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| Monday, November 9th, 2009 | | 10:43 pm |
Hello from Welwyn Garden City
So, tonight for various reasons I decided to work late and then find a Chinese takeaway in WGC. One guy at work recommended one on the edge of town, but when I got there, it turned out to be very expensive. And deserted. OK it's MOnday, but still it didn't inspire confidence. So using my Powers of Navigation and Remembering of Maps I Looked at Briefly on the Internet, I successfully found one much nearer "home" down a back street. It looked quite scary because there were men with what I suspect to be fighting dogs hanging round outside, and a very common-looking woman smoking (eep! My social prejudices! Anybody smoking looks scary!) But they didn't hassle me, and the people running the restaurant seemed perfectly nice. The food came very fast and was delicious. I ordered sweet and sour pork, and beef with ginger and spring onion. The pork pieces were very crispy and nice, in a good sauce with lots of pineapple and stuff. The beef had loads of finely sliced pickled ginger and I really enjoyed it. Plenty of leftovers for tomorrow :) Saturday was the Wychwood feast, and it was lots of fun. More than 20 people, which made for a good gathering, and between us we got everybody kitted out with some kind of costume. I can now fit out two extra people with Viking kit including smokkr, brooches and shoes! And they looked lovely. It also turned out that with a certain amount of encouragement two friends of mine (WANOLJ) who I like particularly muchly are now Going Out Together. And looking very very happy. And it's completely lovely. My back is now seriously objecting to the chair at work. Somebody from occupational health will apparently visit me this week to try to sort something out. THe sooner the better say I. I don't normally have a bad back, but an office chair that doesn't suit me will destroy it pdq. Luckily I know that is is perfectly possible for a chair to be found that does suit me: if all else fails I'll try bringing my kneelichair from home, though I don't really want to take anything valuable to an office so far from home. Yesterday evening I cooked my landlady's gift of a pheasant and a grouse that she had shot. Aw, the grouse was so teeny and cute! But I hacked them both into more manageable sized bits and casseroled them with bacon bits, red wine, rosemary, sorrel and a few other bits and bobs. Served with roast potatoes, buttered cabbage and carrots. Not the worst meal I have ever cooked in my life. Sadly Al has a shocking cold and was poorly all weekend :( hope he's better by Wednesday for the Ukeleles! | | Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | | 5:29 pm |
Well, drat!
I thought I'd finally worked out a reliable way to tell if you're dreaming. My theory was that if you can access recent memories in an organized fashion, you are not dreaming. So for example if you can remember the day of the week and what you did yesterday evening you are not dreaming. In typical style, after having expounded this to friends over dinner last weekend, I had a dream last night in which I was at home unexpectedly, very pleased to be there but exceedingly confused as I did not remember having driven home. I knew it was Tuesday, that I had come back to my lodgings after work and had supper, then gone to bed. (This was all true in waking life.) So how was I at my proper home? Bang goes another theory! I'm left with "if you wonder whether you are dreaming, then you are". Which isn't nearly as good. | | Friday, October 30th, 2009 | | 12:45 pm |
Accurate but uninformative
The other night, my subconscious revealed itself to me through the medium of dreams. Apparently, I want a large enough dining table and a kitten. And Al wants lots more space for sheds and workshops. And my ideal house would be all sorts of large and small rooms with interesting connections and split-level bits. Oh, and a room with a pool table. Like, dude, tell me something I didn't already know! | | Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | | 3:04 pm |
| | Monday, October 26th, 2009 | | 9:39 pm |
A post on a spiritual topic, with chocolate...
It turns out that I do acknowledge a power greater than myself. It is narrative drive. I'll tell you the story so far, and then you'll understand. I saw this bar of chocolate in a deli in Oxford on Saturday. It was most unexpected, as bars of chocolate go, and I made a mental note to tell Al all about it when I got home. I decided not to buy it because I wasn't sure it would be nice and it was very expensive. Then I imagined telling Al (and other friends) about this bar of chocolate I'd seen, and admitting that I had not bought or tasted the chocolate. Oops, not good. So I paid the money and took the bar of chocolate home, just because the story demanded it. So there it is, sitting in the cupboard, waiting for the next gathering, a rather surprising bar of chocolate. | | Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 10:01 pm |
A broadly good week, but far too much driving in crappy traffic, which turns out to be a lot more tiring and painful than driving on open roads. I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction that even 3.30 is too late to leave work on a Friday afternoon, so I will have to either leave even earlier (not very likely) or hang around until after 6pm. It took me 2 3/4 hours today to drive 50 miles, and most parts of my body now ache from the stop-start crappiness. The job continues to be ok, but it's really nice to be home! Out tomorrow, which is sort of unfortunate except that I expect to enjoy a craft day with Wychwood. Sunday at home :) :) :) | | Monday, October 19th, 2009 | | 10:31 pm |
And hello from Welwyn
Week 2 has started ok - a very long day, but I got the required document finished and out to review, and it was quite pleasant. I made a silly mistake this morning and left my key at home, but very fortunately my lovely landlady said she'd be at home and could let me in. So I didn't have to drive back to Woking after all. OK going home and seeing Al would have been a big bonus, but I was awful tired by the time I escaped the office and very glad to have a 5 minute drive, and get a portion of pasta sauce out of the freezer. Crappy movie on Sky, glass of wine, netbook, and the world feels pretty friendly. I hesitate to leap to conclusions, but so far the new job seems good. The work is interesting (to me), the people seem nice and the environment is fine. I have yet to get my boss to sit down and sign a timesheet and tell me how to submit it for *payment* but I hope that will happen tomorrow. Living in two houses is a bit weird and I miss Al loads but I hope it'll all sort of settle down in a bit...so first impression is, ok, this is a good thing to be doing right now. | | Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | | 5:13 pm |
Another silly question...
