Farewell DRM!

So "iTunes Plus" is out - arguably now working the same way any sensible service would have worked to start with, ie no DRM and decent quality sample rates.

It actually lets you upgrade previously purchased tracks for about 20p each. This is either a good idea or daylight robbery. I think probably the second. But now, there is finally a good online delivery system for buying music.

I just bought the new Bees album. They are still possibly the most retro band in the UK, but that doesn't stop them making some damn fine songs. I'm loving "Listening Man" at the moment. It's the song Bob Marley would have made if he had been any good.

Revolutionary Food

Went to the new Revolution in York for lunch today. I haven't had a drink there yet - I had been in once before but we left soon after because it was too slow and busy. This time we got served a bit more quickly (at table) but it still then took an age for the drinks to come. I had a Staropramen which subsequently seemed to give me a stinking headache - that's probably more linked to last night than the actual beer itself though.

When you order food they give you a 15 minute hourglass and and let you have the food for free if it takes longer than that. It's quite exciting. 15 minutes isn't actually that long so it must be quite hard for them to stick to it at busy times. Today, our hourglass actually expired and so we didn't have to pay for it - they were actually really good about things and didn't try to make excuses or wriggle out of us getting the freebies. Food then came quite soon after.

I as wondering whether it would be a good tactic to order a steak with every meal and ask for it to be really, really well done.

I didn't do that today - I had Thai fish cakes which were very tasty. Burgers looked ok (and big too).

Here come the freaks...

Big Brother starts tonight... almost exciting, but not really. At least it's timed well to start after Heroes, Lost and 24 have all finished.

Smoking ban... Labour's best achievement?

Just over a month to go now until the English smoking ban comes into force on July 1st, and I'm getting quite excited about it. It is quite possibly the only thing that our current government has done that will have a major impact on my life (and it's a positive one too!). This might sound odd, but I can't think of anything else that will affect me more. I can think of some other things they've done, but I don't reckon they're as significant.

I'll list Labour's five other things (that I can remember) to show that the smoking ban is clearly the most important thing. Compare and contrast:

1. 24hr Drinking. Ok, this technically exists now, but not in many places. And I'm normally either tired or drunk or both by 11pm anyway.

2. Tax Changes. They give with one hand and take with the other. Am I better or worse off? Haven't a clue. I can still afford beer and shiny entertainment facilities, so I'm pretty fine all's said and done.

3. John Prescott Hitting Voters. This still makes me laugh but not as much as that nude wrestling scene in Borat. I don't think Prescott has done such a thing (publicly) yet. If he does, maybe I'll reconsider.

4. War In Iraq. This is clearly a very bad thing (or a very good thing if you support it) but compared to me not smelling of stinky smoke anymore it's a nothing event. I might have thought differently about the importance of this if they'd introduced conscription, but they didn't.

5. Um, maybe I should have made this a list of six things. I'm all out. The Apprentice? The death of Diana? Global Warming? The freeing of Nelson Mandela? It's lucky nobody reads this for insights into current affairs. Or anything else. Wait - what about... Civil Partnerships. Unlikely to be of much benefit to me though ('cept maybe the odd extra party?) but it'll do for the purpose of this comprehensive list.

See?

If anyone can think of a thing with a more significant impact on me than the smoking ban I'd love to hear it. But I bet you can't.

Business in China

Some strange scheduling of television tonight. On Channel 4, Brits Get Rich In China, On Channel 5, Paul Merton in China. Both at 9 o'clock meaning that anybody with an interest in Chinese matters would have a problem (I realise we live in a world of HD recorders now but you get the idea).

I watched the first of these programmes. It was about three (unrelated) English blokes who had set out to China to make their fortunes - a 70 year-old army type, a wide-boy from Rochdale and a man with an unsavoury interest in cushions. It was both entertaining and educational.

The most interesting thing I learnt was that China has cities pretty much dedicated to making single items. For example there is a Tap City. And a Condom City. I can't imagine living in such a place. Well, I can, but I suspect my imaginings aren't very realistic. I hope they're not. I'd maybe like to live in Teddy Bear City.

I wonder what I would have learnt from Paul Merton.

Don't Touch Your Eyes

I chopped some chillies for dinner yesterday:



Hindsight is a wonderful thing - this turned out to be slightly too many for two people. Ow! Hot! As normal I ended up with chilli juice all over my hands, and it just doesn't wash off, not even with neat Fairy Liquid. This meant that inevitably I got some in my eyes later and that stings like a big bee.

I realised today that I had a load of latex gloves in my kitchen drawer, designed for exactly that kind of procedure (though I think I'd bought them for painting). But again with the hindsight thing.

A Walk Near Sheriff Hutton

I bought a couple of walking books yesterday in the AA series (North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire). Having used these books in the past I have found the walks are generally good but the instructions are occasionally on the ambiguous side.

Me and K drove out to Sheriff Hutton today to do one of these walks. Perhaps optimistically it was a six miler that didn't even come with a map. I think we managed about 2 miles before realising that we just couldn't work out where to go any more. It said go left but the only thing there was a locked gate which didn't even look like it had a path on the other side of it. But we were definitely in the right place as we had just gone through a field which narrowed in the top right, and then an unusual combination of stile-footbridge-stile. But then we were stuck. It vaguely looked like someone may have built an electric fence in the way of where the walk was supposed to go. Not helpful. So we turned around and retraced our steps.

It was a good walk apart from that.

Animals we saw included:
Black Sheep
White Sheep
Cows
Bulls
Rabbits
Assorted Birds and Ducks
Brown Sheep



Moo!

Does tea go off? No.

We spent some time today arguing about whether tea goes off or not. I'm quite clear that it doesn't but others have an issue with use-by dates and think that you can't drink tea after that time. Quite clearly ridiculous.

Here's why tea doesn't go off:
1. Because it's dried f***ing tea! It doesn't go off!!!

Although I will admit it might lose a little flavour after five years or so. But not in a dangerous way. And even if there was danger I'm pretty sure the boiling hot water would sort that out.

Idiots.

Top Labels

Here are the top 10 labels I have used on blog posts since Blogger introduced them.

1 Wii (7)
2= Food (6)
2= Music (6)
2= Pubs (6)
5= Christmas (5)
5= Metroid Prime (5)
5= Prague (5)
8= Toilets (4)
8= Trains (4)
8= York (4)

I find that quite a depressing list.

Helping Neighbours With IT Problems

Someone had left a note on the noticeboard in our flats asking how to get broadband faster than 512kbs. I wasn't sure how to answer, other than "ask your ISP to give you a faster line". Seems kinda obvious to me but maybe it was a stupid person asking.

So I've left a note back saying effectively, just that. I couldn't resist adding that I easily get 4Mbps and often faster. But it felt like showing off.

Strange thing was, that the guy who used to live in that flat also used to complain to me that he could never get fast broadband either...

The Dalek Invasion of York

I went for a little run this afternoon, round one of my usual routes, past the Royal York Hotel. I glanced into the car park on my way past and was somewhat surprised to see a Dalek standing there, bold as you like. It didn't seem to be obviously planning to take over the world, but you never can tell - if I wanted to take over the world I probably wouldn't put a sign up saying what I was going to do.

The only thing it did seem to be obviously doing was posing for photos with a small girl. Now, I'm all for integrating offenders back into society, but there should be some limits. I think I'd draw the line slightly before Daleks. I'd also probably try and keep my kids away from them. I mean, if a Dalek moved into my neighbourhood I'd want to know about it. They should have a register ("Dalek Sec?", "Yes Miss", "Dalek Caan?", "Yes, Miss" etc).

So there was this Dalek. I just kept on running (this probably made it feel at home) as I hadn't got my camera with me. Which was a shame, really. I'd have liked to have a photo.

Drivetime

I went go-karting on Thursday night, over at Monks Cross. We had (what felt like!) a long session (a "Monza Grand Prix") - 5 heats each, 2 semi-finals and a final. Each of the heats probably only lasted for under three minutes though so I guess it can't have been as long as it felt.

As ever, the karts are pretty scary to start with. Once you get used to them and start to go see what they can do, it gets a bit easier. But still scary. Thirty miles an hour is pretty damn fast when you're only inches from the floor.

My driving was actually pretty decent. I didn't make any mistakes of note and people found it almost impossible to overtake me as I was sticking to the racing line. However, my actual lap times weren't too great so I wasn't catching people up and overtaking them much either (except when they crashed). Of the five heats, I maintained my position in all of them except for one where I gained a place (but only because somebody was penalised a lap!).

