Andrew's diary

Friday, 31 May 2002

A tense morning as we wait for the phone call to say we can collect the keys (with NTL coming some point after 12.30). Got to the estate agents at 12.20 and sat around waiting whilst NTL did the same. Eventually got the keys and cable guy turned up later. Lots of unpacking, air fresheners etc.

Lots of work to do to the house: electrical sockets are hanging off the walls, unfinished laminate flooring and so on, but the biggest surprise was the large pile of rubbish they kindly left behind the garden fence.

Wednesday, 29 May 2002

Worked from home, waiting for the sofa to be delivered but then, unfortunately, I get a phone call saying they can't get the 7 ton truck down the road and will have to deliver it on Friday to the new address.

Tuesday, 28 May 2002

Woohoo!

Exchanged about 3.45pm which, to say the least, is a massive relief. Unfortunately, the sofa has already been loaded onto the lorry so I've got to work at home tomorrow until it's delivered.

Watching Big Brother in the evening, we realised that this year's contestants have been picked due to their similarity to 14 year-olds: all this talk of who fancies whom... eugh.

Monday, 27 May 2002

I've been thinking about dead man switches on computer systems recently so that important files can be retrieved from a machine after your death, but without keeping relevant people informed of the root password. I need to do some more thinking about it but ideally the system would be transparent (no point it being intrusive) and robust: both so that you could go on holiday and it wouldn't think you dead and that it's very likely to still be running when you do die. I'm currently thinking about doing something with business card CDs and requiring both CDs to be present to reveal some information. Then the CDs can be entrusted to different people. Very Superman III ("insert both keys simultaneously").

No exchange today. Getting (more?) depressed.

Saturday, 25 May 2002

Lots of packing. Booked the van as, no matter what happens, we'll be moving somewhere next weekend. After a lovely dinner and half a bottle of wine (between us) watched Have I Got News For You and Angus Deayton was indeed the butt of many a joke..

Friday, 24 May 2002

No exchange on the house today, it's now expected (hoped?) to be Monday.

Televisual clash this evening: me wanting to watch Have I Got News For You and Mel wanting to watch the new series of Big Brother. Guess who won :-(?

Thursday, 23 May 2002

Heated discussion at work about internal use of Linux. Some promising news on the house front: we may be moved by next week.

Wednesday, 22 May 2002

Bad head in the morning so did some drudge work from home before making it in in the afternoon. Re-sorted house insurance so that time between (possible?!) exchange and completion is minimised.

New IP changeover didn't go according to plan, but mail is still coming through.

Attack of the Clones was very, very cool - only a few minor complaints but on the whole very good. I won't go into the complaints for people who haven't seen it yet, but one of the comments which is often made is that the love story takes up too much of the plot. If anything, I'd say the opposite: the love story feels a little rushed. Nice rendition of the Imperial March at the end, too :-)

Tuesday, 21 May 2002

Not a lot of progress on the house - our solicitor will now "make it is top priority to ring them every day and make a pain of himself". The valid question is therefore, why hasn't he been doing this already?

Booked tickets for Attack of the Clones.

Found out that this machine's IP address will be changing tomorrow. Downtime is therefore expected :-(

Sunday, 19 May 2002

Google's fantastic: the old 486's CMOS battery had died and it had forgotten about its hard disks. One of them had the spec on, but the other didn't. A quick Google search found this page of hard drive specifications :-)

Saturday, 18 May 2002

Mel's colleague's fiancé works for the same estate agent down in Southampton and so got a definitive statement for us. No real progress but now we now what's holding us up.

Friday, 17 May 2002

Tried to find out what's happening with the house: the solicitor said "contact the estate agent" and then the estate agent didn't return my calls. Finally grabbed him when he answered the phone directly and (once again) he promised to "get back to me". Of course, he didn't (and was on the phone when I called back later).

Left work about 4pm with a bad head and went to bed shortly after 5 (it got worse).

Thursday, 16 May 2002

Got all excited when, at about 5.30pm, a political correspondent came on BBC News 24 saying that "a bill would be put forward in the next session of Parliament for a referendum on the Euro". Then it's qualified as "an unnamed senior cabinet member who doesn't want to be named". Then a backbencher comes on to be interviewed and names Stephen Byers. Doh.