I need to think of somewhere in Oxford for us to meet on Monday, around 12 I guess. Because people are likely to appear at slightly staggered times so trying to meet at a busy cafe won't really work. A pub in the Gloucester Green area would probably be ideal - one with a fair bit of space. What's the current name of the entity that used to be the Brewhouse, and is it still a plausible place for about 5 people to meet? | | Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | | 3:09 pm |
lunch in Oxford
So, I'm having lunch with a few friends in Oxford on Monday, and need to pick a venue. Has to offer a cheap option (say £5 or less for some kind of lunch). Must be in the city centre. Any ideas? We would have tried Edamame, but it seems to be shut on Mondays. | | Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | | 3:59 pm |
A very cute black and white kitten (maybe 4 months?) has visited the garden a few times. Today, he wanted nothing more than to fuss in my lap, then curl up with his head and paws thrust firmly into my hand. Unfortunately I now smell of stinky boy cat! If I hadn't already agreed with Al that our next cat should be a girl, I would be agreeing with him now. | | 1:59 pm |
Web page hit counter
Joomla's pretty good, but it has a weird failing that while it counts hits on articles, it can't count hits on the front page. (just don't ask). A solution might be to add an independent hit counter. Should I try to write my own? This would involve adding another database and learning to do lots of stuff in php. I found one tutorial here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Create-a-Simple-Hit-Counter-Using-PHP-and-MySQL&id=380442but I'm a bit feared of it. Not sure exactly what it would do. (yes I'm chicken) Alternatively, there seem to be lots of free hit counters out there but they all involve somebody else hosting the info on their database, so I'm a bit leery of that option. Can anybody recommend a simple and safe way to do this? (e.g. "don't be silly, follow that tutorial, it's what you need", or "use this one, I know they won't sell your info for kidneys"). It doesn't need to be very advanced, just give the site owner an idea of how many times the front page has been hit. | | 11:06 am |
Requesting the wisdom of LJ
Not wishing to tempt fate, but I'm beginning to think it may be almost time to buy a new vehicle. Since what I want is a bit quirky, I'd like to ask you lovely LJers for your wisdom and info. What I want is a vehicle that I can use for multiple purposes: - General communing/travel - Taking lots of people to re-enactment events - Sleeping in at re-enactment events - Carrying lots of stuff My current thinking is to buy a short wheelbase Ford Transit * minibus, and then look at getting the seats converted/replaced so that some can be folded down to make a single bed, and some or all can be removed if we need to move a piano (or similar item). It needs to be trivial to fold down the seats, but removing them can be a longer job as it will happen less frequently. An alternative would be to buy a short wheelbase Ford Transit van, and have windows and suitable seats put in. I'm guessing this would be more expensive. But where should I buy said van/minibus? (Autotrader is my first thought) Who could do the necessary conversions? Do I want a campervan company? A normal garage? A coachworks specialist? What sort of seats will be comfy and safe for passengers, yet also fold down to a bed and be removable? What "gotchas" have I not thought of? * It is my life's goal to drive around the countryside in One Of They Ford Vans. Also they are lovely to drive, easy to get parts for, and easy to find mechanics for. | | Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | | 4:48 pm |
Dear heavens...
