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Knaw says...
Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.
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2010.02.07 00.08
Busy doing nothing.
My weekend really started on Thursday, the night of the hospital radio quiz. We entered a team from work, and one of our number brought along another four players. This was on top of the twenty-one teams who had already registered. It was a well-organised night, even if the masses disputed a couple of answers, like the polar bear being the largest land animal. I heard today that they raised £600.
On Friday, I arranged to meet a couple of workmates and Sarah for a meal at close of business. We waited half-an-hour for the fourth person, phoning her a couple of times and hearing the answering machine, so we took the executive decision to go on without her. I had an excellent haggis pizza and they had a burger, and the red wine wasn't bad either. During this time, I received a message from her saying that not only had she forgotten and headed home, but had stepped onto the wrong bus.
I had a couple of tasks to carry out today, going to the gym being one of them, and I was up early for it. I only burnt 550 kcals. They were also showing Saturday Kitchen instead of the music channels and it was making me hungry. I would have continued if I didn't need to find a rug for the cat's room after she soaked the last one over the course of several days.
Yesternight, I asked all of my online friends if they could help with a 3ft x 4ft-8ft carpet but didn't receive a response. Victoria Carpets said that theirs come in a minimum width of four metres, so I carried on looking. The town is built on a hill, and I knew from my Poynt phone application that there were no other carpet shops nearby, so I headed up the hill and did the rest of my searching by eye. I found a place right at the top, and they sold me one that fitted perfectly.
And I had to clean the bath. Cillit Bang seemed to do the trick. I don't know how it manages to get so dirty; it should get cleaner every time we use it.
Carry on.
Mood:  None, or other
Music: The Penguin Café Orchestra - Telephone And Rubber Band
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2010.01.31 02.37
Reach for the stars.
You may have read in the news that Richard Branson is trying to pave the way to commercial space travel. After eighteen months of safety tests are completed, he hopes to ferry people above the Earth's atmosphere to experience six minutes of weightlessness in SpaceShipTwo.
And they're serious: you can book right now at http://www.virgingalactic.com/book. But make sure that you first read the blurb: Tickets cost $200,000 and deposits start from $20,000. That's a ten percent deposit on something that is already four or five times the average annual salary, yet there is already a waiting list. Much like the early days of aviation, the price is expected to fall over the coming years. There is a simulated flight offered as well, a snip at £2450 per seat. The blurb continues:
If you are interested in discussing your reservation with us directly please fill in the booking form below ... Or you can contact one of our Accredited Space Agents around the world.
Hold on a second, you mean you can't just drop into Thomas Cook with your huge cheque? Correct, however the UK representative is a Chester company called Elegant Resorts. I think their Webmaster has seriously missed a trick there. If I was in charge, I'd place a huge banner at the top for having such an awesome responsibility but instead, the space travel page is lodged inside two other links.
Here, you're given further information such as the, ... three days of medical checks and training covering safety procedures and all aspects of space travel, including G-Force acclimatisation. This will initially take place at Virgin Galactic’s base in the Mojave Desert. Holy cow, Batman.
Assuming that you have a clean bill of health and can handle intense gravitational forces, what can you expect? How about:
On the day of the flight astronauts will board SpaceShipTwo (SS2) which will then be hitched to the ‘mothership’, WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), which will fly SS2 to 50,000 feet where it will be air launched. After accelerating to a speed of Mach 3.3 in just 30 seconds in a vertical ascent, SS2 will slow to reach 110km into space, at which point passengers may leave their seat to float in zero gravity and enjoy views of space and the Earth below from the large windows.
Now, that sounds like bliss.
One day I want to go into space, so I've set a deadline: January 1st 2020. I reckon that by this time, the price will have dropped to a much more affordable level. Until then, we'll see if British Airways and/or EasyJet try to follow suit.
Carry on.
Music: Adam & The Ants - Stand And Deliver
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2010.01.24 00.51
A short sale, but not sold short.
I named my car Kayleigh after the Marillion song, but after owning it for eight years, I finally sold it yesterday morning. My mum had spotted an advert at work from somebody looking for a runabout and I answered it. I've said on many occasions that I fail to understand motor insurance and other car-related documents, so it's ironic that the day before the sale, it seemed to fall into place.
The actual sale didn't take long at all, under fifteen minutes. The only trouble was that I had a badge on the front that belonged to my mum but the thing wouldn't come off without a lot of force. And I nearly forgot to hand over the owner's manual and rescue my insurance documents, which I also cancelled today.
It was becoming increasingly necessary, because it was costing money just sitting in the driveway six days a week, so I hope Kayleigh finds a far better home.
