Posts from 2006
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Happy season folks
Well it's Xmas here in Sydney and it's pretty warm and humid, raining but it's supposed to clear in the morning for the big day. Xmas is more hectic, as expected, being in the same country as the fami…
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Cooking books are not for bedtime
I read some of In Search of Perfection as described yesterday before going to sleep last night. Not a good idea. I woke up craving fish and chips. Not really breakfast food now, is it?
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Short memory
Short memory must have a sho-oo-oort memory.
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Settling down in the Inner West
On Saturday I did some farting about in the house. Got flyscreens made for the windows, improved the window security a little, toyed around with my new Internode ADSL and Nodephone VOIP stuff. I also…
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Comment-less blogs
Russell Coker asks why people have blogs that don't allow comments. One thing: comment spam. But there are other reasons. It's a weird in-the-middle-of-nowhere forum system that never gets looked at a…
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In Search of Perfection
I've been working my way through Heston Blumenthal's book In Search of Perfection, which accompanies the TV show of the same name. Blumenthal is something of a food obsessive, to put it lightly. His t…
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Congratulations to Mohammad Yunus
Mohammad Yunus has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He's notable for starting the Grameen Bank, which was notable for designing a system that allowed poor people to borrow small amounts of money an…
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Word of the day: Confusopoly
Discovered this great word coined by Dilbert author Scott Adams: Confusopoly where instead of competing, companies instead try to bamboozle customers. It's a great term and applies in so many areas. B…
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ADSL on at last
Just got this message from my ISP: Provisioned: DSL Service is fully provisioned! Very nice, but due to Telstra fuckwittedness I can't get the lovely ADSL2+ speeds I wanted. Also still waiting on the…
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Server hassles
So over the weekend I started to work on getting my server running. This is an NEC system I bought off eBay, dual-Xeon, 2 gigs RAM and a big fat RAID array. It doesn't seem to cope with me plugging in…
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When did futons get expensive?
When I moved out of my parents' house, my room was about 50cm longer than a double bed, and about 10cm wider. Still, I needed a bed and wasn't going to be very successful with the laydeez if I had a s…
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They're a weird mob
These Australians are a bit weird. Just got back from the supermarket and nearly all the sausages are beef sausages. That's just wrong! Especially when they say things like "traditional" on the packag…
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Bugger, can't do linux.conf.au
Just looking through the programme for linux.conf.au and unfortunately I'm not going to make it. As a contractor it's quite expensive for me to take days off, so I was thinking a single day. Friday's…
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As classified "Pornography/Sex,Entertainment" by the Australian government
Apparently my blog is blocked on a federal government department's network as "Category: Pornography/Sex,Entertainment (Global)". Besides the mis-categorization, it just goes to show the futility of f…
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Those Ikea bits
The post yesterday asking about Ikea components has got me a couple of responses. Steve Walsh says: IIRC, they are; threaded pin rod and rotating lock screw Alex Hudson says: Your Ikea part isn't; it'…
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What is this Ikea component called?
I'm trying to work out what component 110630 and 112996 are called from Ikea furniture. I'm quite impressed with the utility of these devices: they allow you to align items at right-angles in a precis…
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Amazing use of Google Earth
The Wilderness Society have released overlays for Google Earth that show the scale of the destructive logging going on in Tasmania. It's incredible that we allow this to happen in such a beautiful, un…
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Fratellis and Gainsbourg
I've been listening to a couple of great albums recently. I'm really getting into Costello Music, from Glasgow band The Fratellis. Great spiky guitars and catchy, almost Beatles-esque tunes. Loads of…
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Why we should respect the Police
Spotted last night at the end of my parents' street, a police paddy wagon parked outside the local pizza joint in a No Stopping zone while the copper was inside waiting for his pizza. There's a car pa…
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How not to do a viral campaign
The Liberal (that's Tory for you non-Australians, yes it's confusing) party have quickly shoved out an attempt at a viral campaign, Same Old Labor in the wake of this morning's leadership spill. It's…
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Damn my amazing PageRank
As I've mentioned before, Google just loves my web site. My PageRank is five but it seems to really really love anything I post up. For example, I'm currently hit number five for " Rimming Sugar ". Er…
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Notice any similarity?