I've just found an option in IE8 that shocks me slightly. By default, it will save and attempt to autocomplete PASSWORDS in forms from previous entries. Does a goldfish impression (mouth opening and shutting helplessly) Am trying to solve a problem where a user in IE8 cannot log out of a Joomla site, because when they do, as soon as they refresh, IE8 logs them back in again. Ew. | | Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 | | 10:46 pm |
| | Sunday, September 20th, 2009 | | 1:43 pm |
Cargo Cult holiday homes and other stuff
In some ways the holiday in Pembrokeshire was excellent (just got back yesterday). We had good weather, I had several very nice walks on the hills and up the valleys and round the coast. I also swam in the sea 3 times, each time getting very cold but really enjoying it. Clean sea water, beautiful landscape around me, and fine firm sand underfoot. As far as I'm aware, everybody in the group got on ok, we had plenty of tasty food, and I watched a number of new films several of which I enjoyed a lot. Also played pool - every holiday home should have a pool table. Only one board game, which was St Petersburg, a clever and original game. Less good was returning to everyday life to find lots of problems and bad things happening to good people. I am of course still getting the catflashes, but a week away was very useful. And seeing what is happening to other folk has put things in perspective some. The downside of the holiday home was that it appeared to have been built by a small isolated tribe on an island somewhere in the Pacific, who had heard about houses and even seen pictures of them, but had no understanding of what they were really supposed to do. Either that, or it was grown by one of those trees in fantasy novels that makes itself *look* like a house to lure you in so it can eat you. It was pretty tricky to find an affordable property in the right part of Pembrokeshire that would genuinely sleep up to 10 people, i.e. not assuming that all were couples, or didn't mind sleeping on a child's bed in a couple's room. This one sounded pretty good and was pleasingly affordable. When we first walked in we all thought it looked ace - pool room, acres of land going down to the river, west-facing patio outside, big living room with large tv, range cooker, generous kitchen/dining area. Sadly, it wasn't long before we found the failings! A complete list would take too long to write but they included: - awful mattresses - double bedroom that had been inhabited by a heavy smoker despite the property being listed as "non-smoking". Even the inside of the cupboard stank. - two rooms connected by a short passageway that apparently resonated to the sound of heavy snoring! - those rooms also too close to the septic tank and hence very whiffy - damp everywhere - open a kitchen cupboard and it wafts out - three sets of French doors with very difficult locks and life-threatening doormats on slippery wooden floors - left oven didn't work (so much for the range cooker!) - grill only worked if on max setting, and the grill tray only had one position, which was right up against the element - taps that turned in random directions leading to much confusion! - hearth made of plaster instead of ceramic - very bad floors with trip hazards - skylight in the master bedroom with no blind, directly over the bed (at least it was September - I imagine it would be much worse in midsummer) - all sorts of loose doorhandles, badly finished bits of wall and floor, and other bits of bad finish/mankiness - only one large saucepan, and that with no lid - terrifying comedy knives (bendy, couldn't cut carrots and slid sideways aiming at your fingers) - wineglasses that couldn't be dried without breaking - overly large mugs (sounds silly, but you got weak tea, too much of it, and then it went cold) - all round, it confirms my intention of never buying anything from IKEA - all the kitchenware was unsatisfactory You get the idea! I think a good time was had generally but we won't be going back there. The final comedy element was when a few of us went to Fishguard and found that the property is for sale for £700,000. We then gave up any idea of telling the owners about the defects. | | Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | | 9:31 am |
The Meanings of Doors My bedroom door is scarred on the outside from Thomas scratching to get in to be with me. Als' door slightly ajar: a long paw slides through, followed by an expanding cat. The kitchen door opening, an anxious face demands fuss, then food. No reason now to leave the living room door open: we'll close it against the drafts. He used to sit in the dining room doorway when we had guests. No! Don't go into the cupboard under the stairs! Bathroom door - he'd squeeze through and sit on the bathmat while I washed. The front door - a potential hazard, check where he is before opening it. The back door - no point now in going out and whistling or looking around. All meanings gone but remembered. I should lock the catflap. | | Thursday, September 10th, 2009 | | 1:20 pm |
Oh!
I just poured hot soup into a Denby bowl. It promptly split in twain. That doesn't usually happen! (I managed to transfer most of the soup to another bowl, so lunch happened anyway) | | Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | | 7:19 pm |
It's not been a great day, but I have spent a bit of time reading this guy's amazing* blog: http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog* for certain values of amazing, mainly relating to novel and clever css/html tricks, all valid, cross-browser compatible and semantically meaningful. No hacks that I can detect. Lots of really clever ideas, very well explained (though the .htaccess bit rather lost me). | | 11:43 am |
Y'know, like, I still think Pam Ayres is brilliant. A great observer of human nature, and very clever with words. And she makes me laugh. | | Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | | 7:18 pm |
Yeahno
Call me old fashioned if you like, but I have noticed a lot of Radio 4 broadcasters answering a question with "Yeah no", meaning that the answer is 'yes' but they are now going to elaborate. As a use of language, I don't like it. |
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