Posts from 2005
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Xmas at Pyrland Road
We just got home from Xmas at Scott and Katie's place. Fabulous day had by all. An appropriate level of gluttony and exuberence was had by all. Recipe for me curried cashews and cinammon almonds will…
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DLT drive working
Thanks to Christian's provision of a SCSI cable, I've been able to get a DLT drive going for Peaceworkers. The drive itself came free from Freecycle. I'll be a lot happier knowing Peaceworkers are get…
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Intelligently designed comic
Doonesbury is one of the comics I read every day. It's not often that it's laugh-out-loud funny, normally it's only wrly funny. Today's strip is an exception, and reminds me why I read this comic. Som…
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Demented, and I love it!
GPC just played a cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by The Cardigans. Brilliant!
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God FAQ
At last, all your questions about God answered in the God FAQ.
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Unlicensed minicabs
Those of you outside London probably won't know, but London operates two separate taxi services. The familiar Black Cabs are easily spotted and can be hailed in the street. However, due to their high…
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Save rave from superstar DJs!
ROFLMAO
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Oil junkies
Is it just me or is there something junkie-desperate sounding about BP and Shell's current campaigns to show how "green" they are, doing renewables research. It just sounds so much like: "I can give u…
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Brain warmer time
You can tell it's getting cold when I have to start wearing my sexy brain warmer on the bike. Keeps the ears warm. Holly bought it for me for Christmas last year, and it makes a real difference. Pity…
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Store cupboard sausage and cider casserole
There is one consolation to the weather getting cold: I get to make more delicious but ridicuously easy casseroles thrown together with whatever I have lying around. Last night was one such night. Mos…
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Text strike!
Last night, I sent a text message to Holly around 19:30. It arrived this morning around 07:30. Twelve hours to send about twelve bytes of payload, at a cost of 3p. It's about the most expensive data t…
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Sharon the peacemaker?
Who would have thought that Arial Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila could start to look like a peacemaker. Could it possibly be that the man has realized that humiliating the Palestinians is ne…
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We're going to Germany!
Australia won and we've qualified for the World Cup finals for the first time in 32 years! How fucking great is that? A video someone sent me of the fateful penalty.
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Anti-strike laws: the new slavery
Today is a national day of protest against the Australian government industrial relations " reforms ". For those not up-to-date, they're taking away a huge swathe of rights from Australian workers inc…
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The Dismissal
On this day thirty years ago, the most important event in Australian political history of my lifetime happened, and I was only four months old. After the opposition Liberal (that is, conservative--yea…
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DRM: A cautionary tale; or: How to piss off you customers in one easy step
In a couple of weeks I'm running a murder mystery adventure. They're live role-playing events and lots of fun. Everyone dresses up as their character, someone gets killed and we all race around trying…
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UK media has the wrong idea about these French riots
The UK media seems to be focussing on the lack of integration of these kids into French society. I think they're more integrated than they appear. After all, they're taking their grievances to the str…
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Oh to be a fly on the wall
Riding past Madge's place it seems the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, is on a state visit. Chinese flags on The Mall, and coppers everywhere. I'd love to see the conversation between Hu and Bliar: Tony…
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News in the middle of a movie?
British television has some very annoying habits. We won't go into the running of their best programming on Friday and Saturday nights, and their worst on Sundays. Or the fact they can't seem to start…
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You couldn't make this up: Yellow Peril firework
Last night was Guy Fawkes Night, where the Brits celebrate an attempt to blow up the government by burning Catholics in effigy and blowing shit up. Anyway, being Australian and thus deprived of the jo…
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Review: Ladytron - Witching Hour
The NME famously described Ladytron as "...a teasing glimpse of how Britney Spears might have sounded, had she been born in the GDR and a heroin addict." Their latest album, Witching Hour, gets them b…
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Locked BIOS on laptop
A while ago I bought a broken Toshiba 3110CT laptop for parts for the functioning one. I needed one bit and buying a laptop with a broken screen was a lot cheaper than the part from Toshiba. Anyway, t…
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Mass
Went to Mass tonight. Won't Mum be happy? Well, maybe not that kinda Mass:) Was a huge turnout, following the porcine types' threats last month. Also an unseasonably warm night (17 degrees by my bike…
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Back from Ireland
Got back from 9 days' holiday in Ireland spent with Holly and Mum. What a fantastic trip! Essentially we saw all of the northern half of Ireland. Loads of neolithic passage tombs: Ireland appears to h…
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More 4: how long until it's wall-to-wall Friends?