This photo was taken by Gabe at Critical Mass last Friday. This appeared in both the printed and online editions of yesterdays Daily Terrorgraph. I see the Terror's respect for the law only cuts one w…
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1999 Peter Lehmann Grenache
Back in 1999, we were drinking the fantastic 1998 Peter Lehmann Grenache. It was in our price range ($12 at the time) and very tasty. We kept going back to the bottle shop and buying more until they r…
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There's Lear Jets over Kulgera
Might be time to dust off the old Red Gum song Lear Jets Over Kulgera. And there's Lear jets over Kulgera Where the Dust dances in the heat Sing a song for the poor young little rich country As they b…
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Rimming sugar?
Browsing through the homewares store at the bottom of the building I work in, I spotted a product like this. Not the kind of thing I'd normally associate with "homewares" but I guess whatever makes it…
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Moved in
Well after the major hassle on Saturday, we finally got moved in yesterday. The house is pretty cool and we're already really enjoying hanging out in our lovely garden. Certainly makes a nice change a…
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ARGH! Real estate scum!
Turned up at 11:30 this morning to move in, and it turns out the tenants are still in the house. Still asleep even! Do you think this elicits an apology from the estate scum? Course not. "Nothing we c…
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I'm a resource
I love it when project managers refer to human beings as "resources". It would be okay if they were using it in the general, but you never hear them talking about equipment as a resource. When they sa…
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Server arrived
The server I bought on eBay for $360 arrived last night. Dual 1.4G Xeon, 2 gigs RAM and 290 gigs RAID disks. Very nice! It's kinda reminiscent of a jet engine, though. I think I'll have to work out so…
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MythTV rocks!
I hadn't actually installed MythTV and played with it before. I just installed it on my laptop. Wow, this has to be one of the slickest free software projects I've seen yet! Installing from the Ubuntu…
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Microsoft strikes a blow against DRM
Microsoft have come out as unlikely allies in the fight against DRM. It seems they're helping to educate consumers on why DRM sucks. Their new player won't work with product bought under their "Plays…
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Monster MythTV box
I just bought a monster server machine to run as my MythTV machine. It's a dual 1.4 GHz Xeon with two gigs of RAM and 288 gigs of RAID storage. Nice! Servers on eBay seem to be inordinately cheap. I g…
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Should I go to linux.conf.au?
Registrations are open for linux.conf.au and the programme looks quite interesting. For me it looks like Wednesday and Thursday are the most worthwhile days. Thing is, I'm a contractor and going means…
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New Kyoto won't be as sweet a deal
Howard is dissembling about a new Kyoto agreement to take heat off the fact that the largest per-capita greenhouse gas emitter won't sign the existing agreement. Thing is, Kyoto was a fantastic deal f…
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Holly has a job!
Good news everyone: Holly has a job! She'll be starting next week at Odyssey House, an addiction charity. It's in the city, which means we're both working centrally. That'll be nice for a change.
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Linux going mainstream at last?
Spotted on the ubuntu-au list: Does the ubuntu default installation come with a anti-virus and spyware. I seems can not find it. I scare apyware and vitus:P Hold onto your hats folks (alright Jeff you…
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A plan to end farmer welfare
I have a plan to stop farmers sponging off the state. Many farmers in Australia farm extremely marginal land that is regularly very badly affected by drought. Australia is a place that has droughts. E…
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Moving!
Turns out we got the house in St Peters. Excellent stuff. We move on 18th November, so still a while to wait.
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Hopefully a home
We put a deposit and application in to rent a house in St Peters on Saturday. It's a lovely little two-story semi with a bit of open space at the front and a nice little unpaved garden out the back. T…
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Estate agents: how I love thee so
Ahh doncha just love estate agents? They're so honest! Here's an ad in our target area. Let's decode the real estate-speak: FANTASTIC LOCATION! The house is shite, but what a great spot! Two bedroom,…
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The end of worrying about spam?
