Friday, October 22, 2004
My Sim (Seamus Peggit), who looks disturbingly like me, is doing pretty well, I'm sure you'll all be delighted to hear. He's now working the night shift at an animal-testing lab. Nice. Hopefully he'll be promoted to something more savoury ere long. His previous job, as an ambulance driver, ended with him being summarily dismissed for driving on the pavement in an effort to bypass a traffic jam.
I was disappointed that Blair didn't personally deliver yesterday's statement on shoring up the Bush regime. Even more disappointed that he didn't wear his gimp suit while delivering it. Apparently Boots is planning to start selling sex toys. Hopefully they'll have them on the shelves in time for Evil Chimp Boy's next visit to Sedgefield. They could curl up together and watch this charming little animation of what they've done to make the world a better place. Be warned—that link contains some very distressing images.
Other, more trivial and less disturbing matters:
According to the UN robots will be common in households by 2007. Cool. I want one to do the washing up. Oh. Hang on, those are called dishwashers, aren't they? And we don't have one because don't have room...
A list of the 10 worst album covers, courtesy of me old mucker, Charles.
I was disappointed that Blair didn't personally deliver yesterday's statement on shoring up the Bush regime. Even more disappointed that he didn't wear his gimp suit while delivering it. Apparently Boots is planning to start selling sex toys. Hopefully they'll have them on the shelves in time for Evil Chimp Boy's next visit to Sedgefield. They could curl up together and watch this charming little animation of what they've done to make the world a better place. Be warned—that link contains some very distressing images.
Other, more trivial and less disturbing matters:
According to the UN robots will be common in households by 2007. Cool. I want one to do the washing up. Oh. Hang on, those are called dishwashers, aren't they? And we don't have one because don't have room...
A list of the 10 worst album covers, courtesy of me old mucker, Charles.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Allelujah! It worked. After an extremely tense evening last Friday, gutting the Beast, and fitting the new mobo and card, I finally screwed up the courage to plug it in; I steeled myself for what I felt was the inevitability of the POST voice warning 'System failed CPU test', and... it booted up quite happily. 
The rest of the weekend was then spent formatting the hard disks, reinstalling XP (twice—once for each disk), reinstalling software, and restoring backups. So, after the initial euphoria of getting the hardware working, Saturday and Sunday were spent in an unhealthy mixture of mild stress and tedium.
Bought TheSims 2 on Monday—the game that prompted me to go through all the palaver of upgrading the computer. My initial verdict is that it was definitely worth the hassle. The game is beautiful to look at, and feels smooth and comfortable. Also, it's got the coolest installation interface I've ever encountered—they actually give you games and a fun quiz to do while the thing's installing in the background!
Monday evening was also exciting because I went to give blood at Milton Community Centre. I'd donated once before (in Aberystwyth, years ago), but apparently the different regions don't share the same database, so my Welsh Blood Service card wasn't any good to them, and I had to be registered as a new donor. The main reason I became a blood donor in Aber was to find out my blood type, but I want to go regularly now, because it is something very easy to do, but which really could save someone's life. Indeed, it could even save me! (I wonder how often it happens that someone, by chance, ends up being given their own blood in a transfusion?)
The BBc has an interesting article on environmental factors in human sex determination, particularly the possibility that established co-habiting couples are slightly more likely to produce boys than couples who don't live together.
The rest of the weekend was then spent formatting the hard disks, reinstalling XP (twice—once for each disk), reinstalling software, and restoring backups. So, after the initial euphoria of getting the hardware working, Saturday and Sunday were spent in an unhealthy mixture of mild stress and tedium.
Bought TheSims 2 on Monday—the game that prompted me to go through all the palaver of upgrading the computer. My initial verdict is that it was definitely worth the hassle. The game is beautiful to look at, and feels smooth and comfortable. Also, it's got the coolest installation interface I've ever encountered—they actually give you games and a fun quiz to do while the thing's installing in the background!