Channel 4 launched their new "adult entertainment" channel, More 4 last night. It was pretty good, all things considered. The Daily Show was great, and the comedy about David Blunkett was pretty funny…
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New toy!
Just bought a new toy, the Freecom DVB-t USB Stick. It's a tiny, USB digital TV receiver. Worked brilliantly at work yesterday (sixth floor, Windows 2000) so now to try and get it going at home (groun…
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Eric Idle: the unfunny Python
Just sat down to watch The Rutles (three quid at Virgin). I can't imagine a less funny "comedy". What a waste of space! Now we all know that John Cleese has been incredbly unfunny since he went throug…
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His heart really isn't in it
Just saw Blair on the news singing the Labour anthem, The Red Flag. He really didn't seem to have his heart in it. Hilarious!
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Being a geek is not a crime!
Very scary story from yesterday's Grauniad about a geek who was stopped and searched by coppers in a tube station for... carrying a laptop and wearing a jacket. This errorism bollocks is getting reall…
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You lot who don't wear glasses wouldn't understand!
Had something amusing, though annoying too, happen yesterday. I broke my glasses frame last week and the new ones aren't ready yet, so I'm walking around like a dork with tape holding them together. L…
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Ozomatli
Just got back from seeing Ozomatli at the Islington Academy. Wow what a gig. Holly's comment: "I wish I'd seen them at Glastonbury." From memory I think everyone at Glastonbury heard the crowd chantin…
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Back from Stockholm
Just got back from a week in Stockholm staying with Juz and Gav. Brilliant weather, we even got tans! Stockholm is a beautiful city, particularly the archipelago where we spent three days swimming and…
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Why are we appeasing the terrorists?
Uncle Dubya keeps telling us that terrorists "hate freedom". So why is it that every time they attack us, we appease them by removing some of our freedom? Doesn't that mean they've won?
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Where's the fridge magnet?
Our local council clearly isn't taking the terror threat seriously. They sent some cardboard leaflets telling us what they're doing and the like. How could they be so stupid? Everybody knows that the…
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Loads of photos
Been a busy few weeks and I've got a buttload of photos. James Foster's memorial ride Lovely warm Summer nights on the Thames Optronica at the National Theatre My 30th birthday party July Critical Mas…
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River Cafe
Holly took me out to the River Cafe for dinner tonight. Absolutely brilliant feed. I had squid with chilli and rocket, Holly had prosciutto with charantais melon for entrees. Mine was perfect, not so…
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Strange royal experience
On my way home from work this evening, while riding through Trafalgar Square the coppers had blocked off traffic. Turns out ol' big ears was coming through, probably been reports of a fox on Whitehall…
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Katsu!
A discussion on london.food about katsu gave me the idea of making a katsu curry tomorrow night when Scott and Katie come around for dinner. These are the ingredients I bought from the Japanese and Ko…
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Big stuff today
Well in case you're wondering, Holly and I are fine after today's bombings. I rode my bike into work. Tavistock and Russell Squares are a few blocks from my work. Everyone at work (old and new) is fin…
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Last day at Pilat
Today is my last day working at Pilat Media. Judging from this nice little news story, not a moment too soon! What a delightful area. Anyway, I now have a week off work including Glastonbury, then sta…
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Adult. playing next Monday
Adult. from Detroit are probably the most exciting techno act I've heard this century. Kinda somewhere like New Wave Techno. NME's description: "If John Lydon was a mad scientist, and he decided to ma…
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So how do you hang on to your spaghetti?
This piece describes an "innovative" modular housing system. It's quite clever and interesting, but for one thing... While cooking, the couch becomes the ceiling, the dining table a wall. Which begs t…
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A picture tells a thousand words
I've been gradually putting photos up on Wikipedia and I now have quite a huge number of photos. It's amazing how many places I've been in the last few years that have supplied photos suitable for Wik…
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New toy: mp3 player
Just got my latest toy, a little solid-state mp3 player. It comes with no memory, but has an SD slot so it's infinitely expandable. SD is insanely cheap and getting cheaper all the time, so that's gre…
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Tennis and football
Holly and I went to see Lleyton and The Poo at Queen's Club last night. We get freebie tickets because it's at the end of our street. Was good fun, though the Aussie lads really weren't at their prime…
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Week off
I've managed to score a week off in between jobs. Can't wait. Lots of things I need to catch up on, and little projects I've not got around to.
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I made sushi!
