually bought the bed. I just thought I'd signed up for the card account! I do of course have the right to cancel, and after some deliberation I've decided that I'll probably go along with it. I can after-all cancel the contract after they deliver it in 2 weeks time.

I might sleep easier with the new bed, but I might not sleep so easy from wondering what I may accidentally buy tomorrow!

I don't have a TV.

That's right, I don't have a TV.

I did have a TV and a somewhat expensive video recorder to go with it, but when I came down to Bath I gave them to my parents. Whilst I was at university in Newcastle Upon Tyne we rented a widescreen TV between us in a flat of 6. I think I watched it a handful of times. A couple of my flat mates used to watch it for the sake of it being there, and one watched it for the sake of tacky porn on Channel 5 when he thought we'd all gone to bed. Now that I don't have one, do I miss it? Not really no, and I think that's the truth. I occassionaly get a ribbing from folks at work for not having one, but knowing that when I have had one I didn't really watch it, I'm not particularly fazed by it.

I recently had a short break to see my family in the North-East of England and inevitably I ended up watching TV because others were. I watched it. Tens of adverts per hour streamed straight into my brain wanting me to eat this, buy this, wear this, smell like this, look like this, drive in this, sue these people and holiday over there. Now this may be startlingly obvious but just what is the correlation between such pushing of the consumer society and smoking, obesity, violence and crime. I'd imagine that the U.S.A. would have more of a correlation as it's TV developed faster than ours over here in the U.K. Ours in the UK seems to be approaching the American model pretty fast, at least the commercial channels seem to be. At the same time Britons are experiencing record levels of obesity and violence. We seem to have 'better than reality' life portrayed on TV that urges it's viewers to consume more and more for a happier life. Countries whose commercialisation of TV has not been so great until recently are starting to see the first signs of upward trends in obesity. Now maybe this is all coincidence. It could be, because you could probably show that with increased commercialisation of TV there's been a hand-in-hand increase in people's incomes and freedom of choice and competition for those choices. Nevertheless I still have this feeling that there's more of a link than that. Now, you might be thinking I'm going to advocate smashing your TV set. I also don't think that's the right way to go though. If it wasn't the TV that glamourised the consumer society, it would be something else and prohibition has never been the right answer to anything. Maybe people will just get bored of consuming anything and everything simply because they can, or because the Jones' next door have got something you haven't got or because some celebrity endorses something. Maybe consuming will go out of fashion. Maybe then people will remember how to have conversations with one another and go out with the family on day trips to remember, or at least some of the time.

What do you think?

There's nothing like a good bath. Except perhaps a very small swimming pool, although if you fill swimming pools with bubble bath then you tend to get shouted at and barred. A combine harvestor, let it be said, is also nothing like a good bath. Anywho, today is one of those days where nature really couldn't be arsed to make an effort. It's one of those days where upon discovering what the weather is like outside you check your watch to see if you haven't got up at 3a.m. by mistake and wandered into the shower, which just happended to be on but the heating wasn't. In other (much more succinct) words, it's dark, it's wet and it's cold. Yes, I know, I live in a country that many foreigners always consider to be dark, wet and cold but today is just not cricket (baseball with sedatives). So, as there's pretty much bugger all to do I've spent half of the afternoon in the bath reading saturday's The Guardian, whilst drinking tea and eating Rich Tea Finger biscuits. Sunday has in reply become darker and wetter, and in a flourish of originality, has become a bit breezy as well. Flicking through The Editor pull-out section an article caught my eye (reading in the bath can be dangerous). The eye-stabbing snippet was referring to Kenny Rogers and www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com. A startling collection of silver bouffants indeed. Ah right, I see time is progressing onwards to 4pm BST (British Summer Time - no, seriously) and this can only mean we're about to enter into the long dark teatime of the soul. Mind you, it could be worse, it could be Monday.

Once upon a time...

Person 1: My god is better than your god.
Person 2: No, my god is better than your god.
Person 1: No, you are an infidel and I am a true believer.
Person 2: No, you are an idiot and an unbeliever.
Person 1: Look, my god says I shouldn't kill, shouldn't be unfaithful to my spouse, should have love for other people and honour their way of life.
Person 2: No, mine says that.
Person 1: Look, you're obviously mistaken, it's written in this book.
Person 2: Ah, but your book is not the true book.
Person 1: Right, since we are obviously intolerent of each other's way of life and regardless of what our religions tell us, let's have a big war and kill and maim lots of innocent people.
Person 2: Agreed.
Cue machine gun fire.

...and so it goes on, with probably the most recent episode being the massacre in Bali.

"Glasgow Central" to "Edinburgh Waverley" in just 21 hours and 10 minutes (via Paris-Nord).

Q. If I could be anywhere in the world where would I be now?
A. In a bubbling outdoor Jacuzzi in Iceland (the country, not the frozen food store!) with a nice bottle of chilled wine and excellent female company, waiting for a golden sunset and the stars to fade in.

As opposed to doing what I'm doing right now, which is pondering what I might find to scrape together to call dinner and whether or not I can be arsed to clean the bathroom.