Carry on.
Mood:  Thirsty
Music: Fleetwood Mac - You Can Go Your Own Way
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2010.01.14 21.10
Will you help?
Even after all this time, I don't know who on here is a soap fan. Tonight, I watched the reading of Archie Mitchell's will tonight in Eastenders, altho' we still don't know who inherits the Queen Vic. I think that Tracy the barmaid should get it. She's the only one who does any proper work in the place while everyone else is fighting and bedhopping.
It got me thinking about my own bucket list will, the one that doesn't yet exist. Aside from all the usual, Being of sound mind, and, Movable estate, business, I want to fit a bizarre stipulation in there as well. I might very well write one this year if I can find a suitably off-the-wall clause.
I recently read 13 bizarre will stipulations on the Mental Floss website, which include a woman who left her fortune to her dog, a man who wanted his widow to remarry and a man who picked his beneficiaries from the telephone directory.
I remember seeing an episode of Neighbours where money was offered for the first person to fly over a local river in a home-made plane. More recently, I've seen a repeat of Diagnosis Murder where five recipients had were involved in a tontine and the last survivor gets the lot. Unsurprisingly, they start getting bumped off one at a time.
Any suggestions for what that stipulation could be?
Carry on.
Mood: Melancholy
Music: Virgin 1 - Criminal Minds
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2010.01.07 21.43
The games people play.
This week has been all about games and puzzles. I've been completing pen-and-paper ones like crosswords, codewords, Sudoku and Kenken, playing Scrabble, and I've just been given a Rubik's cube which I'm going to attempt.
I would love to come up with a new kind of puzzle or game, particularly one of those that is easy to learn but hard to master. Something addictive that will drive people mad yet still encourage them to play or solve. Monopoly was born out of the Great Depression; Trivial Pursuit was invented by two bored journalists.
A few years ago, I did come up with a new card game based on Blackjack but I never finalised the rules and couldn't find a suitable outlet for it.
Some years ago, one of my contacts - it may have been ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jim_cheese - described a ridiculous game called BumArse that he'd created but I can't find the post. Maybe we could harness the power of LiveJournal? Everyone could pitch in an idea and we could put them all together.
Carry on.
Music: [In my head] Lady Gaga - Poker Face
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2010.01.03 02.27
New year, new Doctor.
I pointed out on New Year's Eve that with it now being twenty-ten, we should have androids in our homes, flying cars and having a three-day week because machines are doing seventy-five percent of the work. However, we have managed to be able to contact anyone in the world as cheaply as our neighbour, find and fill the hole in the ozone layer, eradicate smallpox and invent Tetris.
I saw in this year very quietly with Sarah. Every hour from 6pm onwards, we had a Bacardi Breezer and pulled a party popper to celebrate it being new year somewhere in the world. She also concocted a drink that I dubbed Sarah's Inventive Punch or SIP, which is also how you drink it. We had a large buffet that continued into the next day, including trifle, crisps, sausage rolls and salmon.
We also watched an inordinate quantity of television. In the evening we watched Star Trek, then for the two hours to midnight, we had it tuned to More 4 to watch Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. Channel 4 don't celebrate new year but the low key tone suited us fine. I had an air horn left over from last year and new Chinese lanterns that I didn't use. We went to bed shortly after the bells.
We did even less on New Year's Day, watching even more telly. On Christmas Day, I missed part one of Doctor Who - The End of Time and I said I wouldn't watch part two until I'd seen it, so I videoed it and had a shower. I was meant to go home on Friday night but due to a mix-up, I stayed until Saturday morning. On my return, I caught up with them both this morning at home while ironing.
I enjoyed them up until the last ten minutes of part two, when it lost its way before his regeneration. We know that the new guy is going to be terrible. After all, David Tennant was inferior to Christopher Eccleston, but I appear to be alone in that view.
I only need to catch up with the early FlashForward episodes and BBC Four's Electric Dreams, but when?
I promised that I'd come up with a new tag-line for the new year. After a lot of thought and consideration of your suggestions, I've settled on something short, that I use in everyday life and most importantly, is appropriate. So from now on, there will be no more, Keep your tagline suggestions rolling in, or variations thereupon, but a simple:
Carry on.
Mood:  Moody
Music: Kevin B...dy Wilson - Do You F... On First Dates?
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2009.12.29 23.41
A twelvemonth yonder.
At the suggestion of webgirluk, I have made ten predictions about the year ahead. The temptation is to treat them like new year resolutions, so I picked ten, listed from most likely to least likely, that require at least some co-operation from outside parties, not things that I could do myself if I chose.
