Andrew's diary

Sunday, 31 October 2004

Hallowe'en. Eugh.

Did, however, watch The B**gieman for some Quantum Leap Hallowe'en-themed coolness; after an hilarious Scrapheap Challenge.

Saturday, 30 October 2004

Allen's cousin died suddenly last night: she was only 51 and seemed in perfect health.

Mel rang me to tell me whilst I was at the Clubhouse tidying and sorting cupboards with two other members of the committee.

Friday, 29 October 2004

Got some jobs via email (mmm, Word documents) - none of them particularly appeal or interestingly more challenging than my current role. However, emailed Andy to find out what these sort of jobs are actually like.

Wednesday, 27 October 2004

Got my CV up-to-date. CSS is very cool: the page has no absolute sizes on screen, but when printed is guaranteed[*] to come out onto exactly 2 pages. [*] Depending on having a decent web browser, of course.

Tuesday, 26 October 2004

Back to Basingstoke. Not a lot happening, so not a lot to say. Mel and I did have a poke about on RightMove though, and found several seemingly nice family homes tentatively close to being affordable... in Rugby. However, they are close to the train station, meaning it might be easier to move slightly more northwards if I changed jobs to a commuting one now, and then just had to change my commuter route when we moved.

The practicalities of actually getting to train stations confuses me though: one of the benefits would be to get rid of a car, however how then do you get there? Walk? What if it's raining? Bike? See "walk", with the added disadvantage of possible messing of clothes. The best idea I could come up with was some kind of commuter shuttle bus touring these sort of modern estates. I wonder if they exist? Google should be able to tell me...

Monday, 25 October 2004

Mel and I went to the new Bull Ring in Birmingham for the day. Very nice, for a shopping centre.

Jo and Mark came round for dinner: Mel cooked fajitas and much wine was drunk. Also managed to embarass both Jo and David with stories from their past :-)

Sunday, 24 October 2004

Robert drove us to Stratford for lunch: his driving was surprisingly good, should pass his test with no problems with a bit more practice.

Lunch in Wetherspoons (mmm, beer) followed by a wander around the town. Found a wonderful little shop with all sorts of spirits, fortified wines, oils etc. available to purchase after sampling them and choosing your bottle. After emptying the bottle you can go back and get it refilled. Got a nice little Speyside 9 year single malt, and David got some port.

Saturday, 23 October 2004

Drove up to Stockton for a few days holiday whilst Mum & Dad are away. Also, to look after David and Robert ;-)

Found time to have a good play with my new phone - a Sony Ericsson T630. The reception isn't any better than the disappointing reception on the old T68i, but the screen is nice; the polyphonic ringtone engine handles any MIDI file thrown at it very well and the speed problems with the T68i have been addressed. Annoyingly, the punctuation and the space key in the writing areas have been swapped; and "SMS" has been renamed "Text".

The biggest niggle, though, is that the ringtones provided are very pleasant sounding, but not very phone like. They're also not very loud - even on the loudest setting :-(. A bit of digging around my bookmarks and Google helped me find some decent, non-tune related ringtones; primarily those at Aussie3G's download area and this MIDI file of the CTU ringtone in 24.

Thursday, 21 October 2004

New York Times article published, easiest access is through Google News, as then free registration is not required :-)

The headhunter who rang before, rang again. Apparently details were "stolen from a pub" - hence the lack of ringing before now. He said all the standard things to try and get me on side, eg. how little I was being paid for the skills I've got etc. All very predictable - and working in an investment bank? Hmm.

Wednesday, 20 October 2004

Long day at work, what with a Club Committee meeting after work - which was its typical, fun-filled and calm relaxed self.

Tuesday, 19 October 2004

Walking in to work through my usual entrance, I overheard a security guard saying, "...and then at 11.30 he takes off from the lawn and we can all relax." Rick was in the Central Hall so I asked who was visiting: Prince Andrew. Pretty cool, eh?

When I got to the office to relay the news, I got told "yeah, they just sent an email out about it" - still, must get some cool points for finding out without reading a site-wide email. When he arrived in his swanky purple helicopter (which he wasn't flying himself, I mean, what's the point of being a qualified pilot if you can't fly your own helicopters?) we opened our office window (as the landing site was only 25m or so away) - "drafty", as a word/concept, doesn't quite do it justice. Very cool though.

Monday, 18 October 2004

How can Geoff Hoon, with a straight face, claim that 650 British troops helping over 100,000 US troops is anything other than a political face saving device for Bush? A better question perhaps: how can Geoff Hoon still be Defence Minister?

My turn to cook dinner tonight, so it was a fairly simple affair: ricotta tortellini in an aubergine pesto with oven-roasted olives served with the remains of the really nice 2002 Bordeaux :)

Sunday, 17 October 2004

After lunch and Mel finishing her work, we went out to Argos to get a new set of drawers and a chest for the den. Lots of fun putting them together but it's a lot more tidy in there now: it's almost to the point where it can be used as a room once more.

Also had fun getting Jade (see yesterday) to support declarations like public static int number = 666, but managed in the end. However getting access to it from elsewhere (eg. Animal.number == 666) is slightly more tricky.