Wednesday, 15 May 2002

The estate agent who we've been dealing with is off sick, and the other people in the office are less than useless. I'm beginning to think we'll never move :-(

Then Mel points out that we have to move - out of the flat at least.

Swing to the right in the Netherlands, similar to the one in France recently. Perhaps they want their own version of Thatcherism?

Tuesday, 14 May 2002

"I'm not stressed out. You're just extremely annoying.

Another day where not much happened on the house front. Except our solicitor's very apathetic. Tomorrow, I'll try scooching it along through the estate agents.

Monday, 13 May 2002

Oh bugger. When we thought we were moving in just a couple of weeks, we ordered a sofa and were expecting delivery around 9 weeks later. Today I get a phone call that it's ready to be delivered. This is not good. I've organised a delivery date for as far in the future as possible: hopefully we'll have moved by then.

Spoke to the solicitor, the chain looks something like:

Us ----> Them ----> Bloke ----> empty bungalow

Unfortunately Them's solicitor is waiting on Bloke's solicitor with regards to completion dates etc. Us and Them are both ready to go, hopefully Bloke is too. (Apologies for the seemingly poor English - remember: Us, Them and Bloke are all proper nouns ;-))

Saturday, 11 May 2002

Watched a nice small independent film starring Famke Janssen and Jon Favreau - Love & Sex. Not exactly what the title would suggest - it definitely focussed more on the "love" aspect (which, of course, is what we wanted).

Friday, 10 May 2002

No news on the house today, though got the Debian box stable (didn't like the framebuffer). Tomorrow, the BBC are running a "National IQ Test", but with the usual failing of multiple possible answers, ie: Which is the odd-one-out?

A. potato
B. apple
C. orange
D. banana
Is it: "A - because all the others are fruit (even though, apparently, that's debatable)" or is it "D - because all the others are round/spherical"?

A. binoculars
B. traffic light
C. computer
D. vacuum cleaner
Is it: "A - because all the others require electricity (again debatable)", "B - because you can own/use all the others yourself", "D - because all the others show you something"?

They had the guy who designed the test on Breakfast - and he didn't seem that apologetic, insisting that all the questions only had one possible answer. Except he just laughed when pointed out the "round" option on the first question.

Thursday, 09 May 2002

A positive start to the day with a phone call from our solicitor asking for our preference with two completion dates. He even suggested that we may exchange today! Woohoo!

Unfortunately, I didn't hear back from him - and he's off tomorrow. So now the earliest we'll be exchanging is Monday or, knowing us, some point off in the distant future.

Tried to Debianise a 300PL at work, but the graphics card seems a bit dodgy and X keeps freezing.

Tuesday, 07 May 2002

Read a couple of interesting articles on Robert X. Cringely's son and his campaign to solve SIDS. Otherwise a fairly boring day.

Monday, 06 May 2002

Hehe, Ann Winterton's in trouble - now if only her husband could be forced to resign.

Sunday, 05 May 2002

The wedding was nice: a simple registry office affair with a pub lunch on the way back (mmmm, smothered chicken) and an evening do in Folkestone. Unfortunately, Mel and I had to put up with comments from everyone (often more than once) about "when are you getting married?". This is, however, likely to have the opposite effect as when I feel people are pressuring me to do something, I'll push for the exact opposite. Does this make me a difficult bugger, or just someone who doesn't like to be manipulated? I think I just don't like to be predictable.

Saturday, 04 May 2002

After dinner we drove to Folkestone for Mel's cousin's wedding. Still no word from the estate agents, despite him saying "he'd get back to me in half an hour".

Thursday, 02 May 2002

Spoke to the solicitor: not much news really. Tried to get hold of the estate agent but I get the feeling he's avoiding me ;-/.

Lots of adverts for the French presidential election coverage now that Le Pen's in the running and there's much grumbling about whether or not the far-right will do well in today's council elections "in the first real test of the Government's popularity since the General Election" - bleugh.

Tidied and uploaded the portrait photos - they look good, even if I do say so myself (PaintShop Pro's scratch removal tool is fantastic). Also, I heard a good quote today:

Leadership is knowing when to do something and knowing when not to do anything.

Wednesday, 01 May 2002

Well, I was right: E4 and FilmFour are apparently continuing until the 24th May. Otherwise the channels disappeared one by one this morning.

Tried to get hold of the solicitor to ask if there was any news but noone answered the phone; spoke to the estate agent and he said he'd get back to me which, of course, he didn't.