I'm not about to post them here, rather the point is to keep them in a sealed envelope and see how much I've achieved. I've made two copies, one on my night stand beside my Jimmy Carr tickets, the other tucked away in a drawer in case the first is lost. Each envelope reads:
Predictions for 2010
Sealed on 2009-12-29
Do not open before 2010-12-29
Looking back for the moment, here are the first two lines of the first entry of each month:
January: Warning: this entry contains geekery, including discussion of video and television formats. I haven't half been viddy-ing a lot of DVDs this new year, simply because there's very little on telly.
February A story for our times. A janitor worked at a school for many years until a new headmaster, who valued a decent education above all else, took over.
March On Saturday, I bought a mouse for my laptop computer because the touchpad takes its toll on your wrist after a while. However, in a case of path dependency, I tend to reach for the pad automatically.
April I've seen three great motion pictures lately. The first was a DVD of Run Fatboy Run, starring the odd but well-cast combination of Simon Pegg and Thandie Newton.
May I don't fill up my car very often since I don't often drive it, but I realised yesterday that the tank was running low. While holding the nozzle, I thought of a design improvement.
June I woke up a few mornings ago and realised that I have never made a will. I don't know why I should be thinking like that, but it's a good point.
July I've now converted to OpenSuSE Linux. It takes a little getting used to, with its Apple-Mac-esque interface and command-line program installation, but I'm now free to do what I want.
August Unlike last week, I'm going to warn you that I'm catching up with my previous entries so expect replies from long-dead topics. I have a reason for my tardiness: my choice of operating system and my clumsy fingers.
September Hello again. In case you don't recognise me, I'm Gavin Cruickshank, or knaw_says, and I'm here to make up for four weeks of almost unbroken silence.
October Yes.... all right, all right, all right. I haven't posted for what seems like years but I'm alive and unwell.
November Sometimes Hallowe'en shoots past with barely a peep. This year, they've really kicked out the jams.
December It's World Aids Day today. Joseph Galliano has published a book called Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self to raise money for the cause.
Mood:  Determined
Music: Kids from Hair - Let The Sun Shine In
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2009.12.28 23.04
No New Year party.
Contrary to speculation, and after much thought and discussion, I will not be holding an online New Year party. Sarah and I are going to spend it by ourselves. I will aim to hold a party at some point this year, possibly Easter or possibly midsummer's day.
In the meantime, I'm putting together my predictions for the year and will return to that this week.
Keep those tagline suggestions rolling in.
Mood:  Awake
Music: Unidentified
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2009.12.27 01.04
Earlier this month, I offered everyone the chance to delete me from this or any website with no questions asked and no explanations necessary. The amnesty period lasted up to and including Christmas Day, therefore this period has now elapsed.
In a stupid oversight, I made my seven hundredth entry on Christmas Day, and have edited the entry to signal this.
I had to keep this a secret but I went to Glasgow with Marc on Wednesday to do a bit of final Christmas shopping. It was lucky we got there at all.
I booked two tickets in advance from 08:30. On the day, it had snowed heavily and we were told by the staff at Dundee Bus Station at around 08:20 that this bus had been cancelled, that there were no alternative means of transport available and that we would have to write to Megabus for a refund.
We immediately left for the train station and were required to pay £60.60 for a journey that should have cost £25.50, and we used the time to compose a letter of complaint and a request for a refund for the balance of the train fare. While the effects of the weather cannot be predicted, it is reasonable for alternative arrangements to be made. After all, when a train is cancelled, they lay on a bus, so why not the other way about?
I enclosed our receipt for the train journey and a print-out of our Megabus booking, printed the letter on my new Hewlett Packard Deskjet and posted it on Christmas Day.
We had certain shops that we wanted to visit, and we headed for Urban Outfitters, the Apple shop and Polo Ralph Lauren within House Of Fraser. In the latter, Marc took ages but found a polo that fitted perfectly. Then I found a purple shirt in the Fred Perry section that fitted me perfectly. I also found a present for Sarah in House Of Fraser's art gallery. It's a wooden ornament made of a stack of irregular hoops.
I wanted to have a look in Forbidden Planet, and bought her some Star Trek: Voyager and Torchwood spin-off books, as well as a notebook titled, Evil Plans and Stuff from Scribbler. The only let-down was Hellfire who have really let their standards slip. I wasn't tempted to buy anything.
We dinnered at Marc's favourite chain restaurant TGI Friday's. I had a starter and a burger around the general theme of Jack Daniels. I even quaffed a glass of red wine.