Well it's not going to win any awards, but my first attempt at sushi worked alright. Certainly tasted good. The wasabi I bought turns out to be insanely hot. Nose tinglingly.
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Sushi!
After sushi for dinner last night at the excellent Yoshi Sushi, I realised how much I miss good sushi. It's rare and expensive in this town. Yoshi is probably the best price/quality balance I've found…
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Sushi!
After sushi for dinner last night at the excellent Yoshi Sushi, I realised how much I miss good sushi. It's rare and expensive in this town. Yoshi is probably the best price/quality balance I've found…
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Google News is just so good
Google News is just so good. Here, you get to see the different sides to a story. The official mouthpiece of the US military tells how Guantanamo Bay guards are very respectful when handling the Koran…
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Regrowth Blonde
Just brewed a quick-and-dirty beer for my birthday party keg. Cooper's Canadian Blonde kit, 350g wheat malt, 350g dark malt (what I had already opened in the fridge), 300g glucose, Brupaks Flavapak be…
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Toshiba Portege 3110CT Service Manual
These things are hard to find online without paying some dodgy bugger who stores them online. So here it is, for free: Toshiba Portege 3110CT Service Manual in PDF.
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What did we do before eBay?
Just bought a broken laptop of the same model as mine. It's apparently working but has broken screen and no keyboard. I bought it solely for parts as the little cable between the motherboard and scree…
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Back on the bike. At last!
Finally got back on the bike today. Foot seems pretty much healed now, so I can ride again. Of course, luck being what it is, that will likely mean a wet ride home in London Spring drizzle. Was a nice…
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Weekend in Aisne
We got back from a long weekend in Aisne, Northern France. Nine of us went on the Eurostar on Friday afternoon, hiring a minibus in Lille. Great time had by all! Beautiful weather on Saturday and Sund…
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Selling on eBay is strangely fun
I'm selling our old telly on eBay. I find myself checking it every hour or so, just to see what the bids are up to. Scarily addictive, I think.
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Looks like I'll have to work for big companies
Well it looks like when I eventually return to Australia, I'll have to work for companies with more than 100 employees. Otherwise I could be unfairly dismissed with no right to challenge it. So where'…
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Best football match ever
Last night was the Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool. It will go down in history as one of the most exciting games of football (for the Aussies and Yanks, football is the game wher…
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New job.
I just resigned from my job. I'm moving to Searchspace who make anti-fraud and anti-money laundering software. Quite looking forward to new challenges. Very much looking forward to using Framemaker ag…
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Apparently my foot is fine
Went for my appointment at the hospital's fracture clinic this morning. After an x-ray, the doctor said it should be fine now for me to start doing sport and the like. Disturbingly, he said that the x…
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Springtime for Hitler
Went to see The Producers last night with Dad, Holly and Rachel. What a fantastic musical, best I've seen in years. Absolutely hysterical. Couldn't recommend it more. Highlight: the scene with dancing…
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Weekend of Ubuntu
I spent the weekend tweaking the Ubuntu install on my new laptop and installing Ubuntu on my main desktop. It's very very slick, and unlike Knoppix the power save modes on the monitor actually work. T…
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Ubuntu is fantastic
I scored a nice laptop this week, though it has a problem with the screen and the cable connecting to it. Hopefully I can repair that. It's a PII 300, so quite a nice machine and very compact and ligh…
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Bloody Oracle bollocks
I've just spent most of the morning helping our DBAs install the Oracle client software on a freshly installed Debian box. Why, oh why, do you need to run some dodgy Java GUI installer to install a fs…
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Amazing chocolate cake
On the weekend I made this amazing chocolate cake from Nigella Lawson's site for Fiona's birthday. Fantastic cake, really rich and yummy. Went down well. I did the orange-flavoured option and it worke…
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Australia Uber Alles
The Australian Attorney-General's Department is saying " Individual human rights need to be rethought in the age of terrorism and more consideration given to community rights ". I'm sure I've heard so…
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Woken up with a Tory MP
Well, this morning I woke up with a Tory MP. It feels worse because I've actually met the smarmy bastid and voted Labour despite Bliar. Worse still, Saddam-loving George "permatan" Galloway succeeded…
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Hey it's not just stupid me
On the London Perl Mongers list right now there's a discussion about mobile phones. Turns out I'm not the only idiot who has put a mobile phone through the wash. Yay!
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Vote early, vote often
So it's the big day. I trundled down to the Indian Cultural Centre around the corner to do my civic duty this morning. Xed the appropriate (Melanie Smallman, Labour) box and headed out. Dead easy, can…
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Why does technical marketing have to be meaningless?
