Blog
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How long did something take in Perl?
Some things in Perl seem very obvious to the gurus but aren't terribly obvious to us mere mortals. I'm writing scripts for work to automagically publish our docs, so I'm trying to work out how long ea…
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Google SMS
Google now has an SMS service. You text a query to it, and it texts you back results. "Pubs" then your postcode finds the nearest pubs. "From" location "to" location gives you (driving) directions. Th…
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Becoming an omnivore
For most of my life, I have despised tomatoes. Tomato soup, ketchup, pasta sauce and the like are all fine. Just raw tomatoes, I've always hated. For the last year or so, I've been trying to work myse…
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Please oh please, someone kill Network Solutions
I've been trying to get my rumble.net domain off Network Solutions for the past three months. Eight support requests later and they still have it locked with lock status "REGISTRAR-LOCK". Every time I…
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Sucker for a good bridge
In songwriting, I'm a sucker for a good bridge in a song. To make an ordinary song in the standard Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Chorus-fade turn into something extraordinary for me, all you need to do is…
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Voting Labour
Last night I went to Hammersmith and Fulham FOE 's pre-election meet-the-candidates thingy to try and make up my mind about who to vote for. The Lib Dem was, as expected, a dorky looking type without…
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Australia vs New Zealand, but where can I get tickets?
According to FFA there's a friendly match between Australia and New Zealand here in London on 9th June. But do you think there's any information about when, where and how one gets tickets? Don't be ri…
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Ouch sore!
This broken foot is quite a pain. The flight from Australia was a nightmare with the foot swelling up enormously and an annoying bitch behind me kicking my seat constantly. Swelling has gone down now…
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Ack! Broken foot.
This has been an eventful trip to Sydney. I'm flying back to London tomorrow morning, but this afternoon while walking in Bronte, I slipped off the footpath, twisted my ankle and broke my foot. ARGH!…
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Bought loads of Aussie music
While I've been here in Sydney I've bought a huge amount of Aussie music. Stuff you just can't get in London. Combat Wombat - Unsound $ystem seems to be a grouping within the Elefant Traks keiretsu. F…
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In Sydney for now
Results from my Dad's tests have shown his heart is fine. That's excellent news and means his chest pains were probably the result of stress over the last few weeks, and nowhere near as worrying. So I…
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I'm in Sydney
Haven't had a chance to post to the old blog for a bit. My grandmother died last weekend and so I flew into Sydney for the weekend. Now my Dad's sick, so I'm not sure how long I'll be here. I've alrea…
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Funky Porcini
The fantastic cheese stall at North End Road market had a fantastic thing on offer this weekend. Giant 250g tubs of dried porcini mushrooms for £5. Incredible. So last night I cooked a mushroom casser…
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Vietnamese Mint
With the weather warming up, Holly has been getting her herb seedlings going. Last year we had a fantastic crop of chives, basil and oregano. Considering the small space available (one window sill) we…
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Union Coffee Roasters
I normally buy Cafe Direct 's fair trade coffee but there was a special offer last week on Union Coffee Roasters ' coffee. This morning I opened the first packet and it's absolutely sensational. Reall…
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Warming up!
It was snowing only a couple of weeks ago and this morning I rode to work in shorts and t-shirt. Beautiful weather and looks set to stay this way all weekend. 19 degrees yesterday! If this keeps up I'…
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Trackball suggestions?
I've had one of these Logitech Trackman Marble FX trackballs for about eight years. Best pointing device I've ever owned ergonomically. The beauty of the design is that you don't twist your wrist. It'…
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Ipaq music streaming
A couple of years ago I bought an Ipaq 3100 with a dud battery for £15 on eBay. My plan was to get it to do wireless music streaming so I could play music in another room without running cables from m…
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Doh moment
Guess who managed to wash his mobile phone with a pair of trousers over the weekend? Doh! Amazingly, the thing still works. I let it dry out overnight, then tried switching it on and it's fine. Screen…
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A real dump of snow
Finally a decent dumping of snow. Even Stonebridge Park looks nice in the snow. The picture shows the view from work, with Wembley Stadium in the background.