I spent Christmas Eve wrapping presents and catching up with correspondence until going to bed at 02:30. I went to my gran's house in the morning where we all opened our presents. Our family are huge present givers. My haul included, but was not limited to: puzzle books, humorous books, a pub quiz DVD, a Sudoku machine, three aftershaves, a jar of sweets, Thornton's chocolates, a backwards clock and bunting for my room. I've no idea how I'm physically going to have time to use all of this stuff because if I don't, it feels like I'm letting them all down.
Sarah elected to stay in Dundee for Christmas, so I went over there for lunch. She made us chicken curry with prawn cocktail to start, and I made one of my aunt's pasta recipes later on. We swapped presents during Top Of The Pops: she gave me pants, a dressing gown, slippers, a Harry Hill book, a Mock The Week book and some Diesel Only The Brave aftershave, and I received a chocolate orange and bottle of wine from her family. I gave her the ornament and books bought on Wednesday, plus a Philips digital box to replace her terrible Hitachi one, and a radio-controlled bedroom clock.
We saw the Queen at three o'clock, then watched Star Trek, the soaps and Gavin & Stacey. I missed Doctor Who on account of cooking the tea, but I'll see the repeat today. We ate a lot of cakes and drank a bottle of wine as well. I stayed over at her flat and tackled the washing-up in the morning.
The buses from her place to mine are only every half an hour, and I'd just missed one, so I decided to walk it. Normally, it'd be no problem but there was snow lying from a day or two ago and it was hard to keep my feet, especially carrying a bag of presents.
Even after the trek, I forced myself to go to the gym as well and met the man who gave me the 12-day pass. By the time he came off the cross-trainer, the clock showed forty-five minutes. I was lucky to last fifteen, but I did get shot of five hundred calories, enough to offset my Moroccan chicken sandwiches for lunch.
I didn't get a great deal else done today apart from try to work out why my computer wasn't playing any sound, which I did. I'm very happy with Ubuntu Linux, after Novell's excuse for a distribution that they call OpenSuse, not least because it's stable and well-maintained but it freakishly knew exactly what printer driver to install without me telling it.
Marc took charge of the show tonight. I wasn't bothered about this, owing to my level of tiredness. It was a great way to round off the last one of 2009.
Keep those tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood:  Nerdy
Music: Weird Al Yankovic - White & Nerdy
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2009.12.25 01.52
Deck the halls, not the Pope.
This is my seven hundredth entry.
Have you seen the news about a woman knocking over the pontiff? How shocking is that, when all he's trying to do is bring a little peace and harmony to the world.
In any case, he's got a far harder job this year. It's a little-known fact that in years ending in a nine, Santa takes a break and Satan takes over. That's why you got really bad presents this year; it's nothing to do with the recession.
In any case, have a happy Christmas and a merry New Year, assuming that you celebrate these. If not, have a standard 25/12/2009 and a standard 31/12/2009. I'll try to update tomorrow, with news that I can't tell you today. It's nothing exciting, just that it forms part of someone's Christmas surprise.
Furthermore, I've kept my promise to webgirluk when I said that I had at least ten entries' worth of material before Christmas.
Keep those tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: A bit sore and tired
Music: # When the snowman brings the snow... #
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2009.12.22 21.37
Tidy.
Every time I go to my dentist, I swear that he makes up a new phrase. Today's selection included the observation that he wanted to put in a 23 because a 25 might be just too long, the number being a reference to the length of the pin in millimetres. Then he was about to, MB over D. I didn't ask about that one. Altogether, it was a successful piece of dentistry.
I spend the rest of the day tidying up part of my bedroom and ironing, interrupted by a visit to the Post Office and a wild goose chase to Euromart who were meant to be selling off stock, but it was locked shut. We've been going to Borders the last few days as well. The Dundee one closed for business for the last time tonight.
I did however get a new pair of Crocs from TK Maxx. Apparantly the tread had worn off my much-loved Doc Martens so I kept sliding on the ice. I don't care what Dean Martin says, don't let it snow, let it snow.
I'll let you know about the rest of the week when it happens.
Keep those tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Blank
Music: [In my head] Dean Martin - Let It Snow
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2009.12.14 21.28
Blackberry booshed.
I feel like I'm putting together a meeting agenda, as we start with two reminders.
First and foremost is the matter of my outstanding deletion amnesty. If you want to remove me as a friend on any website, you can do it up to and including Christmas day, no questions asked and no comebacks.
Secondly, I urge you to support this Facebook group who are trying to get Rage Against The Machine's hit Killing In the Name to number one this week to counteract Simon Cowell's attempts. To guarantee that the Official Charts Company count your sale, make sure you download it legally - like you'd do it any other way - from sites like 7Digital (who are just now selling it for 50p,) HMV, Amazon.co.uk, Tesco, or through the ITunes application.