This put me into sixth place out of eleven. Bang in the middle. In the semi finals, the first two finishers from each race were automatically put through to the final, and the fastest of the two third place finishers joined them. I came third in my race and lost out on getting into the final by about 12 hundredths of a second. Annoying, but I was pretty tired by then so didn't mind too much.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old but it did seem a lot more hard work than I remembered. I'm still aching in various places now. And it was very sweaty. Lots of us had shaky hands and found it hard to lift things.

We went to Maxis afterwards for a Chinese. We almost all had cokes to drink and so combined with the shakes it must have made us look like an AA meeting.

I like Maxis. But whilst the food is good, it does make you feel like you're in a Saga holiday to China. My, those oldies can shake it on the dance floor when they get going.

Making Friends Is Easy

I joined Facebook earlier this week. It's quite fun but possibly serves no useful purpose at all apart from letting you pretend you're friends with loads of people and haven't completely lost touch with them at all, honestly.

I joined Friendster years ago which as far as I can tell is a very similar sort of thing. I asked lots of my friends to join too and most of them refused so it was a bit rubbish - I was clearly well ahead of the times. Now social networking is the zeitgeist and everyone's doing it.

Facebook lets you join Networks of people who
a) were at the same uni as you or
b) work at the same company as you
c) live in the same place as you

I haven't done this yet because
a) you need a valid uni email address - I can't remember mine (it was 10 years ago!)
b) might do this but it feels a bit tragic (it's not like I can't look up people at work already, when I'm at work!)
c) there isn't a network for York

so I remain unaffiliated for now.

Actuarial Dinner

I went to the Yorkshire Actuarial Society annual dinner last night. It was alright, as those kinds of thing go. There was a speech from the President of the Institute (which, for some minutes this afternoon, I debated whether I could count as CPD) plenty of wine, some food (bizarrely lacking in potato) and lots of Actuaries. Who'da thunk it.

Today I had a headache, and the important work tasks I was supposed to have started on Monday have been pushed back again to Thursday (maybe).

My week

A busy week this week:

Monday: Dancing
Tuesday: Actuarial Dinner in Leeds
Wednesday: Running
Thursday: Go-Karting
Friday: Horse Racing

Plus I'm flat out at work. Better than being bored, I suppose!

Eurovision 2007

It was the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest last night. Normally I'd go to some kind of proper party (or organise one myself) but I'd not expected to be around this year - I was supposed to be going to an AGM in Leeds, and I didn't know what time I'd be back in York. The meeting ended up being cancelled at fairly late notice so in the end we just watched it at home.

It was possibly the first time in the last ten years that I've not watched it with a big group of people and excessive alcohol (obviously I had some wine, you need that to get through it) so it felt a little quiet. But the entertainment was of the usual standard :-)

There were some spectacularly silly songs, most noticeably the French and Ukranian ones. Camp doesn't even come close. The French had gone very, very pink whilst the Ukranians were oh so shiny. But words aren't really enough to describe the full visceral idiocy of their costumes, dancing and indeed song. You can probably find them on YouTube.

The voting seemed as predictable as ever, with all the usual countries voting for their neighbours (who they are probably at war with for the rest of the year). I think it might help the UK next year if we split up into England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and maybe Cornwall, purely for the purposes of voting. It might lead to a few extra countries that'd vote for us...

Cowboy Picture

The cowboys rode horseless through York on Thursday night for the Pub Treasure Hunt and drank cowboy drinks, sang cowboy songs and talked cowboy toot.



We started at the Varsity (where we sensibly had food before starting the proper drinking - scampi and chips, an authentic Western dish) then went to
The Cross Keys, The Punch Bowl, 1331, The Last Drop Inn, The Three Legged Mare, Ha Ha and Orgasmic. Not too bad a selection of pubs all things considered.

No idea of the results yet. I think we'll have done ok overall but probably not in the top 3.

Why are they not called cowmen?

Pub Treasure Hunt XIV tonight. My team (me and my work colleagues) are going as cowboys. I don't think I have ever dressed as a cowboy before, at least not since I was a small boy, so it should be fun. My hat is especially fine (since it costs a whopping thirteen pounds!).

Sadly we have no horses to ride. This might make it easier to gain admission to York's various saloons, but it does mean we lose a little on the authenticity stakes. Only this lunchtime did I realise that we could have alleviated this with the careful use of a few half-coconuts. I don't think there is chance of us making that happen this afternoon, so we will have to be unhorsed cowboys.

Photo tomorrow, maybe.

Banking at Night

I'm going go-karting one evening next week. It'll be fun. But first I had to pay for it, with money. Iasonas had paid for the group so I transferred the money to him at work yesterday morning. Then I dropped him an email to say that I had done that so that he'd know. I received an email back saying that he'd only read the email saying I transferred it the previous evening. This confused me somewhat.

Had I been sending emails back in time? Had my friend developed precognitive emails?

No.

What I had forgotten was that after getting home a bit drunk from the housewarming party on Saturday night I seemed to have decided to play on the computer. And catch up with my internet banking tasks.

And then as normal, by the morning, it was all mist.

You see a lot of people warning people about internet security. They should warn you more about using it whilst inebriated.

Faded Seaside Glamour

Today was a bank holiday so me and the girlfriend did what all proper British people do on a bank holiday, head for the coast, Scarborough to be precise.



I think the last time I went there was about 5 years ago to see Belle & Sebastian playing at the Futurist Theatre on the seafront. Whilst it was an excellent show it was a pain that it was so far away and annoying to get to. And I was driving so I couldn't even have a beer.

Today, we took the train instead (though there was no fey pop to be had upon arrival). It's quickish and runs every hour from York. I figured that the A64 would likely be well busy, especially as the promised rain seemed absent. It's so much easier to get the train and avoid the queues and parking.

All seaside towns are strange places. They always seem to be in need of a lick of paint. Scarborough seafront has a mixture of really old nice buildings and garishly coloured modern monstrosities (in need of the aforementioned lick of paint). It feels like if they only had some kind of proper town planning going on (perhaps 50 years ago) they could make something really nice.

It was reasonably hard to find somewhere that looked half decent to have lunch in. In the end we went for one of those big chain bar things (Baracuda) where you know you won't have an awful meal but not a Michelin star either. We both had surf 'n' turf. Mine was rare and came medium, hers was well done and came very well done. As ever. But it tasted fine enough and was not too expensive. We found a much nicer looking (non-smoking) bar later in the afternoon, called Mist. Looks like it could be worth checking out if you ever find yourself in Scarborough without a clue where to go.

Other things you can do there:
- buy rock
- sit on the beach
- donkey rides (I thought these had been outlawed years ago)
- go and see G4 at the Futurist Theatre (but only if you're braindead)

Croquet

I played croquet for the first time yesterday. Despite spending three years at a university where some people would have you believe croquet is more popular than chips, I never played. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe I was drunk.

So what trail of events led to this place? It's a long story... No it's not. It's a short story. I went to a housewarming party and they had a garden and a croquet set.

It seemed like quite a fun game. I don't see why the hoops have to be so small (or the balls so big) but it seems to have a nice vindictive streak running through it in that you can often to choose to either put your ball through a hoop, or instead to piss off another player by whacking their ball into the next garden.

I wasn't particularly good at it (predictably, since it's a game requiring physical coordination) but I did get better later on. Perhaps that was either from the beer kicking in and giving me good skills, or the lack of light beginning to hamper the other people as the night wore on. I don't think I'll be taking part in the international championships any time soon.

A Joke

My favourite joke this week:

Q: What have a cordless drill and The Championship got in common?
A: Neither of them have wires

Genius.

More Sauce

Burger, waffles and salad. I'm still nowhere near finished with the Reggae Reggae Sauce though. And I have to eat it all within the next couple of days!



Unrelatedly, if somoeone says "it's not funny" after relating something they've done, it almost certainly is.

Bus Jumping

I was wondering whether Evil Knievel ever got confused (perhaps after a night out drinking Special Brew) and tried to jump over a motorbike whilst driving a bus? I had to catch a bus myself today but no such excitement happened. Due to my bus driver being boring.

Thoughts on Brussels

After a weekend in Brussels, I have some thoughts on the city. As ever, there are ten of them. Note that these only reflect the two days we spent there which may not be representative of the rest of the year as a whole. Here they are:

1. It seems like a relatively quiet city (notwithstanding items 4 and 7 below). There isn't much traffic given it's the capital of the EU and everywhere seems quite peaceful.

2. They have good beer. Some of it is quite strong, but like all beer drunk abroad in Europe, it doesn't seem to get you as drunk as if you drink it in England.

3. It's amazing that you can get there from England on the nice train. I know I mentioned this the other day, but it's still cool.

