tptb dragoon

Matt the Gardener

The theory goes that if you start a sentence and keep going without stopping that eventually you must come to a good idea or a full stop. I bumped into Matt last night who must have come to a full stop on his Geek Gardener website as nothing has been updated since September. He blames the weather. I notice the site also refers to his Fiancée Nancy which can't be right as he married her recently. Ahh well you can't trust anything you read on the Web can you?

More lights

Last night was a night of lights. Here's a couple from Oxford Street. The second one is caused by a special effect called shaking hands.

That was followeed by a trip to the Science Museum where The London Internet Exchange had a small event for the installation of their first switches into the computin section of the Digitopolis gallery. Ana amazing place - my picture doesn't do it justice so I recommend you have a look at the Science Museum website.

Collage

I mentioned a while ago that I was going to do a collage of a few photos and showed you a couple. Karen, surprised me by buying this frame and arranging some of the photos in it including the one of the nipple. Hope you like it. We're taking it to Cornwall as all the photos eithr come from there or are related to there (some were taken on Tresco).

Click the photo to supersize it.

Cat Revisited

We got our little cat a few months ago and she has quickly grown up and is in charge of the cat-flap, pooing in the alleyway and waking me up at 4am all of which she does very, very well. Being smokey grey I seem to find it difficult to get a good shot of her so this will have to do for now.

She is, like a lot of annoying women, utterly adorable.

Looney Tunes

Coming home on the tube last night, my carriage was full of the normal cross-section of fellow commuters. "Cross" often being the appropriate word for tube travellers. There were two seats free except one guy had piled his jacket and bags onto the seat next to him in that neighbourly way people do sometimes. So I took the completely vacant seat.

The woman on my right was deeply involved in her magazine but also had a tape or cd playing with someone talking. It sounded like a low, monotone voice that I imagine is used on those tapes you get so that you can learn whilst asleep. Perhaps she was learning a new language. The multi-tasking abilities of women are, obviously, fantastic.

The bloke on my left was drinking beer from a can and getting fresh cans from his pockets as needed. He decided to talk at the sad woman opposite me telling her that she obviously had man trouble or family problems. I don't think she was too upset by this but she didn't reply.

The drunk left. The woman further to my left snored. The guy with the bags looked angry.

There was a sweet on the floor and it looked lost, lonely and exposed. I wondered if it was from a packet of Tunes. I did the obvious thing which was to get my camera out and take a photo of it. Sad woman obviously thought I was a looney. Snoring woman woke up and rang her partner and then rang another lover it seemed. I am sure that multi-tasking woman tutted and angry man looked at me like I was an anti-social weirdo. Or am I just paranoid? Angry man's phone rang with a really shite ring-tone and then he barked into it.

And then I forgot about the poor sweet and went home. It's nice to have an inalienable right to be barking mad and to meet up with some of my fellow loonies on the tube. Only they just don't seem to see it that way.

Bike Rack

Solve those difficult bike parking problems:

A Good Night Out

What's your defnition of a good night out? Would it include finding random groceries in your hallway in the morning? Probably not.

Last night started off with the tale of my Australian/Hungarian friend Mladen trying to get his Chinese friend, Michael, and Michael's girlfiend to Paris. Although in fact they wanted to go to Shanghai. They weren't allowed aboard the Eurostar at Waterloo for some visa related mix-up. Mladen was due to meet me and sent me a text telling me of the problem and I helpfully replied "Anything I can do? Apart from laugh of course".

I wondered if the problem had anything to do with Michael being an ex-Chinese army missile guidance expert. Still, as he was visiting the heart of the Internet in Docklands that probably isn't best mentioned right now.

They descended on me at my office and web browsers were fired up and phonecalls made. We got enough cash together for them to fly out on the 9pm flight direct to Shanghai from Heathrow only to discover that Michael had got the dates mixed up and there was no flight yesterday evening. And then they had nowhere to stay of course.

My helpfulness was fully exhausted at this point so I went down the pub. Later I met up with Jim who gave me a lift to the Cricket Club where they have a nice bar and good food. Putting my laptop bag into his boot I couldn't fail to notice the remnants of a strange supermarket sweep shopping trip. Several pints later we went home and I retrieved my bag and Jim handed me:

• A box of trial size bleach bottles (who wants to trial bleach?)
• White Maltesers (yummy)
• Special K fruit bars
• Some Cereal
• Lsterine oral tablets

Quite why he had this variety of goods in his boot I have no idea. He handed me the box of bleach which I took in one arm - my other hand was holding my laptop. I gave him an old-fashioned look. No, I don't know what that means either but I'm sure I did it. I notice he took great pleasure in piling more and more stuff on me in a sort of real life game of Buckaroo and then he watched me stagger drunkenly to the door and attempt to open it without dropping everything.

So there we are. I think I must have drunk some of the bleach judging by the state of my throat this morning. Nathan's already had some of the cereal and I am looking forward to elevenses when I intead to make a start on the Maltesers. It must have been a good night out.

A Quick Fix

Add 512Mb of RAM to the existing rather paltry 256Mb. 5 minutes start to finish. What a great feeling. Comfortably expensive (my 2 year old Dell has RAM that they no longer make/support), easy to fit, instantly satisfying. Wonderful.

A is for Autumn

If your bored and looking for something new to interest you then why not type the letter 'a' into Google and see what comes up? They have approximately 7,470,000,000 matches to read through. The first sponsored advert on the right side of the screen is for a scheme to show you how to run a successful B&B. I can't imagne why that is there. The second, and final, advert is for buying the letter 'A' on eBay - which is fair enough as you can buy anything on there.

But, to celebrate the the fact I have a camera again after the other one was stolen, A is going to be for Autumn today. This tranquil but warming scene is in Grosvenor Square, London and was taken last Friday.

Click on the picture for a larger version.

How to Mess up a Home Network

1. Leave the room.
2. Return an hour later.
3. Notice the ADSL router upsdide down on the floor.
4. Blame the cat.
5. Nothing works.
6. Kick the cat.
7. Think.
8. Notice two of the port lights pulsating in synch with each other
9. Call the Wife.
10. Ask if she plugged anything in.
11. Listen to the explanation of a cable that she tripped over and just "plugged back in". A cable note, that was only plugged in at one end.
12. Reverse the operation of numbers 6 and 9 above.
13. Remove the cable from port 4. Port 2 light goes out and the others work just fine, thank you very much.
14. Tell the whole world about it.