You know how I think my Blackberry is the best phone I've ever owned? On Saturday, I sent a couple of messages, and checked for replies about twenty minutes later. The most important button is the square touch sensor in the middle for scrolling through menu items but can also be pressed to select them. I could scroll but not press, and I could switch off the unit but not switch it on again without removing and replacing the battery.
I had the foresight to have it insured on purchase, but when I showed the Carphone Warehouse today, they said it would be covered under the manufacturer's warranty. This meant that I wouldn't need to pay the £40 excess - 20% of the cost - altho' I would need to pay a £50 refundable deposit to borrow a courtesy phone.
It's a Nokia. That's all I used for about six years but times have changed, they haven't, and I'd never go back.
I know what I'll be doing on Christmas day but not New Year. If I wasn't busy, I'd probably GM a LiveJournal party as webgirluk will be doing next Saturday, but I simply don't know. If I do, I'll let you know in as much time as possible. In the meantime, I'm going to nick another of her ideas and store some predictions in a sealed envelope to be opened in twelve months' time.
Don't forget that in the new year, there will be a new standard tag-line unless somebody can suggest an absolute belter. Until then:
Keep your tag-line suggestion rolling in.
Mood:  Relaxed
Music: [In my head] Dexy's Midnight Runners - Geno
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2009.12.10 21.24
Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.
There was a campaign last year to have Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah outsell Alexandra Burke's effort. This year, that same spirit is back with a vengeance.
Some enterprising Rage Against The Machine fans have set up a Facebook group encouraging people to buy copies of the band's 1992 anti-authoritarian anthem Killing In The Name as part of a protest against a Simon-Cowell-backed Christmas number one. With the head-nodding guitar and the you-know-who-you-are lyrics, it stands against everything that the X-Factor have done to the record industry.
The charts are counted from Sunday morning to Saturday evening, and the last chart before Christmas is 20/12/2009, so punters need to buy a copy between 13/12/2009 and 19/12/2009 to have it counted. I have a low-fi copy already, so I'm going to buy a better version from 7Digital.com.
Even if you don't like heavy metal, I urge all of you real music fans to do the same. There will be no CD singles in the shops but to make sure that the Official Chart Company registers your sale, download it from 7Digital or at these sites: HMV, Amazon.co.uk, Tesco, and through the ITunes application.
Do it now, and stop Cowell stealing Christmas.
Keep those tag line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Angry
Music: Terry Wogan - The Floral Dance
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2009.12.08 21.31
Eighteen days of Hell.
It seems that everybody has something that they'd rather leave in 2009, and for me, that's people who don't want me. It's time for another clearout.
If you don't want me as a friend on Facebook, LiveJournal, MSN, Twitter and/or any other website, simply delete me from your Friends list. I won't ask any questions, and you don't have to justify or defend yourself.
Before you do so, remember that I'll consider it a symbolic gesture and you should not try to make further contact in the near future. Altho' when I first ran this amnesty in 2006, only one person took me up on the offer.
This offer stands for eighteen days inclusive, up to 11:59 on Christmas Day.
Keep your tag line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Satisfied
Music: I can't identify the tune
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2009.12.07 22.06
All organised.
At long last, I've been getting around to the little jobs I've been meaning to do.
On Saturday night,with the aid of the external hard drive, I made an attempt at sorting out my digital photographs, that my university friends will know about.
Shortly afterwards, I reloaded OpenSuSE Linux, but the mouse and/or screen was freezing seemingly at random. I'd had enough. I overwrote it with Ubuntu and took a step up from McDonald's to The Ivy. As I write it hasn 't fr oze n onc e.
Last night, I started my first batch of Christmas cards and even managed to hand them out. I challenge myself to give everyone gets a different design. If you are really wanting one, you can send your address to me privately and I'll see what I can do.
Tonight, I gave my Hush Puppies a long overdue buff and polish while watching Dad's Army. It's not a great job but I only had a little time while waiting for the lamb to roast. I've still to repair a belt loop after snagging my pocket chains on a table some weeks ago.
In fact, the only area in which I've not been particularly prepared is presents. Sarah recently moved into a new flat but every time I thought of a great housewarming gift, she'd already got it. I settled on a door knocker and I have one more item to buy of which she definitely won't think first.
I have however bought my mum's present. Hands up who watches QI? Did you see an episode in Series F featuring a self-righting object called a Gomboc? I bought one for my mum. It wasn't cheap, considering that there's only one authorised supplier but it's a unique present and a talking point and in investment.