4. On Saturday afternoon, a lot of people were blowing their car horns for no good reason. Not occasionally, incessantly. It was odd. Like a couple of girl goats not invited to hang out with the cigar smoking boy goats, we had no horns and were unable to join in.

5. The city is of a size that you can walk pretty much anywhere you need to without having to resort to public transport. All cities should have this property. (And relatedly, I can't believe that it now costs four quid for a single trip on the London Underground. Four whole quid!)

6. Travel from the "Upper Town" to the "Lower Town" is via a hill. Perhaps a sensible person wouldn't be surprised by this due to the names, but it surprised me. I'd expected a flat city.

7. On Sunday, the city was overrun, packed to the rafters with Scouts. And others similar to scouts. And girl ones too. And when I say overrun, I mean nearly a hundred thousand of the buggers. That's a lot of scouts. It was a little disconcerting. They were quite noisy but seemed to be having fun.

8. If you get to Brussels and change your mind and decide you'd rather go to a different Belgian city, you can do that because the Eurostar tickets allow you to go onwards to any city of your choice! We didn't take advantage of this as it meant I would have bought a guidebook for no good reason.

9. There is a lot of sitting out on the street going on in bars and restaurants. I think that even if a restaurant is posh and/or expensive, it feels cheap if you're sitting out on the street. Until you get the bill.

10. There are less sprouts than you might imagine. Unless you have a limited imagination with regard to thinking about sprouts. I don't. I can imagine them with every meal.

And that's Brussels!

Got some sauce going off

I had some Reggae Reggae Sauce with my dinner this evening (you know, the stuff off of Dragons' Den). It was alright - went well with both the burgers and the potato waffles. Quite spicy, but not overly so.

Stupidly, the bottle says that you should use it within 5 days of opening. This is clearly insane. To do that you'd have to have it with every meal including breakfasts. And possibly also put it in your Early Grey. And also drink a shot or two neat before bed. And in bed.

People ain't gonna do that.

I'm sure it'll actually be fine if I don't use it so quickly. Most stuff doesn't actually go off anywhere near as quickly as packs say they will. I have, however, found that frozen peas don't last for as long as I'd like them to (they dry up after three or four years). But the sauce should be alright for a month or so, minimum.

Incidentally, this proves how well blatant advertising seems to work on me.

Under The Sea

So I've been in Brussels for the weekend. One reason I chose that place was that I fancied going somewhere on the Eurostar. It's been in existence for a few years now and it's quite exciting since it's a train that goes underwater.

I was impressed with the whole experience. The trains are nice, run on time and go faster than normal English trains. However, coming back was a little disconcerting due to the Earthquake on Saturday. On Saturday morning, Kent experienced an earthquake (*) of magnitude 4 to 5 on the Richter Scale. Kent is quite close to the Channel Tunnel entrance hole.

Whilst there was no major damage caused, it meant that when travelling home I had to blank out the thoughts that went:
1. I'm two miles under the English Channel.
2. There was an EARTHQUAKE near here yesterday.
3. Oh Shit.
4. I'm going to die via the medium of drownage on train.
5. Oh Shit.

In retrospect, I need not have worried. There were no subsequent aftershocks and the journey did not end in my end.

(* there is a conspiracy theory that says it was actually the Kentish people conducting an underground nuclear weapon test, in preparation for the 2009 bid for indepedence. I don't subscribe to this theory)

Secret Weekend!

I'm taking the girlfriend away for the weekend to a Secret Location. So far I'm pretty sure she has no idea where we are going. She's going to be so thrilled when she finds out we're going to Belgium.

One sheet is not enough

I can't let this week go by without mentioning Sheryl Crow's barmy toilet paper comments. She reckons that you can normally get by with just one piece of toilet paper per visit to the loo. This is quite clearly insane. I can't even imagine how that is supposed to work. Not even if you used both sides. And the corners.

Now, I'm for saving the world as much as the next man, but there are limits. And dirty bottoms are one of them.

Locked up

We had another office move at the weekend (and predictably, the stationery cabinet has moved again. It just won't stop).

The main lesson I learnt this time was that if you are anal enough to have a lockable cupboard that you keep the key for yourself, it really helps if you remember to unlock the cupboard before the removal men turn up at the weekend to move things. Because otherwise you have to spend a chunk of your Monday lugging boxes of files up and down stairs. And that's not a good look.

Don't do keys kids, they're not worth it.

Little Ducklings

Awwww! Aren't they cute?

Bag Recycling

As I mentioned last week, I've joined my local recycling scheme. This morning was my first collection. My Special Box was more than full, so full in fact that I've had to throw away some stuff that should have been recycled. What was in there was put into separate plastic bags for paper, cans and glass, as they request. Plastic bags from supermarkets are quite good for that sort of thing. They also make good bin liners.

I read in the newspaper the other day though that one of the big supermarkets (Sainsburys, I think) was planning to have a series of days when they don't give out free plastic bags and will instead give out more durable reusable bags (normal cost: 10p!). The idea of this would be to get people reusing the reusable bags rather than getting new ones each time. I have no issue with this except that it could mean an end to my free bin liners / recycling separators. That would be annoying. I think reusing a supermarket bag as a rubbish bag is a decent enough way of recycling - it also saves me having to buy actual rubbish bags (except for my kitchen Brabantia which has special ones).

But it might not be so bad, as I found today when I went to get my emptied Special Box that they had left the empty plastic bags for me to reuse next time. So that works ok.

I remember going to Dublin a couple of years ago. The strangest thing, stranger even than it like being in a Britain where they use the Euro, was that the vast majority of the shops give you paper bags rather than plastic ones. This had come about after the Irish Government introduced a tax on plastic bags. It would be good to maybe do the same thing here. Some shops seem to have moved to paper already - Virgin for example. I'm not convinced it works for larger items - paper bags can be very scratchy against your legs. And they may not be so good in the rain.

Generally when shopping (even at the supermarket) I try and put as much as I can into my rucksack, and hence avoid the need for bags paper or plastic. This is definitely the most environmentally friendly method (though I think my rucksack may have been produced in a sweatshop staffed by four year old chinese kids).

So to summarise:
1. Paper bags and plastic bags exist
2. Paper bags are probably better for the world but are a bit rubbish sometimes
3. I'm not sure what sort I prefer...
4. I'd quite like to maintain my suppy of free rubbish bags

And my point is? No idea.

Save a font point, save the world

It often amazes me that if you take an A4 document, you can print it on A5 instead and only have to reduce the text size to 70% or so of its original size. In the vast majority of cases this makes it still perfectly readable. A simple 30% size reduction reduces paper usage by a half. Issa magic.

Now a lot of people would shirk at this, especially old people who don't understand the need. And also company Executives who would be confused (and possibly assume the saved half pages had all been stolen). But I think the principle can still be employed to save the planet. A bit.

Here's the plan. Every time you make a document, finish it and read it and check it and all that jazz. Then just reduce the font size by 1 pt across the board. This could actually give a reasonable paper reduction on longer documents. Do it. Save money and an oak tree.

The Enron Solution

I didn't string my mandolin today (not a euphemism) but I did go through my filing mountain. There has been a large pile of bills, bank statements and other random papers on my table for a long time and it needed putting away / binning (delete as appropriate).

When I got into this I found items going back to the start of 2005. Is it really that long since I've been arsed to properly file anything? Clearly it is. A bit worrying. I guess I just got so used to the pile being there that it became the place for filing to live rather than the place for items to wait until they are filed.

It had been so long that a lot of the crap could just be thrown straight away without an intermediate step of being put in a box for several years. I'm never really sure how long you are supposed to keep financial records for. In the end I made quite a big new pile of things that could be binned, not filed. And then I filed the things that could be filed and not yet binned. I put the binned, not filed pile in a plastic bag (a kind of filing in itself) and then put this to one side rather than binning it.

Because I decided I needed to get a shredder.

Generally I wouldn't bother shredding. It seems a bit over-cautious. I reckon you're fine just throwing things out with the kitchen waste so that if some ne'er-do-well goes through your rubbish they'll get old wet tea bags and bits of meat along with the bank details. That'd teach them.

But since today it was rather a lot of paper to be thrown, a higher level of security could be sensible.

And besides: shredding's fun!

Final (Fantasy) Countdown

I finally finished Final Fantasy XII yesterday, after clocking up around 65 hours of gameplay (plus all the times when I died before saving). That feels like quite a lot of hours to have constructively used playing a single game. It was good though and long. Sometimes the story was a bit hard to follow because a few of the characters look the same and a lot of them are heavily into that shades of grey thing. But maybe that's just me being stupid.