We're looking around for bug tracking software at my work, so this involves a lot of research into the available tools. It seems that the web sites of most software companies are written by and for pe…
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Yay for Microsoft!
Say what you will about their (lousy) software, Microsoft make great hardware. On Wednesday my eight-year old Microsoft Natural Keyboard finally died, the Enter key stopped working. So I ordered anoth…
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Free at last!
Finally I'm free of Network Solutions and their incompetence. Now registered until November 2010 at GoDaddy.
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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.
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Google Justice Results
Well it appears my crack at Google Justice has been wildly successful. Searches for vallandry apartment, apartment les choucas and john and sonia potts all end up on my page about them trying to rip u…
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My Windows ate itself
Looks like my work Windows XP machine ate itself on Friday. Completely destroyed itself. Impressive considering I hadn't installed any new software (except last week's Windows updates?). Doesn't seem…
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Google justice
The people who own the Les Choucas apartment in Vallandry, John and Sonia Potts where we stayed for our recent ski trip have tried to fleece us out of some of the deposit. So I've written up a page ab…
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Snow Crash, again
I'm out of books (read all the ones I bought off Amazon with my xmas gift voucher) and am back to reading the excellent Snow Crash yet again. Loving it, but I'd like to discover something written this…
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Snow!
After a week of false starts, looks like we've finally got a decent dump of snow. You can compare this picture with this one from the Summer.
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Tax morons
As a socialist, I have no problem with taxation. In fact, I think it's an important thing. I don't mind paying what I'm due. What does piss me off, however, is the incompetence of the UK's Inland Reve…
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Marx and kimchee
Yesterday we went on a Marx walking tour of Soho with Scott and the Trots associated with his flatmate Hannah. An excellent tour which he'll be repeating on Mayday apparently. Lots of interesting hist…
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Blinding EDMX Mix
A couple of years ago I saw Ed DMX (of DMX Krew fame DJing at 93 Feet East. He played a blinding set of booty bass and electro. Absolutely awesome and had us sweating our arses off the whole time. Wel…
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Free DVD rental
I've been using the free trials of all these companies providing DVD rentals by post. Quite a nice idea and if we watched more films, it would be worthwhile. As it is, I'm storing up movies to watch a…
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Snowboardo!
Holly and I got back from snowboarding on Saturday night. Had a great time but snowboarding is a lot harder than skiing. Took us quite a while just to get the basics. With skiing you can be snowplowin…
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Cider and Dark Lager
Just bottled the cider I made on the cider making weekend last year. It's delicious, though perhaps a little too much tanin. I bottled 20 bottles straight, which will be flat scrumpy-style. The remain…
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Wonderful UI
Okay so Microsoft aren't exactly a difficult target when it comes to user interface design, but this one is just so bad I have to point it out. This is Outlook 2003. Now can you tell whether the items…
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Stamping Butterflies
I really like Jon Courtenay Grimwood 's books. He writes science fiction that tends to be based in North Africa, with all the flavour you would expect from that. This, his latest, is a bit more sedate…
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Invasion Day 2005
Last night we marked Australia Day, commemorating the big land-grab that was whitey's arrival in Australia, with a barbecue in Scott's backyard. Being in London, it is of course the coldest, bitterest…
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Let Habib tell his story
The Australia government is attempting to stop illegally imprisoned Australian Mamdouh Habib from selling his story to the press when he is returned from Guantanamo Bay. They're apparently trying to u…
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They're a weird mob
So the word pants in the UK means underwear yet they still have the term underpants. So what's the difference? Do they wear two layers?
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Jerry Springer: The Opera
Does it mean we're getting old to say we stayed in Saturday evening to watch opera on the telly? Of course it wasn't just any opera but Jerry Springer: The Opera. I never thought I'd see an opera with…
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Holly now has a blog
Holly wanted a blog, so now she has one. I couldn't find any decent blogware that was free and didn't require a database, but allowed Holly to post without HTML. So with a bit of Perl magic and HTML::…
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Musical Russian Roulette
Everyone's doing it, or so it seems, so here's the first ten tracks selected randomly from my entire music collection: Mr Bungle - None of Them Knew They Were Robots Frost - In Memoriam (The Silent Sp…
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Regurgitator - Mish Mash
Just got my copy of Regurgitator 's new album, Mish Mash. Have to say, it hasn't really grabbed me. The album was recorded over 21 days with the band locked inside a plastic box in Melbourne's Federat…