The cheapest, the aluminium, will set you back €169 plus €20 postage. By chance, I entered GOMBOC1 into the e-coupon box and it knocked off €30, no questions asked. Because the euro is strong against the pound, so it equates to £143.48 in real money: not much of a saving but every little helps.
Keep your tag line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Okay
Music: Amy McDonald
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2009.12.06 15.20
Bright sparks.
Are there any electricians who can tell Sarah and I what type of bulb this is, and who might stock it? It's one of four that illuminate her kitchen.
Here's the photo.
Keep your tag line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Pleased
Music: T4 in next room
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2009.12.05 12.12
We apologise for the flooding. This is due to the wrong type of bath on the line.
Let's have a good old sixth-form debate.
Our bathroom is leaking at the moment. Whenever we were having a shower, the utility room directly below was getting soaked. The plumber had a look and declared that the wrong type of bath had been fitted that wasn't designed for a shower, so we have to take baths at the moment.
I'm coping quite badly with this because it's difficult to shave when the water's down there but your face is up here. Plus, it takes so long to run a bath that I have to have one the night before, and my hair isn't the same once it's been slept on.
The only advantage is that it's easier to hear the radio and the programmes are better at night. When I was young, I used to take my Lego into the bath for hours. I've still got it all, but thus far, I've resisted taking it in.
So, is there anyone out there who prefers baths over showers on a daily basis? If so, what's the attraction?
Keep your tag line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Relaxed
Music: Unknown
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2009.11.30 20.12
It's not Terry's, it's mine.
I don't have a lot to do at the moment, since I'm waiting for my computer to back up its files. More on that story later.
Marc is a busy bunny but he's now off on a Friday so we decided to go to a restaurant with Sarah. This coincided with Dundee's (1st annual?) Winter Night Light where the Christmas lights were switched on along with choirs singing and public buildings throwing open their doors, and a whole heap of other razzmanazz.
The restaurant was out of the way of the town centre, so we'd to get a bus to the airport and walk the rest of the way. It didn't half take a while to get each course and we spent two hours there in total served by our waitress Amy. After a discussion about people who use your name excessively, Marc and I each crowbarred her name once when talking to her.
I stayed over at Sarah's new flat on Friday night. I didn't sleep very well but not for that reason.
I really should be buying my Christmas presents but I decided instead to fill up my car with petrol - £30 for about half of a 40-litre tank - and to buy a hard disc drive. Have you noticed that shops always sell gift ideas rather than actual gifts?
I'd searched the Internet for an 80Gb one but the guy in Currys-dot-Digital confirmed what I suspected: the largest USB pen drives are 16Gb and the smallest external hard drives are 250Gb but nothing to bridge the gap. I did bag a bargain on a 500Gb model in Argos: they threw in a £7.49 pen drive and a £5 gift voucher for spending over £50.
I've had Linux for some time now but in the early days I wasn't used to it and made some schoolgirl errors that are affecting the system, so straight after I write this, I'm going to reinstall it while I watch EastEnders.
I returned to Sarah's on Sunday and we went into town after Star Trek: Voyager to try some ostrich burger, having seen it at a continental market on Friday. They only had one ostrich left but they did have a kangaroo, which I enjoyed a bit more. With it being bitterly cold, we headed to the safety of WH Smith for Terry's chocolate oranges - white chocolate and popping candy varieties - then to RS McColl's for milk.
On the way back to the bus, I asked Sarah if she fancied a crepe so we had chocolate and cinnamon and it tasted divine. A woman in the queue said she'd lost her phone and asked if I could ring it, so I took the number and did so. It was in her pocket. Tonight, I received a call from an anonymous number asking who I was since she had a missed call from my phone. I didn't put two and two together at the time but I think that explains it.
Sarah and I rounded off the weekend watching Two And A Half Men and the hilarious Desmond's on video.
Keep your tag line suggestions rolling in.
Mood:  Pensive
Music: BBC1 - EastEnders
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2009.11.24 22.53
All day and all of the night.
First up, who felt a pang of nostalgia for Web 1.0 when they saw the hit counter on my last entry? A time when social networking meant setting up a Geocities page with every special effect available, a time when you had to type the, www or Netscape wouldn't understand. For what it's worth, I think that LiveJournal is stuck firmly at Web 1.5.
I've wanted to do that for a while, just to see how many people looked at it. More people read what you write than you'd imagine. As I write, there were 120 views, deducting me accessing the page to check it. I set it up only to record page views, not unique users.