I think the first FF game I played was on the old black and white gameboy many years ago. It was called Final Fantasy Adventure or Legend (it was a long time ago!) and I later learnt it wasn't even strictly a FF game - it was a completely different Japanese game that had its name changed for an English language release. There were a lot of confusing name changes that went on back then, but they're all well documented now and I suspect anyone who cares would have spent many hours reading up about them on the internet.

The first proper FF game I played, like I suspect was the case for a few million other people, was FF VII on the old original Playstation. It was fantastic. Great story, long, lots to do and apart from the odd particularly irritating boss, was always fun. I especially liked the way it had FMV that seamlessly merged into the game's pre-rendered backgrounds. It's an effect that still looks bizarrely impressive today. I never saw it happen on any games outside of the series. Also, the main character had fantastically inspirational hair.

Then for some reason I missed the next two games (imaginitively titled XIII and IX) completely and don't even particularly remember them coming out. I think it must have been after my Playstation kicked the proverbial bucket. I also missed the first two PS2 games, X and X2, because I refused to buy a PS2 until they brought out the little cute slimline tonic version.

But just in the last few weeks, I have managed to find all four of these games! I was especially excited to see the two for PS1 (in the same shop at the same time!) as they're much harder to track down.

And FF III has been reworked on the DS. And I've ordered FF IV for the GBA from Amazon. And I think FF V is also coming out on the GBA. I also have Final Fantasy Tactics Advance knocking around somewhere which I'd like to finish at some point.

So if you don't see me until Christmas... you know why.

If you've never played a FF game before, I'll summarise what happens.1

1. Introduction
2. Fight something (by choosing "attack" or occasionally "magic" off a menu)
3. Level up
4. Fight something
5. Level up
6. Fight something
7. Level up
8. Sometimes fight something three or four times because it's a hard bastard and you haven't repeated steps 3, 5 or 7 enough.
9. Repeat steps 2 to 8 for approximately the time it would take you to have a full and rewarding real life.
10. Finish it.

But it's all good clean fun and the stories do tend to be good. And what better way to use my shiny new PS3 than by sticking mostly old PS1 games in it :-)

Express Yourself

It was my birthday on Saturday. 31. We went for a birthday curry on Saturday night, to the York Spice Club. It was a fine meal. The menu is probably the funniest curry menu in the area but the food is very good despite that.

Some of my friends had made me a special birthday present. Technically they started making it for my 30th birthday but it got a bit delayed and so I have had to wait. What they have made is: Pork Scratching Vodka. It was made by soaking some pork scratchings in vodka for a year or so and then straining out the bits. It looks kinda like breast milk. Except less pleasant. I tried a little bit and that little bit was more than enough.

I don't think it's as good as the Tea Vodka that I made a couple of years ago.

Then yesterday the parents came to visit. We went out for lunch and then had some beer as it was a nice sunny day. I bought some mandolin strings too so I have the potential for a fun afternoon of restringing at some point this week.

I have another week off work! Oh the joy.

Rabbit Tangarams

I have a Tangram calendar at work this year. Each Thursday you have to make not one, but four or five different shapes. This week it was rabbits.

The one pictured here is fine.



But the second one down on the right hand side doesn't look entirely appropriate for work.

Keep on movin'

Sometimes furniture refuses to behave as it should.

The stationery cabinet at work has moved, again.

And it's still only me finding it funny.

Not To Be Confused With Katie Holmes

Dame Kelly Holmes came to visit us at work today. She is the second most famous Dame in the UK, after Dame Judi Dench. She should also not be confused with (Not Dame) Kelly Jones off the Stereophonics. Dame Kelly is a retired runner and won two gold medals at the last Olympics. Whilst this is a running achievement to be proud of, it barely compares to my own achievements in this ballpark. But enough boasting.

She was doing a Q&A session (about running and stuff). I found out that she used to be a sergeant in the army for nine years. When I found this out I wanted to ask her if she'd ever killed a man. I'm glad I didn't, as it turned out she'd mainly been a PT instructor and that rarely results in deaths outside of Hollywood films.

I could have got her autograph, but I didn't. I've got several Richard Herring autographs and that's enough of a collection for me.

What day is it?

Over a long weekend like this one it's sometimes hard to keep track of what day it is. I'm fairly sure today was Monday, and a bank holiday at that. But strangely, the postman came this morning and so did the binmen. This could be explained by either

a) Today was Monday but not a bank holiday and I should have been at work
or
b) Today was Tuesday and I should have been at work
or
c) Bank holidays ain't what they used to be (as per yesterday's post)

I'm going for c).

Easter Closing

It's Easter Sunday which means that the supermarkets aren't open. As ever, I only realised this today, Easter Sunday, the day I had planned to go to the supermarket. So that scuppered my plans for food.

Luckily:
a) I checked opening times on the interweb before leaving the house
b) I have a chocolate egg
c) The local corner shop is open
d) We have some frozen chilli-c-c in the freezer

So it could be a lot worse really. It's definitely better than in the olden days when I was young when nothing would open, ever, or at least that's what it seemed like. The slightest excuse and all the banks, shops and buses would just stop. Easter, Spring, Christmas, the Queen's birthday, my birthday, a hot day, they'd all just close and stop. I think.

Now it's much better because it's pretty much just the three days, Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Easter Sunday, where most things are closed. And on Christmas Day I get fed, on New Year's Day I aim to be too hungover to eat and at Easter there's Chocolate (and the corner shop).

Recycling

I finally got around to joining my local (council-sponsored rather than council-run) doorstep recycling scheme this week and so have a nice shiny new plastic container to put my paper, cans and bottles in. Only problem is that it's nowhere near big enough to fit all the stuff I have got lying around now, never mind the bits I'll accumulate over the next few weeks. I think daily collections would suit me better than fortnightly ones.

Now, at last, I have an excuse for washing bottles and cans - I always used to do that when I was in an old scheme in my old house, as it stops them smelling and making the container dirty. It's a little bit pointless if you are just going to through them away after washing them though.

But once you're in a habit...

The Shortest Straw

I called a senior (in both senses of the word) colleague (in only one sense of the word) at work yesterday about an unrelated matter. After saying hello, he said that he'd heard that I "seemed to have drawn the short straw". I didn't know what he meant by this, and he may then have realised my confusion as he added "... a straw so short you may not even be able to see it". Hmmm. Sounds like I may have been volunteered for something... Or something is being done to me... Or something... Should I be scared?

A Riddle

The beauty and the curse of iTunes is demonstrated thus:

Me: I wonder if I've got a copy of Nik Kershaws's The Riddle?
Me: Hmmm... I'll just have a look in my library...
Me: No, I haven't.
Me: Darn.
Me: I wonder if they have it in the internet-shop-thing?
Me: ... Yep...
(30 seconds later)
Me: Cool. Now I have Nik Kershaws's The Riddle!

More Notworking Problems

I managed to waste another hour of my life today trying to network some computers together - this time it was my Mac and my friend's Windows laptop. It should be easy, but there always seem to settings that aren't quite right, things not turned on or security software that's too tight. I'm pretty sure we managed to wirelessly network the two machines, but it was proving too hard to see one machine's files on the other, whichever way we tried it.

In the end we gave up and resorted to burning a CD.

But then, after he'd gone, I noticed that now I could see his machine in Finder... it was too late then though. His laptop was turned off, he was not in the flat, we had achieved our goals through other means.

Accursed machines.

I'm Sure I've Seen Him Somewhere Before...

I started watching My Name Is Earl on DVD tonight. Very funny. But it started me thinking...

More and more these days it feels like there are only about eight actors working in American TV. I keep recognising him out of whatsit, or that guy out of whatchacallit. For example, in ep 2 of MNIE, Haywire out of Prison Break turns up. Still with the same mad starey eyes. Cy out of Deadwood is now in 24 as the Vice President (and the actor's name is Powers Boothe! Idiot!) and I'm sure I spotted Calamity Jame from the same show somewhere recently too.

Then there's the ubiquitous Alan Dale turning up in pretty much everything - 24, Neighbours, Lost, Ugly Betty and Robin Hood. And the little weaselly one out of Ally McBeal and Porkies also turning up in the current season of 24.

Then The Fonz makes regular appearances in Arrested Development. And Delenn from Babylon 5 hides in the jungle in Lost.

And I think I'm just scratching the surface...

I get silver!

Since it's now officially summertime I went for a run out in the fields by the river this afternoon. Out there, in a tree, I saw 5 magpies. This means that I am guaranteed silver of some kind very soon (because the rhyme says so). I hope it's good silver, not bad silver. Stupid rhyme is a bit ambiguous though. Off the top of my head, these are the ten most likely silver things I might get:

1. A horde of silver coins
2. A silver spoon (perhaps for the coronation)
3. Silver medal in a running race (of two people, most likely)
4. A silver lining on a cloud
5. A silver knife in my back
6. A Bilko DVD
7. Some Silver Spoon sugar in my tea (that would be bad - I take it without sugar)
8. A silverback gorilla following me for the day (if the bears didn't chase it away first...)
9. The Sharon Stone movie, Sliver, bought for me by a dyslexic
10. Some gold because there was a sixth magpie that I missed

Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo...

