Thursday, July 20, 2006
The runaway mine train ran away. What did they expect?
Flickr
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Some have doubted the existence of Heelys. Some have questioned the practicality. Some have even said that I lack the skilz. Silence, I say, play the video below to see:
Sunday, July 16, 2006
There was a very big bakery down the road, Fletchers. It is currently on fire. Picture below and the appropriate Sheffield Forum link here.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Bullet is back from hospital. All is well, but we're not putting him in for MOT until next month. The petrol leak has been fixed and he has two lovely new tyres so that he goes round corners. Cool.
What was not so cool was the fact that my bank (the world's local one) decided that having written to me apologising for freezing my accounts last week and crediting me with a meagre £10 compensation, thought it would be a good idea to freeze all my accounts again. It's embarrassing trying to pay for things and have your card declined. They are idiots. For several months in a row I've been overdrawn and subsequently charged. Then for one month there's quite a lot of money in my current account and they decide that I can't have it. I don't understand why they let me have money when I don't actually have it, but as soon as I'm in credit all my accounts are frozen. I have written a very strong complaint to them. Only on the second attempt was it successfully uploaded to them as, guess what, one of the world's leading financial institutions has a website that can't handle the £ symbol!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
You may be familiar with the Blue Bullet - our beloved little runaround car. Neither Jane nor I drive to work and so he tends to used only for shopping and the odd trip out. For those of you who have not seen him, he is a 1992 Miami blue Vauxhall Nova 1.2i (don't forget the 'i'). I'll try and dig out a picture later.
Anyway, he's been bleeding - a nasty little petrol leak that has got steadily worse. Today he has gone to hospital. He's a brave little soldier who each year at MOT time refuses to die. This year I am not so sure he will pull through. Fingers crossed everyone! That little car hs been good to us over the years and it would be a shame to lose him.
Edit: Picture located. Not the greatest picture of a car, but it shows the off-road capabilities nicely.
I submitted the order to regrade my broadband from 0.5Meg to 8Meg yesterday morning. This morning it is done. Zen rock. I guess a fair amount of it is down to BT, so I begrudgingly should congratulate them too.
The only problem came when I went to reboot my router as recommended by Zen. Three years ago I bought and installed that router. It has been rebooted twice in that time, on both occasions I am not entirely convinced that it needed it. Could I remember the password for it? Only after about 100 attempts! Still, it is running now (and at blistering speed!). Just need to get up a bit earlier tomorrow and video call Motherboard...
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Motherboard has at last received the webcam she ordered some time ago. I don't know if all Australian internet shopping has such delays or if they were custom building it from shards of the Dark Crystal in a remote Bolivian underground cave. Perhaps I've just got used to next-day delivery from most of the e-tailers I use. Anyhow, it's been plugged in and this morning before I'd even had a chance for a shower or a coffee or to wipe the sleep from my eyes I was being roped into a Skype video call.
It all seemed to work quite well, but was a bit blocky. I rightly or wrongly decided this was due to my broadband connection. Brilliant, now an excuse to upgrade from 0.5Meg to 8Meg broadband, which my ISP has offered to do for free. I'd been meaning to do it for a while, but to be honest, 0.5Meg was doing me just fine. It's not like I download lots of movies.
My ISP is Zen who I would not hesitate to recommend. Except for one thing - my username and password. My username is hard to remember and I've more chance of understanding and memorising Dizzee Rascal's lyrics than recalling my password. This was always the stumbling block in contacting them and aasking for an upgrade. Today, I found that I needed no such information to request my upgrade! Hooray! Order has been submitted and within 5 working days should be active. Christian tells me that my service may be up and down a bit whilst the switchover and subsequent 'tuning' takes place, so elements of this site (and my email) may be unreliable for a week.
Once upgraded I am looking forward to decent quality video calls with Motherboard.
Push, kick, push, kick, push, kick - coast!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
My Heelys can be officially classed as "rock". Last night I was in my pyjamas heeling around the kitchen crashing into things with the widest grin possible (Jane was at cinema). I'm sure Jo wondered what all the noise was but felt better not to enquire.
This morning however I strapped a rucksack to my back (squash tonight, don't you know) and set off on the 3 miles or so to work. Mistake. Completely different centre of gravity. And there were people around to point and laugh at a 30 year old with sunglasses and iPod on with a squash racquet strapped to his back looking like some kind of uncoordinated fool. The most embarrassing was when I stopped for a bottle of water, set off down a hill only to stumble and manage to throw most of the water over my head, directly in front of a rather attractive female. I care not. I shall learn this new skill. It will hurt but I WILL train until I am as cool-looking as the guy I saw with Heelys in Paris that sparked this whole thing off.
I may persuade Christian to video me Heeling round the office and post it up here. For info, I have non-wheeled shoes for in-office use.
Freedom is a wheel in your sole!
Monday, July 10, 2006
You gotta take the rough with the smooth....