Whenever I wake in the morning, I always have a song in my head. In fact I have one the whole day until the moment I fall asleep. The vast majority of the time, I have no idea how it got there. For instance, I had George Michael and Aretha Franklin singing I Knew You Were Waiting For Me which rubs me up the wrong way. Then on Monday, it was Marilyn Manson's turn with Personal Jesus but I think I now know the origin of that.
Does anyone else have an incessant internal jukebox?
I think I've settled on one now, but... keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood:  Artistic
Music: George Michael and Aretha Franklin - you know the song
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2009.11.18 19.40
Happy unbirthday.
It was announced today that the Word Of The Year award goes to, unfriend. While linguists may argue over the correct negative form of the word, its meaning is clear: to eighty-six a regular online contact when they get on your nerves.
But I've never felt so disunfriended when I switched on my BlackBerry yestermorning. I rarely talk about my birthday but I was flooded with people wishing many happy returns via SMS, e-mail and Facebook. True, there are websites that remind your friends, but it's up to the person to take the final step and actually write something. Over the course of the day, I had about fifteen messages, some from people who only know me online.
The last time I made a big fuss of the day was on my eighteenth, when we hired a castle. It was the year of September 11th and my dad's workmates had already clubbed together to buy me a flying lesson, and as soon as I started giving out the invites in plain while envelopes, the news was filled with anthrax scares from unmarked packages.
My haul this year included a Harry Hill book and CD, another CD of Just A Minute, a chocolate CD, a book called Keep Calm And Carry On, two bottles of wine and some cold hard cash. Marc and I had a meal last night as well.
I had a day off today and spent it helping Sarah move flat. We used my and her mum's cars and were able to move most of the major artefacts. She is hoping to move in completely by Friday. It's a more spacious place but it's up forty stairs. And it's bought rather than rented, which is nice.
Keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
hidden hit counter
Mood: Happy
Music: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
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2009.11.16 21.46
Sound on sound.
For some decades now, it has been the norm that music is written for recording rather than performance. Indeed, when the music charts began in 1953, piano score outsold records. When you hear a pop song on the radio, you chew on it for a few minutes and generally spit it out.
In this entry, I'll be geeking out over two well-known tracks.
Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner
Spotify | YouTube
If you've heard of Suzanne Vega, you either know Luka or this track, Tom's Diner. It's less than two-and-a-half minutes long, and minimalistically tells the story of a visit to this fictional diner almost exactly twenty-eight years ago, on November 18th. Vega has said that she composed the song over a far longer length of time but in any case, it wasn't released until 1987.
I was reading about the recording, on which I'll expand in a moment, thinking that I hadn't heard it before. Not only did I realise that I knew it, I also remembered where and when I'd first heard it, on my grandad's bulky, pocket radio. For some reason, I'd always remembered the lyric, She is shaking her umbrella. Of course the version heard on the radio is the illegal DNA remix:
Spotify | YouTube
The article I read was discussing the development of the MP3 codec, or to give its full name: Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 compressor-decompressor. One of its developers, Karlheinz Brandenburg, felt that if he could compress Tom's Diner without affecting the nuances of the vocals, he'd cracked the formula, and it earned Suzanne Vega the moniker Mother Of The MP3.
Madness - House Of Fun
Spotify | YouTube
There can't be very many people who don't recognise this track when it blasts out of the radio, but not a lot of people are aware that it's a masterpiece of editing. The band wrote the song and titled it Chemist Facade, but while their label Stiff Records liked it, they wanted a chorus. The only trouble is that the track had already been recorded.
It would have required too much money and time to re-record the whole shebang; after all, the band had seven members, so it was decided to edit in the chorus. Nowadays, most commercial music is recorded using a killer app called ProTools and would have been easy enough to do in a bedroom studio. But with the technology of 1982, it presented far more of a challenge, since an editor would actually have to cut pieces of tape with a blade.
Vocallist Suggs dubbed the word, welcome over the join and on the whole, it's very well done, but you can still hear the join. At the points 0'44" and especially 1'16", there is a bump where the synthesiser suddenly stops, and at the end of the first chorus, the word, fun is cut off.
What's more, this song about buying condoms reached number one on the only occasion where a Pope visited the UK.
Keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Annoyed
Music: Have a guess
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2009.11.12 20.40
The skin of my teeth.
While watching FlashForward on Sunday, I felt the teeth on my top-right starting to hurt, so I had a drink of water, thinking it was a temporary pain. It didn't let up all night.
There was no way that I could lie that wouldn't hurt, and I discovered that the only thing to help was drinking cold water, and even that worked for ten seconds maximum. Standing up relieved the pain slightly. I didn't have any painkillers in my room so I raked the bathroom and found an old sachet of Askit. That worked; for five minutes.