Doctor Who and Fibbers

Hooray! Doctor Who returned to television today and got off to a great start. It was over too soon though.

I went to see another band last night - SixNationState at Fibbers. I was a little drunk on Cava (I'd had about a bottle) and some beer by the time I got there so my memory of the actual music is a little hazy but I think they were pretty good.

My brother-in-law knows the band a little bit and so I said hello to them (having a heads-up on the singer's name). Don't think I was too annoying.



Blow-powered keyboard!

Barenaked Ladies... are good!

Last night I went to meet an old school friend in Leeds and then go on to see the Barenaked Ladies. I wasn't really sure what to expect from them - I was a fan when I was about 18, but haven't really bothered with them since then.

The support was a good sign - Boothby Graftoe of of the comedy. He was very funny as always, especially the song "I'm a coward (and so's my father behind me)".

The BNL all seemed very jolly and opened with "One Week" which worked for me because I never really liked that one that much. After that there were a lot of songs I didn't really know and a few I knew a bit. Despite them all beiong very good, it probably wasn't until "Brian Wilson" that I remembered why I used to love them in the first place.



I'm tempted to get hold of some of the new stuff.

Getting Up Is Hard To Do

I'd really intended to get into work early today - I set my alarm early and everything. But when push came to shoving myself out of bed, it just didn't happen.

I have a general feeling of lethargy, perhaps brought on by a day filled mostly with meetings when I also have a load of actual things to do.

Oh well, I'll have a cup of tea.

Gnome Quizzing

You've got to love York - the only town in the UK (*) where you can see man called Alan (who used to drum in a 90s Britpop band) conduct a buzzer based quiz in a pub with a slightly rude name but excellent pizza.

We went there tonight and fielded a team called The Gnomes - I myself was not gnomelike but two of the others were on very low chairs and the fourth member had a big red beard. Seventh place out of eighteen. Not impressive and no prizes won. But I did get to have a nice pizza for my tea.

(* apart from Bolton where Alan from Oasis does the buzzer-quiz every Wednesday night in the Fudgepackers' Arms)

Spring Forwards...

Last night we went into town to eat at the new Strada that's opened up. This decision was in no way influenced by the fact that I had received a voucher for a free bottle of wine there. It's a nice enough looking place - smart and modern and the room seems to be shaped in a very similar way to Tuscany Pizza.

Food was mostly good, though one of the fish had a bit too much skin on it.

York itself seemed to be unusually full of idiots though. Saturday nights are normally a bit leary, especially around Micklegate, but it seemed worse than normal this week. Loads of stag and hen nights, and random drunks wandering around shouting at people and things. I'm not sure what had led to this increase - one suggestion was that there are a lot of people getting married at Easter, which is soon (unless the idiot church moves it again).

I think it may have had more to do with the clocks going forward and the fact that this had fallen on a Saturday night this year. I think that when people realised that they would have a hour's less drinking time after midnight, they would have chosen to start drinking earlier. This meant then that at half eight they were actually half nine drunk.

I, myself, wasn't planning to drink after midnight (cos I turn into a Gremlin) and so I was not overtly affected by the change. Except for the hour less of Sunday that I have today.

Playstation 3: Why?

I accidentally bought a PS3 this afternoon. I hadn't really meant to, but when I found that pretty much nowhere had actually sold out I thought I'd grab one. First impressions:

1. It's big, but much prettier than the original PS2.
2. It's shiny!
3. There aren't really any games worth playing on it at the moment.
4. Backwards compatability works ok, but you can't use old PS2 memory cards without a special adaptor. FFXII and FFVII work fine, Singstar works but I haven't checked whether you can plug in the mikes, Guitar Hero doesn't work.
5. The online store seems much faster to access than the Wii one. There's a nice Lemmings game to download. I couldn't be arsed to play more than the first level though.
6. Blu-ray: It has this, but I don't really see the point of it at the moment.
7. Wireless. The Xbox 360 is so crap in the way you have to spend an extra 60 quid to get the wireless adaptor. Like the Wii, PS3 has it built in from the start.
8. There's a door that opens on the front with some slots behind it. I don't know what they're for.
9. I wonder if it plays normal DVDs?
10. It really is very shiny. I think that's actually the best thing about it.

Actually the best thing is Step 4 in the Getting Started guide: "Connect the wireless controller to the system using a USB cable".

Drunk

Yesterday: Drunk.
Today: Drunk.
Tomorrow: Drunk.
Some time: Will write something.

Idlewild in Leeds

I went to see Idlewild in Leeds on Sunday night.



The set was a good range from across their band lifetime - not too many songs missing that I'd expected to be there.

There was an item of merchandise that I'd not seen before from other bands - a cloth Idlewild shopping bag (£10). I'm not sure how much crossover there is between fans of Scots rock music and people who take their own shopping bags to the shops. Maybe they only had one made up and just have it on the merch desk as a joke, knowing that nobody will ever buy it. I didn't buy it.

Unrelatedly (as far as I know) Roddy has been going through a bit of a folk phase recently and as part of this he has been sporting a particularly silly beard. I'm pleased to say that there was little evidence of it on Sunday and that he is now back to looking like a normal wee Scottish laddie again.

Monday Highlights

I've had a fairly uneventful day 1 of my week off. Here are some of the highlights:

1. The annoying woman in Subway put cheese on my sandwich for no sensible reason. Luckily I couldn't really taste it - I had been a bit worried that it might make the whole thing inedible and lead to me being hungry.
2. I watched Saw 3. Definitely not as good as the first one (or the second one either) but still fun in an inventively nasty way. I like the bit with the cows.
3. I finally got around to contacting my local recycling scheme so they can send me a container to put things in.

Bet you wish you were me.

Week Off

I have a week off work, but no significant plans for it. I'm not going away, repainting, touring York or doing any of the other things that can be done in a week. What I think I will do instead is play Final Fantasy XII (not to be confused with Final Fantasy X2, possibly the silliest named game ever). I'll do this on my sofa and I may shower first. I may not. You can do things like that when you don't have to go out.

Bowling Badly

I went bowling tonight. We played two games and my scores were 56 and 77. Not good. Barely even reaching the realm of s**t. I blame it on the cider.

Dead Tree?

I thought my Bonsai tree had died - all the leaves had dropped off. But now it seems to be making a recovery and starting to grow some again. Are they deciduous? Or do they just hibernate like hedgehogs?

I wish they had bonsai hedgehogs.

Wireless Notworking

A friend who lives in a nearby flat is moving soon and so arranged for his broadband connection to be disconnected. He gave his provider the one month's notice they required. Typically, they disconnected it straight away like idiots, leaving him without t'internet. So I said I'd let him share my wireless connection for a bit.

Now, my router was setup to use WPA security, but annoyingly this isn't compatible with the Nintendo DS - it can only use the inferior WEP. All my other wireless things, the Xbox, the Wii and the computers are fine with WPA. But not the DS. Curse you Nintendo!

So I figured I'd take the opportunity to downgrade the security to WEP so that a) I wouldn't have to give away one of my (oh so secret) passwords and b) so that I could use the DS online.

I should have learnt by now that it's not the cleverest thing in the world to change the wireless security settings on a wireless router whilst connected to it wirelessly. As soon as you change the settings you lose the connection and then things seem to start going wrong. This time I managed to mess things up more than normal and it took me a good half hour to get things working again and in the process I deleted all my keychain passwords. That'll no doubt annoy me for a few weeks.

And through all that I never managed to get WEP working - I just couldn't get the computer to connect with it. No idea why, as I know I've made it work in the past. This time I was a bit annoyed and worried that I might f**k things up even more so I just re-set up WPA with a brand new password and left it at that. Now I think I have everything working again...

Anyway, the connection is apparently working from my friend's flat, so he's happy.

If anybody knows a way to get a DS connected to a WPA network, please let me know!

Mother's Day Presents

Mother's Day is coming up and just like normal I plan to get a lovely present for my mum. Because she is a nice mum, the thing that makes her happiest is for me to be happy. Therefore I plan to give her the best present of all, the present of happiness. And I will do this by making me happy by buying some cool stuff for me, going to see Idlewild in Leeds and by having some beer.

I am so kind!