I've just signed up for Marc Perkel's spam filtering service because I'm sick of managing the spam arms race. It's a near full-time job and my Linode just doesn't have the RAM to do it. I mean, the la…
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Hot hot hot
It was damn hot from Thursday to Saturday last week. 37°C on Saturday! We went up to Wamberal and had a swim at Avoca and then Terrigal. Amazingly Terrigal had decent surf, which meant I had a bit of…
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Google love
I just had an enquiry from someone looking for a technical author. Sounds like good people, but it's in Brisvegas and wasn't paying enough to justify another move. Anyway, I was wondering how she foun…
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How to treat your customers
When phoning to ask for a piece of information, unless you are sure the customer has screwed up, don't use language like "you didn't give us your..." as if you are in the wrong, you give the impressio…
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Recruiter blacklist: Sapphire Technologies
I applied for a job advertised by these recruit-scum. Turns out they're flogging training, not jobs. I didn't hear from them, and saw the same ads getting posted day after day so I assumed there was s…
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What happens when you microwave silica gel?
Found in a can of "Mexican spicy peanuts" from Thailand, one of those little packets of dessicant. As well as the usual "Do not eat" notice, it also says "Do not microwave". Talk about red rag to a bu…
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These spammers try everything
Wow these spammers are tenacious. I woke up this morning with a bunch of spam sent through my contact form, which was built specifically to avoid spammers getting my email address. Interesting that th…
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Mobical
I've been using a mobile phone calendaring service for the last six months or so. It's really rather good because it integrates into the Nokia calendar I use on my Nokia 6630, and you can synchronize…
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Clueless web designers are everywhere
Martin Brooks is audbly seething about clueless web designers who can't even write browser detection Javascript that works across all the (narrow range) of Windows browsers they support. These people…
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Summer Lamb Couscous Salad
This is a quick and easy summer salad that I've been making for years. It's tasty, healthy and dead easy to make. I find it's particularly suited to those long, hot summer evenings when you don't want…
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Spotted in Gladesville, Sydney
Spotted on Victoria Road, Gladesville. Can't say I disagree with the sentiment.
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Got some work
I've finally got myself a job, doing content management at AAPT. Should be an interesting gig. It's interesting it's taken me a while to get work. The usual experience of recruit-scum being all hot fo…
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Problem with dates on the new feed?
Steve pointed out that all the dates on my new RSS 2.0 said 1970 something or other. The template said $rss20::utc_date so I've replaced it with $da $mo $yr $ti. We'll see. Please report any problems.…
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Now with valid RSS
I've finally got aroud to fixing the problematic RSS on my Blosxom blog. Thanks to Andrew Cowie's RSS 2.0 plugin and flavour files, it now outputs valid RSS 2.0. Get the new feed here. Planet peoples,…
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Plans for the next week or so
We're going to be in Sydney, staying at my parents' place in Gladesville, this week. We'll both be doing the job hunt thing and hanging about looking after my Dad who's got some back problems at the m…
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Crown Seal Longnecks
Coopers have gone back to using crown seal caps for their longneck bottles. This is a real boon for homebrewers, who for some years haven't been able to buy anything but imported beer that can be refi…
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New site design
After four years with the old design, I've finally got around to redesigning my site. This time around I've used CSS for layout, which was one of those things I've been planning to do for a long time.…
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Made it to Australia
Well we made it to Sydney yesterday. The flight was uneventful and we spent the day with family. Was lovely to see everyone again. Mum and Dad are now on their way to London, we dropped them at the ai…
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Leaving London
Well we're leaving London tonight at 22:30 local time. We've got mixed feelings about the move. After six years in London, it's a pretty big move to up stumps and head to the other side of the world,…
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Lovely newspeak from the UK Treasury
Under the heading " Pension Tax Simplification " you can read all about the complicated new rules that have been introduced this year. Orwell had nothing on these guys. Reading around with the experts…
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Homeward bound
So we've been in London since Tuesday, staying with Rachel. We've booked our flight back to Sydney for 3rd September, arriving the morning of 5th September. We'll probably spend the day with my parent…
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Heard this morning at Stockwell tube station
"For your safety this station is fitted with recorded closed circuit television cameras." Well that's about time isn't it?
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Heading home
We're going home after five months on the road. Our flight to London leaves on Tuesday afternoon from Sofia. We'll organize our flight to Sydney when we get there, but should be in London 10-14 days o…
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Cornflake breaded chicken?