Saturday, 16 October 2004

Turned on the RiscPC and did some more jiggery pokery with Jade, Test3.java is compiling and running exactly as expected, despite me having a muzzy head all day.

Wednesday, 13 October 2004

David's birthday - but he opened his Goonies DVD yesterday evening as he had to get up early for work and is out all night partying. The Amazon voucher which meant we weren't entirely cheap arrived this morning apparently.

Worked from home today as Transco wanted to inspect and replace our gas meter. Had a long chat with Megan about her personal life and suffice to say it made me really appreciate Mel ;-).

Hmm, just seen an advert for BT Broadband: "1Gb monthly limit" - I know I shouldn't be surprised, but is it really asking too much of technology companies to get simple terminology right? I mean if it was "hz" rather than "Hertz" that'd be one thing, but confusing bits and bytes when talking about limits is surely a thing for the ASA?

Watched the two-part finale of season 7 of Stargate SG-1 - very impressive effects and good to see the whole team together after Richard Dean Anderson's notable absences.

Tuesday, 12 October 2004

Christopher Reeve died - shame.

Caught up with episodes 2 and 3 of Life, The Universe and Everything before hearing part 4 on the drive home.

David Beckham's claiming he's not as stupid as everyone thinks as he intentionally got booked so he'd get banned from the next game - which he was already planning on missing anyway. The stupid prat should be fined (big deal to him, I suppose) and banned from professional football for, ooh, a month? Sounds fair to me...

Nothing annoys me more than someone trying to "subtly" change my opinion to match theirs by agreeing with me and then shifting the argument inch by inch. Especially when they've got an ulterior motive, whilst pretending they don't. It's unfortunately getting increasingly prevalent at work.

hypocrisy \Hy*poc"ri*sy\ (h[i^]*p[o^]k"r[i^]*s[y^]), n.; pl. Hypocrisies (-s[i^]z). [OE. hypocrisie, ypocrisie, OF. hypocrisie, ypocrisie, F. hypocrisie, L. hypocrisis, fr. Gr. "ypo`krisis the playing a part on the stage, simulation, outward show, fr. "ypokr`nesqai to answer on the stage, to play a part; "ypo` under + kri`nein to decide; in the middle voice, to dispute, contend.] The act or practice of a hypocrite; a feigning to be what one is not, or to feel what one does not feel; a dissimulation, or a concealment of one's real character, disposition, or motives; especially, the assuming of false appearance of virtue or religion; a simulation of goodness. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1996/1998

Sunday, 10 October 2004

Another day feeling restless (like Friday). Mowed the lawn, tidied some of the stuff to go up to/down from the loft, but spent most of the afternoon in front of the telly.

In the evening, Michael Palin's Himalaya continued to be exemplary television. Particularly poignant was the Buddhist astrologer who revealed to Palin that, in a previous life, he was an elephant - but the Chinese invasion of Tibet meant he didn't know his own birthdate specifically enough to do a reading on himself. The off-the-cuff question about his own reading turned into a moving moment when you could see the astrologer's distress at a thing we take such for granted: when and where we were born.

Saturday, 09 October 2004

Decided today was a good day for a Bond marathon so - after doing the hoovering and eating some of last night's pizza for lunch - sat down to watch Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies. I was originally planning to watch a) more and b) older ones, but Mel fancied (watching?) Pierce Brosnan. So it wasn't exactly a marathon... more of a fun-size snickers.

One of FilmFour's last productions, Charlotte Gray was on in the evening, in which Cate Blanchett goes off to France during World War 2 to help the Resistance. Fairly predictable but beautifully shot and decently acted. Somewhat interestingly, BBC1 didn't show The Rock, but instead replaced it with a Dalziel & Pascoe and Patch Adams. Presumably because of Ken Bigley's execution.

Friday, 08 October 2004

Bored and listless at work; fed up as more people getting recognition than me (aww, just feeling sorry for myself really); ordered phone and, in a brief bit of good news, found out that the fingerprinting patent is being hurriedly filed. Megan's already reached her first plateau apparently, but I'm still a patent off that :-(

Thursday, 07 October 2004

Cracked the sev 1 defect I've been working on - feeling rather proud :-)

Also realised that after Arnhem, and running out of credit again, that PAYG is a bad idea as it's actually PBYG. (Pay Before You Go) and this just gives no flexibility or control. Cheapest deal to get back on to a contract seems to be a Sony Ericsson T630 on Vodafone at OneStopPhoneShop - even though I technically don't need a new phone.

Monday, 04 October 2004

Unexpected bonus for the HIT work back in June (probably forgot to say back then, but Johnny Ball! And Patrick Moore! Woohoo!)

Somewhat more concerning was an anonymous email from a potential "whistleblower" who objected to the Google AdWords on the TV listings and that it went against various guidelines. Points were arguable, but once I get the first pay check I'll probably pull the ads to avoid any problems, but the email also made me consider pulling the whole site.

Dave pointed out, of course, that the ads are to cover the cost of the box - which is true. That'd take a couple of the $100 cheques to cover (at least), so we'll see how much is left from $100 after bank charges, taxes etc.

Sunday, 03 October 2004

Back home after breakfast.

Friday, 01 October 2004

Jack's funeral.