Turns to stone

Knaresborough is a small town in North Yorkshire. You can tell it's a town rather than a village because it has a Woolworths. It also has the original Petrifying Well - The townsfolk started to franchise these in the 1960s and there are now a number of successful wells around the UK. In my opinion though the Knaresborough one is still the best, and not just because it's in Yorkshire.

The idea is that you take something normally fluffy and nice, like a teddy bear, a hat or a little kitten, and you then hang it up (carefully and gently in the kitten's case!) under a little waterfall thing. Because they add large quantities of calcium to the water, the things that have been hanged go hard and appear to turn into stone after a few months. It works well. It's not as efficient as using a gorgon but those guys are in short supply these days due to the Greeks not playing ball with the EU's labour market policies.



Last time I visited this particular branch of The Petrifying Well, I had left behind my friend (the one for whom we've since been using the cover story about "moving to Australia") to transmogrify him into a big rock that would be suitable for display in a museum or sculpture gallery - some of the better museums will pay anything up to fifty English Pounds for a good quality fossilised man - it's a good way of earning extra income!

He was nearly ready but still a bit soft in a few places so will need a couple of months more before he can be moved to a dryer place.

Pointless Lemon Rapping

We visited Knaresborough today. Lunch was in a bar called So! in the town centre. Pretty decent food, and very friendly and helpful staff. We did make a small complaint but they gave us a couple of free beers in return, so that's a result as far as I'm concerned.

A big question I had though is when you have fish and chips:



... what really is the point of wrapping the half of lemon in paper? I realise it'll maybe catch the pips should one decide to squeeze the lemon, but even so, we're grown ups who can easily avoid pip-incidents. If one falls on to the dinner we can move it to the side of the plate. etc. etc.

Blah.

Nice Music For The Kiddies

I was excited to see that Tindersticks have put together a children's album. Of all the bands I'd expect to do that, they would be in possibly the bottom 10. Just below Slipknot.

I expect it'll be excellent though. I will be getting myself a copy for myself. And if it's good, the nephs may get one too. Or if it's not good they might get my copy.

Introducing The Fat Cage

I don't remember why, but at lunchtime I was walking down some stairs and I was wondering how fat people managed to do that. Not mildly plump people, but the real big fatties. I normally find that I need to look down to watch my feet and make sure that they are destined to hit the next stair. If I was really fat, my belly would obscure this view and I might misplace a foot leading to disaster.

I thought of two possible answers to this dilemma:
1. Fat people don't mind if they accidentally fall over, even down stairs, because they bounce and hence avoid harm.
2. Fat people don't use stairs (this is why they are fat).

So I think that solves it. When we discussed this in the office later, a friend mentioned an invention he'd thought of - The Fat Cage. What this would do is restrict access to certain things for fat people whilst providing minimal hindrance to those of a more moderate size. The sorts of things you might wish to restrict access to include (but are not limited to): nightclubs, nice restaurants, pies, fertility clinics and rollercoasters.

It works by erecting a set of vertical bars (like a cage) between where the fat people are and where you don't want them to be. They would be spaced close enough together so that anyone of a certain size would not be able to pass through without a serious diet, whilst anyone else could just get through without any real hassle. They could be used in conjunction with a doorway for restricting access to rooms or corridors, or in an actual cage-like formation for restricting access to cake bushes or doughnut trees.

It's hard to see a bad point and this invention. The only strange thing is why it does not seem to exist already!

Good Band Names

I won't comment much on the quality of the music, but I heard two bands on the radio tonight with great names. The singles that were played were good, but not as good as the names. This doesn't normally bode well for bands - far too often the successful ones have short boring names (often beginning with "The"). But such is life, and such is the great public.

The names I encountered today were:
- The Strange Death of Liberal England
- Snowfight in the City Centre.

See, both good.

If I was going to name a band tonight... Here are some great band names I've just thought of (not real ones, as far as I know):

1. The Wind Tonight Will Raise Heckles
2. Badgers!? Who Said We Couldn't Eat Badgers?
3. We Bought The Drummer From Homebase In A Sale
4. You Can Abbreviate This To YCATT(IYWTO) (If You Want To)
5. Dough-balls

All great.

MoonBats

Yesterday evening there was a lunar eclipse in the sky. I don't recall ever having seen one before. It was interesting but not hugely spectacular. First the moon went a bit grey, then it went a bit red. Later on it went back to normal. In the meanwhile, I drank some red wine.

I also tried to take a few photos but since I only had my phone camera, and it was dark, they didn't come out well. Like a big black thing with a white blob in the middle.

It struck me that it's a shame Earth isn't shaped like a bat. Because if it was, it would make a bat shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse and it would be like when they turn the bat-signal on. That would be cool.

It doesn't age well...

Tonight I found myself watching the STOS episode, The City On The Edge Of Forever. It has a rep, I think, for being one of the best ever episodes. I also remember seeing it as a kid and thinking it was great. Tonight, it was rubbish. There goes that illusion...

Rocks off v Off this rock

Here's a question I posed tonight, and couldn't quite be arsed to work out an answer to: Given current levels of mortality, what is the average number of children per couple needed to maintain the total population at a steady state? I suspect it's somewhat less than two.

This may ultimately be an important question if we don't get off this rock...

(and is population growth control the only sure way to limit carbon emissions?)

Multiple Virgins

My broadband has been provided by Virgin since I first got it many years ago. The service has always been fine and I've never had any problems. Following the recent change in the regulations for people providing these things, Virgin have merged with NTL (I think) and now provide land phones and stuff like that.

I rarely use my landline, so my cost of calls is generally close to zero. However, by switching my main call provider from BT to Virgin, I was able to get cheaper broadband. No extra cost on my BT bill (it'll just be line rental I think) and a reduced monthly broadband cost was something of a no-brainer so I changed over.

I then got an email from Virgin confirming I had done this. This was fine because I had. Then, over the next six hours and fifty-five minutes, I got four more emails from Virgin, all identical to the first one. This was odd, but also fine. Then I got a letter from BT saying I had done it. Which was also fine because I had done it.

Then, today I got five (count 'em!) letters from Virgin telling me when the new phone service would be active. This was less fine since it seemed like a bit of a waste. They all had exactly the same info on, so at least I have no contradictory information to deal with. Five emails and letters seems a little excessive though.

I figured that as long as they don't actually charge me five times then I'll be ok. But when I checked my credit card just now I found they had charged me once only, but for £1 less than I expected (just £13.99). So now I'm a bit confused.

Guess I shouldn't complain as long as it all works. Touch wood.

Argos Roulette

I nearly found a fun new game just now. Take the online Argos catalogue, and enter meaningful seven digit numbers. For example, dates of birth, phone numbers and so on (possibly with some digits removed to get down to seven). And see what fun items you get!

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any numbers that worked.

But I did think of a way to turn it into a fun party game! Just take turns entering random numbers with your friends. Then the first person to actually get an item has to buy it there and then from the online shop! Hours of fun!

(I think I might be using "fun" in a new way here...)

The Road to Cleverness

I've restarted (from the beginning) Roger Penrose's book, The Road to Reality (not to be confused with various Bob Hope films). It's a big book, ostensibly aimed at the non-specialist, that attempts to cover most of modern maths and physics, and unlike most similar tomes, it doesn't shy away from the maths. It even has the odd exercise for the reader.

The first time I tried it, a couple of years ago, I got a bit stuck a third of the way through. This was despite me having a degree in mathematics. I'm hoping that I'll persevere better this time and actually get to the end. So far I'm up to chapter 5.

If I finish this whole book, I will officially be clever.

Rapping In The Pub

We went to The Yorkshire Hussar for lunch today. Although it was quiet upon arrival, it quickly got busy with a few large groups who arrived just after us. Food was good, and cheap as always.

We sat in the main bar but could see through into the front bar. What we could see happening in there was a little odd. Here's the view:



Look carefully and you'll see a number of men dancing in a circle with swords, performing the Northumbrian Rapper Sword Dance. They had brought their own music and everything. Apparently they were practising for a competition.

I don't think people should be allowed to take swords into pubs - any pub worth its beer should ask you to check in all weapons at the front door. Swords are dangerous at the best of times, but the combination of swords, dancing and alcohol can only lead to "accidents".

The people there appeared to have all their own limbs, and none of them were missing chunks of ears, noses or fingers so maybe they were relatively safe. I'm glad I was in a different room though.

Poetry Warning

I'm giving serious consideration to having a Poetry Week here in the not-so-distant future. It'll be fun. Everyone likes poetry. One brand new original poem a day, every day, for a week.