The picture to the right shows a rather odd meal Holly ordered in Sofia. She was expecting some kind of schnitzel, but ended up with a cornflake-coated chicken thing instead of breadcrumbs. Weird! We'…
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Welcome to the Balkans!
Well we had a very eventful journey to Skopje today. We turned up at the bus station to find the "bus" is in fact a minibus, and chock full, so there's even a passenger sitting shotgun between the dri…
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Sofia, off to Skopje
We've been in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, the last two nights. It's a pretty scruffy place and there's not a whole lot to see. We stayed in a really lovely hostel, nice and quiet. Not a whole lot to s…
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Veliko Tarnovo
We're in Veliko Tarnovo in Central Northern Bulgaria. Nice little town and we got an apartment in the centre for €15 a night which isn't bad. Even has a telly with English channels on it! Tomorrow we'…
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Beach bumming in Varna
We've been in Varna a few days and we've had loads of fun. Staying in a very fun hostel with loads of people, including some Brits we met in Krakow. We've spent most of the days lazing on the beach. T…
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Varna
So we made it to Varna after our mammoth train journey. It wasn't anything like we expected. The sleeper compartment was comfortable, though a little dated and old, but the carriage seemed to just get…
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Leaving Krakow
So we've now spent seven days in Krakow. We found an awesome hostel with a really relaxed atmosphere and incredibly helpful staff, so we stuck around. The visa dash to Warsaw was successful, with the…
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Doing the visa run
So it turns out I need a transit visa to get through Romania on our train to Varna. What a pain in the arse! So we're off to Warsaw again to get this stupid visa for a country I'm not even visiting. Y…
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Euro beach bums
We're in Warsaw to meet my old colleague Robert and pick up our repaired camera. It's damn hot, with tomorrow forecast to hit 33. Phew! This morning we booked our mad dash to the coast. It's too hot t…
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Trakai, photos and off to Warsaw
Today we went to the lovely town of Trakai with its beautiful castle. Really nice weather, though I think Lithuanian buses need to discover the joys of air conditioning or at least have windows that o…
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Vilnius, trying to get to Varna
We're still in Vilnius. Switched to the youth hostel after Hannah and Des left. Quite a cheap place, which is good. We're trying to work out our next step. Ideally we'd fly straight to Varna in Bulgar…
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Vilnius: not a food capital
Hi folks. We're currently in Vilnius after driving across from Nida on the Baltic coast with Hannah and Des. Staying here a few days before heading down to Poland. The Curonian Spit is this amazing fi…
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Liepaja and Palanga
We're currently in Palanga on Lithuania's Baltic coast. It's a tourist resort kinda town and quite nice. After three sweltering days in Riga with temperatures above 35 degrees, we were in need of a be…
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Riga
We've been in Riga for a few days now. It's been insanely hot around these parts the last week, so we've been spending quite a bit of time lazing as well as sightseeing. We've seen a few things includ…
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Tallinn beer festival
We went out to the Tallinn Beer Festival last night. Lots of fun and we had some interesting beers. My favourite was the incredibly cloudy one from Saareema. It makes Coopers look clear! It's been rea…
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Tallinn
We're currently in Tallinn, Estonia, staying in our friend Olga's flat about ten minutes' walk from the old city. It's a lovely city which retains its timbered old houses and towering church spires. H…
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Great music, sun and pee
So Roskilde finished last Sunday and what a great festival! We saw some amazing bands and the weather was fantastic. Hot and sunny the whole weekend. It was great to catch up with Justine, Jenny and B…
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Roskilde
So we're at Roskilde Festival in Denmark. There's some time before the first band I wanna see (Four Tet) and they have Internet, so... We spent a couple of days in Hamburg, staying in a hotel even. Ni…
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Hamburg
Hey folks. Well wasn't that the most disappointing end to our World Cup campaign? Knocked out by a dodgy penalty when we'd been the better team on the pitch for the full 90 minutes! Well, we certainly…
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Berchtesgaden and Munich
We're back in Munich. Our train trip down to Berchtesgaden passed through and I needed to get my glasses fixed, so we stopped off for a couple of hours on the way through. Berchtesgaden was fantastic.…
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Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!