By the end of the night, I was falling asleep for what I calculated to be about six or seven minutes, then waking up and having to take another drink. I have no idea how much or little sleep I got, but I knew that something had to be done.
I've had trouble with my teeth all my life but it's never normally serious. I'm so well acquainted with my dentist that we're on first name terms and I recognised the voice of his old hygienist on the phone. She was able to book me in the same afternoon.
By the time of the appointment, the agony was at its nadir. Clutching my bottle of Volvic, I told him exactly where the pain was. He took a good look, lifted the intercom and asked Reception to cancel his five o'clock. Then he asked me a question:
Deal?Or no deal?
No, not really. He actually offered the following two choices:
Immediately extract the offending pearly.Perform a root filling.
The latter came with a health warning. Because the tooth was so far back, he would be working blind, altho' any dentist would have had to do the same. He's a Yorkshireman and former rugby player with a dark sense of humour that he wheels out before starting any procedure. Despite this, I trust the guy fully: he's a senior NHS dental surgeon, so it's Mr , not Dr, and if his only tools were dart and a toothpick, he'd still perform a spot-on job.
So, much as I was tempted to ask for the extraction, owing to the considerable gyp, I opted instead for the filling. I lay there for the best part of an hour, his latest hygienist being the, straight (wo)man, for his quips. Believe it or not, I nearly fell asleep after my disturbed night.
It felt divine until the freeze wore off. I earned four hours' sleep, but woke at 03:11 precisely on Tuesday morning with the pain back in my tooth with a vengeance. I popped some paracetamol, not that it made naff-all difference, and continued to drink cold water. I never managed to get to sleep again and in my delirious state, seriously began to consider that I might never fall sleep again.
I phoned the surgery again later in the morning, and they advised me that the pain shouldn't last more than twenty-four hours, and that I should keep taking ibuprofen along with the paracetamol. It didn't stop the soreness travelling all the way up my head and having to put my head on the desk, almost in tears.
But later that night, I started to feel some relief. As I write, the pain still comes and goes like a karma chameleon so I won't be chewing on that side for a bit, but it's getting better as time goes on.
I've had another contender for my tag-line competition. webgirluk suggested the following:
Knaw says farewell and terminates his role of lj host and says toddle off and read the next post.
I like the idea of doing it in rhyme, but it would need enshortening to make it flow. It's officially on the consideration list.
Keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Crushed
Music: ITV 1 - Coronation Street
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2009.11.11 23.42
Just in time.
I am still here, reading your entries and occasionally commenting.
I'm running behind this week, and I'll tell you why tomorrow.
So if I haven't updated by 9pm, remember to hound me and I will do so.
Keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Determined
Music: Milk Kan - I Want My MTV
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2009.11.07 01.18
The beginning of the end.
misteral has come up with a cracking idea for my tag-line. I'm going to adopt a permanent one on January 1st 2010, on which I haven't decided yet, but until then I'm ending my entries with the following:
Keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood: Amused
Music: Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
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2009.11.05 21.46
Telegraph 2.0.
I don't want to give the folks behind Twitter any ideas, but some day they're going to have to start making some cash. At present, they don't sell any advertising nor do they charge punters to use the service, instead relying on venture capitalists to keep them afloat.
Here's how I think it'll be done. When you tap a search query into Google, their computers examine what you've typed in and show related adverts in a column on the right. Similarly, when a Twitter update is posted, their software can do the same. Twitter has the distinct disadvantage that people can bypass the website by using a third-party application. But they do offer a private messaging system.
Every time you post five messages, you'll receive an uninterruptible private message containing a link to a sponsor's website based on the contents of your messages. Spotify already do something similar depending on the choons you download.
Alternatively, or parallelively, they may introduce a paid account system similar to LiveJournal's, offering priority bandwidth at peak periods. Either way, the telegraph of the 21st century will soon have to fund its own way.
We didn't watch the fireworks tonight, altho' we could hear them from the organised display down the road. Part of the reason is that I had a haircut at 6pm tonight. Instead we watched Emmerdale, EastEnders and Coronation Street.
I'm one crucial step away from completely converting to Linux. My Samsung MP3 player wouldn't mount in OpenSuse because of the method it uses to connect but I've found a program that appears to allow it to do so, but it's not simple to use.
I thought I got quite a good sleep last night but I'm now quite tired. Funny how that happens.
Keep your tag-line suggestions rolling in.
Mood:  Sleepy
Music: Nothing
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