Alright, it probably won't be fun. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Tea is fun

I love fruit teas and herb teas and generally weird teas. I have documented this on these pages in the past. Some of them are great. My favourite is Orange, Mango and Cinnamon. Last night I had a chocolate flavour tea (not sure how that works). But my least favourite one by a country mile is Dr Stuart's Liver Detox tea. It contains "Dandelion root, centaury herb and milk thistle" and it tastes absolutely vile. Very bitter. I know a few people who've tried and it and not found anyone who thinks it's remotely pleasant.

Despite this I like to have one from time to time to see if my tastes have changed and I now like it. It worked for coffee and beer when I was younger, so why not Liver Detox tea? So far there has been no change, but I will persevere. I still have many bags left.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any even more unpleasant (off the shelf) teas that I could try? If so, I'll see if I can get hold of them and do a taste test.

Tea is fun.

Bed-side Lighting

About three years ago I bought a couple of bed-side lights. Today I finally got round to buying an extension cable so that the second one could be plugged in. Shame really, as I had a contingency plan that when the bulb expired in the first one I could just switch-a-roo the whole lights and prevent having to find a new bulb from some shop somewhere. Another fine plan messed up by common sense.

The Sights of Oxford

I went down to Oxford this weekend to visit my sister, BiL and the Nephs. Never having been there before, I wanted to have a look around (even though Oxford is officially the enemy). It was probably not quite as nice as I expected... I was expecting something more like Cambridge, but in fact it's more like any old small city with a few older buildings in among the newer ones. Maybe if you bother to go inside the colleges it's more interesting, but to me these days, one college is much like another.

The main hobbies in Oxford are rugby and sword-fighting. In the following picture, you can see people participating in both of these activities. I didn't get too close in case a blade were to go astray and nick me.



The next picture is particularly exciting and I think really captures the essence of the town. It shows three tramps sleeping on benches in a graveyard:



We spent the afternoon having a wander around and then headed back home. In the evening, I took a two-year old to the off-license, had some nice tea and then drank beer, cider and port, ate some 100% cocoa chocolate and some ginger Wensleydale. The cheese was very good indeed...

Incidentally, anyone who says that I only went down there because I knew that they had recorded Tuesday's Life on Mars, which I had forgotten to do, is completely wrong. :-)

Train Juxtapositions

I was on the train today and couldn't help noticing the following things. Behind me, a physicist was having a conversation with a stranger about electron beams, solar flares and plasma weapons. In front of me I could see two women watching a film that may have been Dirty Dancing on a laptop computer. Overall this was an audio-visual combination I had not encountered before. I found one part of it much more interesting than the other...

Putting Zelda To Bed

Just over two weeks ago I decided to replay Zelda: The Wind Waker and try and finish it (four years after originally trying to do this). Tonight, I did this!



Whilst not perfect, it is a lot of fun. The sailing didn't seem so bad this time, and remembering some of it from before probably helped me go through a bit quicker than I would have done otherwise. And I also didn't bother with some of the sidequests that I did last time.

It feels like I've achieved minor closure with a part of my life I'd thought I'd never return to. I will sleep contentedly tonight.

Later in the year... Ocarina of Time: Master Quest?

Running and Eating

I've just found out that my entry for the 2007 Great North Run has been successful. Darn - that means I actually have to do the bloody thing again (and more annoyingly, the training too). I supposed it gives me an incentive to go out and do the running again, I've been pretty lax this year so far.

Today is also Valentine's Day. Not generally one of my favourite days of the year as it's all far too artificial and forced. I especially hate going to restaurants - full of horrible couples who probably hate each other and have only gone out because they can't face another evening sitting in watching Eastenders on the sofa.

So this year I've decided to cook. It's going to be three courses with actual candles and stuff.

Starter: Pate and toast with Bramble Chutney. A lovely starter which is minimal effort since the pate and the chutney are pre-made. I will have to prepare the toast though.

Main Course: Chicken with Orange and Black Olives, served with Potatoes and Nice Broccoli. This is the main part. I made it for myself once and I think it was nice... it was a while ago.

Desert: Hot Cross Bruschetta. I've made this one up myself. It'll be toasted Hot Cross Buns with some raspberries on top. Might be nice, might be horrid. But I had some spare Hot Cross Buns so I figures I may as well try and use them.

I probably should go and start doing some preparation. Or open a bottle of red wine, at least! Yes, that sounds like a better plan :-)

Charity Survey

I get a bit annoyed when charities send junk mail with pens in. I got one today, and from the outward appearance of the envelope it looked like a survey. Since it had a pen inside I figured I could complete the survey and send it back to the Freepost address they had conveniently provided:



:-)

Scrobble time!

Several months ago my brother in law sent me an email asking me to play with him on Last.Fm on the internet. Because I am lazy, I ignored this until the weekend when I finally signed up and can now share what I'm listening to with the world (see sidebar, right).

The site is essentially a social networking site based around music, and it tracks what you're listening to (at home or on iPod) and then uses this to build a profile of your listening habits. It can then use this to create a personalised online radio station and play you other songs that you might like. I tried this just now and got a Coldplay song and a Franz Ferdinand one. Both good (if not exactly cutting edge). Theoretically it should be something you can listen to and hear music you might like that you haven't come across before.

Maybe it's just me, but scrobbling songs (the process of sending the data on what you have listened to to the internet) is a little bit addictive - it's like collecting Pokemon or something.

If you want to be my friend on the site (you could be number 3!) then my user id is Lint01. See you there (or not...).

Missing Memorials

The following message was posted on our work intranet this week:

"I would like to contact all staff to see if there are any War Memorials in any offices that Group Archive are unaware of. If any office has a War Memorial (mounted or stroed [sic]) please could they let me know.
My contact details are ______ ____, Group Assistant Archivist, ____ _____, e-mail ________@_____.com.
Many thanks."

I found this to be quite an odd message. In my working life I don't recall ever coming across an old forgotten about memorial anywhere. Not even in the back of the stationary cupboard (which amusingly keeps moving about the office at the moment!) or under the stairs or in the toilet cubicles. Sometimes you find the odd old newspaper has been left there, but never a war memorial.

Also, war memorials are normally quite big. And heavy due to being made of rock. How would one ever get one in to an office in the first place? And if you did, it's hardly likely it would be forgotten about. In most offices it would become a major talking point when you brought visitors in - "Look at our war memorial - we brought in after the Crimean war - it makes a great hat stand". That sort of thing.

Maybe in the old days, drunk insurance clerks would wander around the streets of English towns stealing war memorials in the same way that students steal traffic cones today. It's possible. But unliklely, because as mentioned above they tend to be big and made of stone.

I'm confused.

What happens if you go to the pub with mathematicians (2)

I set you a problem on Monday and promised you the answer "tomorrow". It turned out I was using a slightly generalised sense of the word, and I meant "on Thursday". Anyway, the answer is 19 people and the strategy for doing this was emailed me on Tuesday by Chip which saves me having to write it out for myself!

"This is a bit of a weird situation, where writing the problem down exactly in mathematical language solves it for you! I'd started typing this by setting out my assumptions, then I was going to work on the 2-colour case and generalise from there, and as I was doing that, I realised I'd actually nearly typed the full answer! (This is with two unstated assumptions - 1. that the prisoners know all of the possible hat colours in advance and 2. that all the prisoners can hear everything that's said in the room).

If they are true, then you can always guarantee the survival of everyone except the first guy, and he'll survive with probability 1/m (where m = number of hat colours). What the prisoners do is assign a number value to each of the colours - let's say black = 1, white = 2, red =3, etc., then prisoner 1 adds up the colour values of all the other people's hats (call that T), and says the colour that corresponds to T mod m. Prisoner 2 can work out what his hat colour is by adding all the hat values he can see (call that S) and then his hat has colour (T - S) mod m, and lather, rinse, repeat. Prisoner 1 survives if his hat happens to be colour T mod m - I think it's reasonably self-evident (translation - I think it's so obvious that I can't put why into words!) that his survival can never be guaranteed."

Easy!

Apple Stuff

I quite enjoyed watching the new Mac adverts featuring Mitchell and Webb (ok, they're not exactly 24, but I do like M&W). They inspired Charlie Brooker to write an article for The Guardian website. He's wrong in pretty much every way but it's funny nevertheless.

In other Mac news, I was pleased to read Steve Jobs' comments this morning regarding removing DRM from electronically purchased music. This is good news as DRM is shit. It has no redeeming features. I have absolutely no objection to paying money for intellectual property, but DRM is just a pain in the ass.

So I hope Mr Jobs actually means this and makes it happen. Because if he does I'm likely to buy a lot more music that I'd be too embarrassed to buy from a shop :-)

Secret Cake

I think my girl has been trying to cook me a secret cake. Clue: she asked me the other day what my favourite sort of cake was. Clue: When round her flat just now, I wasn't allowed in the kitchen and the flat smelt strongly of lemon cake. I'm not sure that subtlety is one of her strong points...