We won! Well the vibe wasn't exactly pumping here in Bamberg. I think we're the only Aussies in town, though the Poms in the Irish pub with us were celebrating with us. What a game. I felt like I'd ru…
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Berlin
> > We arrived in Berlin on Friday night and have been loving it! It's such a buzzing town with so much on, particularly with the World Cup coming to town. So far we've wandered around the main sights…
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Getting the boot in
We've spent the last three nights camping in Alberobello, home of all these cute little "Trulli" houses which are cone-shaped limestone roofs. Quite nice. This is down in South-East Italy, the heel of…
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Rome then beach
Hi folks. We're currently down in Southern Italy, staying in a caravan park near Sorrento. We had a fantastic time in Rome, seeing all the major sights and staying in a pretty fun hostel (but for the…
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Rome
We arrived in Rome yesterday and it's fantastic finally seeing the place. It's just completely jammed with Old Shit (and tourists), you can't wander around without running into something incredibly ol…
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Florence and more photos
We've finally found a reasonably priced Internet cafe that lets us plug in our camera, so there's now photos from Granada, San Jose, Valencia, Peniscola, Como and the first pics from Florence. See the…
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Como
We left Barcelona yesterday and flew into Milan in Italy. We're now in a hostel beside lovely Lake Como. We just got back from a boat ride up the lake to Bellagio. Great place! Tomorrow we're off to M…
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Light Fingers in Barcelona
Well I guess it had to happen at some point. I got pickpocketed in Barcelona a couple of days ago. We had just arrived in town, with our huge backpacks on the metro. Classic tactics, they saw my walle…
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Two player card games?
As you might imagine, we're spending a fair amount of time sitting around either waiting for transport or travelling. There's also the inevitable nights when it's raining or cold and we want to sit in…
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Peniscola
Geo: 40.364661,000.403640 No, not a new drink marketed at the gay market but a beach town on the coast North of Valencia. We decided we needed some more beach time, after our time in San Jose was marr…
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San Jose then Valencia
Geo: 39.472906,-000.371813 We arrived in Valencia last night after a mammoth 8.5 hour bus ride through every no-horse town between Almeria and the Costa Blanca. Certainly a long trip, but we're glad t…
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Alhambra
Geo: 37.176901,-003.588436 The Alhambra in Granada. You've played the game, now see the real thing! We had to get up at 0630 this morning to get tickets, but it's well worth it.
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Seville, Cordoba, Granada
I'm in the process of uploading some more photos from Seville and Cordoba. See here. Seville was a nice place, though the camping ground was right next to airport and freeway and it rained rained rain…
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Camping in Seville
Geo: 37.417063,-005.917796 Here we are in Seville. If you look at the map you'll see the camping ground is handy for the freeway and airport. We could count the rivets on the planes. This will be our…
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Loads of new photos
I'm in the middle of uploading lots of photos. You'll find: Donostia (San Sebastian), Bilbao and Segovia. Haven't taken any photos in Madrid yet, but will today. Photos here
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Internet cafe crapware
We're in the midst of travelling around Spain and I'm amazed how crappy the computers in Internet cafes are. They're infested with all kinds of crapware, popup ads all over the place, Internet explore…
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Segovia
Geo: 40.948438,-004.118433 Segovia's 1st Century AD aquaduct.
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Madrid
Geo: 40.414558,-003.700951 Sunny and warm in Madrid!
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Bilbao and Tex Perkins
Arived in Bilbao on Sunday night pouring with rain. Discovered our hostel was well on the outskirts of town and so had our first night in. Easter Monday in Bilbao was a ghost town. Hardly anyone about…
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Donostia or San Sebastian
We had a fantastic time in Donostia, a lovely town on the Basque coast. Arriving on a train in the early morning drizzle wasn't ideal, but things quickly got better. After a short rest, we headed into…
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Catalan Food
Posting this from Bilbao but need to get it out before I forget it all. We had a fantastic food experience in Barcelona. Lots of tasty tapas stuff, but the place that really shined was off the beaten…
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Finally uploaded some photos
We caught the overnight train from Barcelona to San Sebastian last night. Slept in our six-berth sleeper, which was quite pleasant. We've finally found an Internet cafe we can upload photos from. They…
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Business at the back, party at the front
Geo: 41.38788,2.20392 We've been in Barcelona since Monday night and in our first twenty-four hours, we spotted at least forty Iberimullets. It's certainly a popular haircut around these parts. I have…
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Our worldly possessions
Geo: 51.550703,-000.087496 This is our stuff for the next eight months! About to head to the airport. I can barely lift my pack. Eek!