On a completely unrelated note I seem to have forgotten how to make a cup of tea, which is ridiculous! There are 3 ingredients in a cup of my tea: hot water, a teabag and milk. Not particularly difficult to master one would think, but then over the last couple of days I've either drunk brown coloured water or treacle mixed with the soil you find at the bottom of bags of potatoes. In an effort to gain that beverage equillibrium I think I'll invest in a teapot, and given the current performance of the stockmarket, that'll probably be a wise investment as well.

When the question is "What will they think of next?", the answer is www.talibanreunited.com. Of course it's not going to mean much if you've never seen www.friendsreunited.co.uk.

To hopefully reduce the risk of getting R.S.I. I bought a MouseBean, trouble is it makes your mouse look like it has a pair of extra large gonads. Still, it does seem to take some of the pressure away when using the mouse, it's just a little conspicuous that's all...

Hurrah! I've launched my blog. It's taken 4 or 5 days to build from scratch, and will probably take countless more in tinkering and bug fixing. Earlier blog entries were built up during development including some whilst I took a short break away from Bath. I've been running a minature blog almost since I started with this particular site in 2000, but it doesn't compare to this new one! Ahh, time for some loud music and an appropriate beverage - Pilsner Urquell.

Sifting through the small pile of mail I've acquired over the couple of days I've been away I notice a letter from the Student Loan Company, it's an annual statement. According to their calculations I now owe them the equivalent of a brand-new 3-door, 1-litre Toyota Yaris S, or 21,803 Mars bars™, or approximately 29 Indesit D63 dishwashers, or 564 copies of Enya's "The Celts" on CD. Crikey, that's an awful lot of Enya.

Well, I'm now back in Bath after another 5 and a half hour train trip. It's quite a relief to see that the flat is OK and that I've not been burgled or that the faulty fridge-freezer hasn't burnt down the house. Sigh. It's been nice to see the family, and to have a couple of genuinely enjoyable days out with the folks. The peace and quiet has been the most enjoyable part though and the refreshing of my mind's eye of the wilds of the Pennine foothills. Now to stay calm until I next go back at Christmas!

Took a trip out to Brinham Rocks with the folks, feels a bit odd coming back here as the last time I did I was about 9 years old. I remember bits of the first visit; the weather was awful, I wore a cagoule, it was the 80's and curly hair was in abundance. After a good bit of climbing about moved on to pay a visit to Stump Cross Caverns. Like Brinham Rocks, I've also been here before but last time with my old secondary school towards the end of the 1980's. What I was forgetting is that I've grown somewhat since I last went, good job they provide hard hats is all I can say to that. Pretty chilly down there 7°C and all around is the incessant 'drip-drip' sound, apart from the occassional 'drip-bong' made as water drops onto one of several drip gauges put there by researchers at my last university - Newcastle Upon Tyne. Lovely chocolate fudge cake in the caf? and acquired a splendid ammonite harvested from the family's holiday haunt of Whitby and a fossilied shark's tooth.

Had a nice day out with the folks wandering around Weardale and Teesdale. Walking in and around Bollihope, pausing for a stroll and to buy a paper in Middleton-in-Teesdale, a stroll and long rest at Cow Green reservoir and a trip around Alston and the magnificient views out towards the hills of the Lake District further on. There's something about Cow Green that I find very calming. It might be because there's nothing more than some gentle rolling hills covered in heather and a huge expanse of fresh water with the sun glistening on the surface between the small waves. No houses, no people (if you're lucky), no noise and no reminders of the 9 to 5.

Walked the 15 minute walk to my grandmother's house through the Denes (a narrowish stetch of parkland running alongside the Cocker Beck). Several tonnes of leaves have exploded in shades of red, orange and yellow, the conkers have been collected and the holly has burst into life with shiny red berries. There's a coolness in the air but the sun can still make you feel warm. I stay too long and get reminded with a phone call that I'm meant to be somewhere else in 15 minutes. My grandmother is looking well at 84 and has been proudly showing off photos to me of her and one of her daughters walking around Loch Goil in the Scottish highlands. Half an hour later I'm at my sister's house for dinner, dinner doesn't go quite a smoothly as planned, but it's good to see my sister and her fiance nevertheless.

Well, I'm not sure these days where home really is (is it here in Bath or is it in Darlington?), well anyway I've had the best night's sleep for 6 months. Complete peace & quiet, a comfy bed and fresh air. It cost me ?74 quid and a 6 hour Friday night train journey but it's all worth it for 10 hours sleep like that. I guess it means that I need to move flat to a more peaceful area of Bath.

Looking forward to a week of holiday, I'm off to see my family up in the North-East of England. It's been around 6 months since I last saw any of them, but I'm only staying for 4 days. I always rush around trying to do loads of stuff, then come back down to Bath and start work the next day. The result is that I never feel like I've had a holiday, or at least a rest. So, I plan to come back earlier and do pretty much absolutely nothing for 2 days.

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"Well, how was it for you? Too predictable, too slow? The bombshell of stomach-aching, side-splitting, tear drenching humour that I was expecting didn't quite detonate, in fact it didn't even manage a squeek. Never mind though, Monty Python had the right idea.