Monday evening was also exciting because I went to give blood at Milton Community Centre. I'd donated once before (in Aberystwyth, years ago), but apparently the different regions don't share the same database, so my Welsh Blood Service card wasn't any good to them, and I had to be registered as a new donor. The main reason I became a blood donor in Aber was to find out my blood type, but I want to go regularly now, because it is something very easy to do, but which really could save someone's life. Indeed, it could even save me! (I wonder how often it happens that someone, by chance, ends up being given their own blood in a transfusion?)
The BBc has an interesting article on environmental factors in human sex determination, particularly the possibility that established co-habiting couples are slightly more likely to produce boys than couples who don't live together.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
All sorts of minor-level busy-ness at the mo. My first OU tutorial tonight—just an introductory sort of thing, I think. Driving lesson tomorrow (would be nice to see some improvement in my 3-point turns—I actually think I've got worse since my first attempt...). First ASNaC pub-meet of the new year on Friday. Maybe, just maybe, I'll have time to install the new motherboard and graphics card over the weekend.
The Iraq Survey Group is due to conclude that Iraq had no WMD. Ardent war fans are trying to draw comfort, though, from the report's finding that Saddam Hussein would have got some WMD eventually. So that's alright, then...
If you see this ladybird, alert the authorities immediately!
The Iraq Survey Group is due to conclude that Iraq had no WMD. Ardent war fans are trying to draw comfort, though, from the report's finding that Saddam Hussein would have got some WMD eventually. So that's alright, then...
If you see this ladybird, alert the authorities immediately!
Friday, October 01, 2004
Last weekend was quite eventful. As well as more work on the kitchen, we got to spend Saturday afternoon in town (L was suffering shopping withdrawal symptoms), where we each got new mobile phones (mine's a Nokia 5140) and I got persuaded into buying a new pair of boots (brown suede Campers), and on Sunday L very nicely bombarded the MFI shop manager into refunding us nearly £200 on the kitchen.
I haven't been doing much on the computer (apart from at work), as my shoulder starts hurting if I spend too much time using the mouse.
My OU course starts officially tomorrow. I'm quite excited about it—the materials are well produced, and everyone I've had to deal with has been friendly and helpful.
A letter from one of the British 'prisoners' in Guantanamo slipped through the hands of the American censors. I thought Her Majesty's government (which makes such a big deal of its influence on the US) was supposed to do everything in its power to protect Her Majesty's subjects. Whether or not the Government believes these people to be guilty, they should be brought back to the UK, where, if necessary, they can be legally detained and tried. Allowing the US to get away with outrages such as Camp X-Ray, simply provides dictators around the world with the excuse to behave how they like.
The Hartlepool bye-election can be viewed as a neutral result from Labour's point of view (they held the seat, albeit with a massively reduced majority), and as a good one for the Lib Dems (who took almost all of Labour's lost votes) and terrible for the Tories (who came fourth behind the ludicrous UKIP). This analysis from BBC News site suggests that the Lib Dems could be the official Opposition after the next election, which raises all sorts of interesting questions about the future of British party politics...
I haven't been doing much on the computer (apart from at work), as my shoulder starts hurting if I spend too much time using the mouse.
My OU course starts officially tomorrow. I'm quite excited about it—the materials are well produced, and everyone I've had to deal with has been friendly and helpful.
A letter from one of the British 'prisoners' in Guantanamo slipped through the hands of the American censors. I thought Her Majesty's government (which makes such a big deal of its influence on the US) was supposed to do everything in its power to protect Her Majesty's subjects. Whether or not the Government believes these people to be guilty, they should be brought back to the UK, where, if necessary, they can be legally detained and tried. Allowing the US to get away with outrages such as Camp X-Ray, simply provides dictators around the world with the excuse to behave how they like.
The Hartlepool bye-election can be viewed as a neutral result from Labour's point of view (they held the seat, albeit with a massively reduced majority), and as a good one for the Lib Dems (who took almost all of Labour's lost votes) and terrible for the Tories (who came fourth behind the ludicrous UKIP). This analysis from BBC News site suggests that the Lib Dems could be the official Opposition after the next election, which raises all sorts of interesting questions about the future of British party politics...