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Holly's birthday
Last night we celebrated Holly's birthday and had our leaving do here in London. Lots of fun had by all. Thanks to all who came! Photos here.
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Holly's birthday brunch
Geo: 51.557758,-000.080551 We're having a tasty breakfast for Holly's birthday.
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Staying at Pyrland
Geo: 51.550611,-000.087570 We're spending the week at Scott and Katie's place in North London. This is my shiny new moblog thingy. You'll notice I've got a link at the top of the post where you can se…
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Finally, in-ear headphones that don't suck!
I just bought a pair of these Sennheiser in-ear headphones. They're one of these deep ear canal designs, with various sizes of soft rubber insert. Instead of sitting in the outer ear, they go right in…
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Well that's it for work
Today was my last real work day. Tomorrow is my last official day but we're having our end-of-project day, which means going to the National Gallery then boozy lunch and more drinks. Nice that work ar…
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Quick and easy fish
Holly has recently discovered she likes smoked mackerel. I've been eating it for years because it has many advantages: cheap, not endangered, tasty and being an oily fish it's got lots of the good stu…
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Finally, a union with a clue!
So all the council workers are out on strike today. Their union, Unison, has put excellent information about why they're striking on their web site. Compare and contrast with the fatcat train drivers…
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Death and Taxes
This is a fantastic visualisation of US government spending. Would be great for comparison purposes to do something similar for other governments.
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New music
Bought some CDs recently. Remember them? Maybe ask your grandparents what those were. The Spinto Band - Nice and Nicely Done is by a band we caught after going tothe Barfly in Camden to see Melbourne…
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Can we have store-and-forward SMS please?
So I'm on the tube this morning and realise I need to tell Holly something. I send her atext message on my phone. Now this is pretty damn advanced phone, you'd think it could handle that. There is, of…
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Very odd dream
I don't normally remember my dreams but this morning I had a very vivid one, which seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie. It was all about an evil Russian scientist who drugged me and implanted…
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Ahhh election season
There's one good thing about election season: I get to tell Tories quite how much they disgust me in the comfort of my own doorstep. And they have to be polite! Hours of entertainment. This is more fu…
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Tim Flannery tonight!
Last night I went to the launch of Ryan Heath's book Please Just Fuck Off, It's Our Turn Now (Holding Baby Boomers to Account) at Australia House. Quite a fun evening, and the debate was quite enterta…
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Translation tools
This interweb thing is great! I've been translating a bunch of strings in our software at work from English into French. We used a translation company for most of it, but these are the little bits tha…
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Not a good start to the day
We had a rather abrupt start to the day this morning: the ceiling in our kitchen collapsed! There's now a 2m diameter hole in our ceiling. A few months ago upstairs had a leaky bath. The ceiling start…
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Shittybank does it again
Last Friday I had a rather unfortunate experience with my bank card. It stopped working, with conflicting messages from different points: ATMs said "your bank is unable to process your transaction" wh…
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Howard's 10th Anniversary
Today is a good day to reflect on the fact that there will be kids in Australia starting high school this year who can't remember a prime minister other than John Howard. Scary. The sooner we get the…
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Phone for travel
In case you don't know, Holly and I are heading off travelling around Europe in April. We're planning to be on the road up to eight months, so I've been doing some research into communications on the…
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Whatever happened to the self-cooling can?
As a kid growing up in rural Australia, I used to religiously watch a programme called Towards 2000 (inexplicably renamed Beyond 2000 in 1981) which showed cool technology we could look forward to see…
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Slow cooked chicken
Yesterday we had Scott and Katie around for late lunch. I cooked up some chicken I had in the freezer. This was an old bird I'd bought for coq au vin, organic but old so it had used those muscles. Chu…
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Moblog
Holly having a rest. I've defected to the snowboard team too. We still need some snow! Icy.