What happens if you go to the pub with mathematicians

In the pub tonight we were discussing hat problems. Not the sort that involve whether a plaid hat goes with a blue coat or not, but the mathematical or logical kind of one.

Here's an example (answer tomorrow):

There are 20 prisoners (it's always prisoners in these things). Each of them will be given a hat to wear which will be coloured with one of 20 colours. Some colours may be repeated. The prisoners will be made to stand in a line in a courtyard so that they can only see the prisoners in front of them. They cannot see their own hat, nor can they see the hats of the people behind them.

Once in position (they are all blindfolded until they are there) the prisoner at the back has to state a colour that he believes his hat is. If he is right he lives, if not he dies. Then the prisoner in front does the same. And so on until the guy at the front.

They are allowed to consult beforehand to determine a strategy to follow that will ensure as many of them as possible survive. Assuming they then follow this strategy, what is the maximum number of prisoners they can guarantee will survive?

And more importantly, have I stated this somewhat convoluted problem properly so that a) it has a solution and b) it has the solution I expect?

Tasty Tasting Rooms

We went to The Tasting Room for dinner last night. I've been there a couple of times before, but not for a couple of years ish. It was very good. The food was excellent and the service was great - really friendly and helpful (though I think they did forget our cheese for a little while).

There was a whole series of these in the toilet, doing the alphabet thing in a rhyming fashion:



This one was my favourite. All of them depicted children coming to a messy end though.

Animal predictions

In America yesterday, a groundhog predicted an early Spring. In England today, some turkeys predicted that we will all die. Point to England.

Running Again

I went running this evening for the first time this year. I haven't been out since mid-December when I finished the Run-a-thon 500. I'd then always planned to have January off to fully recover from any residual minor injuries and just generally have a bit of a rest. It's been quite nice.

But now we are in February, I can start again (isn't it nice to have rules to live your life by?). And this time I don't have to stick to my artificial restrictions like not stopping during runs for the mileage to count (isn't it nice to not have to live your life by any rules?) so I can work on improving my "technique" and getting a bit faster.

I don't have any actual running goals this year but I have entered the ballot for the Great North Run again. Getting a better time than last year would be good. But that's as much of a target as I plan to give myself.

Taking it easy.

Joke Time!

If you like that sort of thing, the B3ta Sick Joke Book is available as a free pdf download. I think it's quite funny. My favourite one (which has made me chuckle all evening):

Q: Why does Edward Woodward have so many D's in his name?
A: Because otherwise he'd be Ewar Woowar!

Ahem.

Incidentally, that's not supposed to be a sick one, in case you're confused. It's from the small non-sick section at the back.

Computer Game Progress Update!

If you're wondering, I never managed to finish Metroid Prime when I played through it the second time. I did much more than the first time, but I couldn't get past bloody Meta-Ridley. I could get him nearly dead, just not really dead. Maybe I'll try again at some point - I think I was close to being able to do it.

Yesterday, I did manage to finish the new Zelda game, Twilight Princess. I thoroughly enjoyed it for the most part. Not sure if it's the best Zelda ever, but it's definitely up there. It took me about 45 hours in total which seems quite a lot, but it kept me out of the pub. Recommended if you have a Wii, but then if you have a Wii you've probably already got it.

I think now I'll go back and attempt to do on LOZ: The Wind Waker what I failed to do on Metroid Prime - actually finish it. First time around I got about two thirds through (at a guess) before getting distracted/bored. This time... I'll try and do better. I know some people don't like it because of the graphics and/or the endless sailing, but I remember it having a lot of good things about it too. Obviously I'm not talking about the sailing, people were right to dislike that.

Unless maybe because I'm five years older now, I am of an age to appreciate a more sedately paced boat-based activity. We'll see.

Pooh for Dinner!

I'm trying to make more of an effort to cook things this year. It's not a challenge, or even a resolution. Just a bit of an effort.

I don't think I've ever cooked fish before. Not that I can remember, anyway. I probably have at some point. Tonight I made Tuna Steaks in Special Sauce with Mustard Mash and Odd Brocolli. It tasted lovely, but I think I could work on the presentation a little.



Relatedly, I've just watched an incredibly odd cookery programme, with Ray Mears cooking things in the woods, using assorted hunting spoils, tubers, seeds and the odd tub of sour cream. He had an old guy with him who would eat absolutely anything with masses of enthusiasm, and then say how lovely it was. I'm not sure it was meant to be funny, but it was. Next week, I think I too will be shopping not in Sainsburys, but in the 100 Acre Wood.

Leak Avoidance

I went to put some washing on earlier and in the seal of the washing machine door I spotted a dark bit. I figured it would be just a bit of fluff or hair so I reached in to pull it out. What I actually found there surprised me slightly:



It was a black Bic biro. It was all bent round into the shape of the outside of the door. I'm not sure how long it had been in there - it's hard to tell now. I'm normally quite good at checking my pockets though and in any case I rarely keep pens in the sorts of pockets I put in the washing machine. It's a mystery.

However it got in there though, I guess I'm quite lucky that
a) it didn't cause any damage to the washing machine door seal and hence a leak over my floor.
b) it didn't itself leak in the washing machine and make all my clothes black.

The most important question that I bet you're all asking though is... did the pen still work afterwards?

No, it was buggered.

Last time on Heroes

For a show that gets so many things so right, I just don't understand how Heroes has such abysmal recaps of previous episodes. The voice-over on them is unbelievably poor. I won't describe it, I think it really has to be seen/heard to be be believed. Why, why, why is it so awful???

Downhill from here

I went to The Junction on Wednesday night to see Drew playing - he was opening act on a four band set. He was in very strong voice and has written another song about monkeys.

The other bands were good, but not hugely innovative. The first sounded like Oasis, the second like all those new bands and the third like the Seventies.

It was all very loud too - to the extent that for most of yesterday my hearing didn't seem to be always quite at it's best. I'm not as young as I was. But then, I'm also not as old as I will be.

Did Ben Kenobi die for... this?

I've been trying to find one of these Darth Vader Transformers for ages. Finally got one from Edinburgh's John Lewis yesterday.




To be fair, it's a bit crap, Darth looks a bit camp and the whole concept makes absolutely no sense. But it's cool, camp, nonsensical crap.

Bacon Wraps

Today I went up to Edinburgh for an Institute of Actuaries seminar on Wraps. It was being held at the head office of Standard Life which I had never visited before, though I did know where it was. I got there in good time for the 9:30 start and upon arrival at the reception I was directed to a little waiting room to await the organisers to take us to the seminar room.

I didn't recognise anyone else who was also waiting, but this didn't surprise me as I hadn't expected to. So I waited for a short while. Then a man came along and indicated that we should follow him to the room. We went through "security" and along a corridor into the rooms where the seminar was to be held.

Rather excellently, they had bacon rolls for us to go with the normal coffee. I grabbed one and sat down. Said hello to a few people whilst eating, but still didn't know anyone. There seemed to be less actuaries than I'd expected, but since the day was open to non-actuaries too, I didn't let this worry me.

As I was finishing my roll, I noticed that a couple of the people standing at the front appeared to be looking at me strangely and I think I heard one of them ask the other if I was with them. She came over and said hello and then after a quick exchange quickly determined that I had not arrived at the Wraps Seminar as I had thought. I had in fact managed to crash some kind of sales consultant development day (or something). Whoops. She advised me to try the room next door. I left slightly sheepishly.

But hey, I'd had a free bacon roll!

I tried this one, but it was empty apart from one organiser type person. I introduced myself and to save more embarrassment checked whether this was the Wraps Seminar. It wasn't. I despaired and headed back to reception.

This time they didn't send me to a waiting room, they advised me to go straight to the seventh floor (in a "special lift"). I couldn't find this lift but did then bump into some actuarial types who took me upstairs to where I was supposed to have been all along (which in my defense was not where it said on the joining instructions). I was happy to finally be in the right place.

Moral: It's really easy to sneak into Standard Life and steal bacon.

It seems like an interlude now...

I was listening to a Morrissey album this evening, and a song came on called Interlude. It's great - a duet between him and Siouxsie Sioux (off of And The Banshees). Since I've had the thing for a while I figure I must have heard the song before... but allowing for that I was sure I knew it from somewhere else. Investigation showed it to be a cover of a song from a sixties film, soundtrack composed by Georges Delerue, a French composer. Needless to say, I am not hugely familiar with his work.

So I'm not sure where I know where I know the song from. I'll probably never find out as now I know it from itself.

Toilet Roll Origami

This is probably the wrongest thing I have ever come across in a Thai restaurant:



What were they thinking???