I've just swallowed a fly, but on the plus side, when I got back to the office my shoes with wheels in had arrived. Yes, shoes with wheels - not roller skates. More on these genius inventions later (probably from A&E).
Walk, run, roll!
Jane and I have not been camping before. Closest we've come was a static caravan in Italy for Christina's Wedding. The last time I went camping I think I was 18. That seems a very long time ago. I'm sure the basic principles haven't changed much.
At the end of August we are off to the Leeds Festival. Before that we're having a camping weekend away with Tim and Chris and a few others. It's a good opportunity for a pre-Leeds warm-up so that I can practice my erection (tent-wise). I've been trying to think of everything we need to take. Kit list so far is below. If any hardcore campers/previous festival-goers can think of anything else we really should consider taking to the Leeds festival (or anything we should leave behind!), let me know. Bear in mind we are going by coach so have to carry everything.
- Tent (V important)
- Rucksack
- Sleeping bag
- Air mattress/pillow (inc pump)
- Collapsible table/chairs
- Stove (plus gas)
- Lighter
- Water carriers
- Saucepans
- Food*
- Extra tent pegs
- Rubber mallet
- Wellies*
- Clothes*
- Sun cream*
- Insect/antiseptic cream
- Toiletries (minimal quantities)
- Cash/cashcard
- Loo roll
- That handwash stuff you don't need to rinse off
- Salt/pepper/condiments
- Cutlery (inc can opener, bottler opener, sharp knife)
- Food
- Torch (batteries)
- Headache/tummy pills
- Ear plugs
- Towel
- Wet Wipes
- 'Disposable' mobile phone (old one with a PAYG SIM in that I don't mind losing)
- Book
- Scotch/gin/lager/tonic etc
- Plastic glasses
- Camera
- Washing up liquid/sponge/brush
- Tea towel
- A length of string (about yay long)
- Bin bags/carrier bags
- Rug/blanket
- Pen and paper
* can be decided upon just prior to departure
As I imagine our tent will be pitched in a field of several thousand other similar tents, I'm also after fun ideas for customising it so that we can find it after dark! I'm thinking laminated A3 sheets with a picture of Jane and I on to be attached to the tent sides, but that's a bit low-tech really.
Friday, July 07, 2006
I'm afraid I relapsed into not-blogging-for-ages mode. Terrible.
So let's quickly summarise the last month or so:
Hot.
Wedding 1 - James and Charlotte's wedding has been adequately covered elsewhere. I've got a few pictures to upload too. Probably at the weekend.
New mobile - I took delivery of my new T-Mobile MDA Vario. The finest phone ever. Am still getting to grips with bits of it, but am very much enjoying it. Especially the unlimited monthly data allowance in conjunction with Exchange Server's push e-mail functionality in the latest service pack. It has Wi-Fi too for Skype and Terminal Services. Get in. Add the full screen handwriting recognition, bundled Sat-Nav (yes, the Bullet really does now have Sat-Nav), Pocket Word & Excel, the slide out QWERTY keyboard and a massive bundled monthly allowance of calls/SMS's and I really can say I am impressed. Orange would do well to learn from T-Mobile.
Family visit - Motherboard's impending visit from Australia draws ever closer. The itinery appears to have been finalised and I've bought the various train tickets required. Really must get on and finish painting/tiling etc so that the house is presentable for her.
Wedding 2 - Jane's schoolfriend, Roopal, got married in London last week. Bizarre to say the least. One of the hottest days of the year and I'm in a suit (grumpy) in Soho on the same day as the London Pride event (some intriguing costumes around) and the England soccer thing (which we inevitably lost). Very much enjoyed the do itself. In budget-conscious mode Jane tried to find us a hotel to stay at. I have to congratulate her on finding The Generator. An 800-bed, clean, hostel-like place in walking distance of Soho. We only needed a bed for a few hours so the prospect of paying horrendous taxi and hotel costs seemed extravagant. If you're attending a similar event in London and don't mind bunk beds, shared showers and Australians/South Africans/New Zealanders I can heartily recommend it.
Bank - I am extremely unimpressed by my bank's latest action. I had a sum of money sitting in one of my accounts. I transferred it to my main current account and shot it off to various credit cards etc. The payees have been set-up for ages and receive regular payments initiated by me each month. This month the amounts were slightly higher, but all the activity had precedents. My bank decided that I was clearly laundering money for the Colombian cocaine trafficking business I run at the weekends and locked my account. Totally. And without warning. What made it unacceptable was that because I don't use telephone banking, I could not speak to a human to sort it out. Idiots. I was stuck in town with a non-working card and wanting to buy something for my tea. Luckily I had a small amount of cash on me. I have demanded a call back and compensation today having finally managed to untangle it all last night on the interweb. I will let you know how I fare.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Shall I get one of these?
Saturday, July 01, 2006
It is not everyday that you are stood on the roof terrace of a members only club in Soho at a wedding with a man playing a sitar overlooking the Pride event.