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Moblog
Not sure if the steam comes out but here's Hanesy at lunch. Having a ball but could use some snow.
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Lost my phone
Well about forty minutes after my last moblog post, I lost my phone on a gondola. Doh! Hopefully insurance will cover it. Until I get a replacement, you'll have to contact me through other methods.
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Moblog
Interesting translation they've given on the second item there. For those not in the know, cheval is horse, not that you'd know from this translation. I'm sure they have a good giggle about it.
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Moblog
They've put on the old fogie music now. Much better, though I'd still rather have a DJ so I can request Electric Six.
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Moblog
We're in a terrible disco with no DJ to complain about the terrible music to. I think De La Soul described it best: R&B? Rap and Bullshit!
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Moblog
I went out this morning but came back in before lunch. Too sore from all my stacks on icy runs yesterday. Snow has improved things overnight and there's more starting now. Gonna go hard tomorrow on th…
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Moblog
I trekked across the whole ski area today to Roche de Mio at 2700m. The glacier is higher but I need to cover some ground before the snow arrives. Snow is good though!
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Moblog
Here's Holly having (yet another) rest on the way down. She's improving fast!
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Moblog
Well now there's no snow forecast until Thursday but the snow groomers seem to have been out after their weekend break so the artificial snow is better distributed at least. On another note, I've swit…
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Moblog
Holly's taken some damage on the knees. Nasty.
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Moblog
Aidan just after midnight. Turning thirty does that to you.
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I never thought I'd say this...
But I now have no reason to complain about the Australian Tax Office. I just completed (yes, very late) my UK tax return for 2004/2005. ARGH!!!! I think the Marquis de Sade couldn't design a more conv…
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Flat pack bowls, plates and cups
Wow, these flat pack bowls, plates and cups look great. I think I want them.
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It's a boom, not a bubble!
Wired are doing their cheerleading again. This time, we're assured, it's a boom and not a bubble. Of course, last time Wired told us we were in for 25 years of prosperity, freedom and a better environ…
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Guardian starts spamming
The last two days, I've received emails through two addresses registered over the years with The Guardian. These were addresses used to register for competitions, forums etc. I never gave permission t…
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Whale in the Thames
Went down to the Thames this morning to see the whale. There were thousands of people down there lining bridges and climbing trees. Doesn't look so hopeful now for the whale, unfortunately. Now would…
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Timing?
I was about to recommend Konica Minolta for anyone buying a digitial camera, but now I guess I won't bother. Reason for the recommendation was their repair division. The lens got stuck so I posted it…
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How about some sun?
Getting into that bad time of year here in London. Haven't seen the sun in weeks, and not much prospect of seeing it. Well, at least we'll be skiing in a couple of weeks, and that's something to look…
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Australia: the new Nigeria?
Just got a 419 spam with a new twist: Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:42:53 +0700 From: "Mr. Mark Kewell" <mark_kewell@walla.com> To: Cc: Subject: Hello Friend. Hello Friend, I am Mr. Mark Kewell a personal…
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Bring on the newspaper wars!
Today we bought three DVDs with free newspapers attached. I love these newspaper wars! Daily Express went straight in the recycling, but we'll enjoy the Cary Grant film.
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Calendar synchronisation
I finally found a decent online calendar site that synchronizes using SyncML. That means my new phone can synchronize with it over-the-air. Fantastic stuff!
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Independence Day
So Gordon Brown wants a British "Independence Day" like the Yanks. Well I guess first we have to throw off the shackles of the British Monarchy. Might I suggest the Romanov Solution?
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Top of the heap?
According to this article in yesterday's Guardian, the hierarchy of road users that traffic engineers should be: disabled and visually impaired people first, pedestrians next, then cyclists, public tr…
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Geo hacking
Got back from NYE in Paris last night. Photos soon. Meanwhile, I've been toying with my new phone (Nokia 6630) and Bluetooth GPS. Took this track while wandering around Paris on Saturday. You can see…