My word for this week has been "misanthropic".

Have a heating problem with your PC? No more, and yes this is cool. Though I have grave doubts about mixing electronics and water without designing it first.

Possibly a coming technology: WiFi enabled home stuff. Though at 790 Euros, it's a little, er, expensive for a lamp. (In real money, not that silly green stuff you can get in some places, that's just over 520 pounds).

Oddness seen on the roads today: two halves of a house, one complete with muddy Land Rover. Both on low loaders. Then a large Portaloo. Then three very large light blue cable drums, possibly for winding cable onto.

And to top all that, the van blew up a mile and a quarter from the office, on the way back. No more white van man!

One of my (many) bugbears in Windows 2000 is the 'Relevance' column in searches. As I don't have indexing on, it's a waste of space (arguably possibly entirely a waste of space).

I'd still like to know how to get rid of it. it's not important, something for the growing pile on the back burner.

Now this is flying low. Mind your hat.

I should know by now that if it isn't brokne, don't fix it.

I poked the software on my PDA and it stopped. Thankfully I have backups of backups.

It seems the Post Office has lost or delayed one of my parcels (an SD card coming froom Singapore). I am not surprised, given the reports so far of things going missing et cetera. For inatance there is a street (town not mentioned) where post to odd numbered houses is not delivered as the sorting office is waiting for new racks to sort the post into. The unsorted post is in a pile in the corner. One woman's post was backlogged more than 4 months. The PO's response? Compensation to the tune of 12 first class stamps.

While it's apparently a criminal offence to tamper with post, do the workers who steal from the Post Office get a record because of it? I much doubt it.

I didn't trust the Post Office before and I do not see that changing anytime soon.



Rant mode off.

I am so glad it's Friday. 2 more weeks and there's another long weekend.

This might not sound such news to most people, but for me it's a huge revelation. Until recently I've not relished the idea of not working. Being made redundant then working for the company I do fortunately shifted my thinking. I don't yet know if it's a good thing or not, but it beats working :).

On top of old Smokey inserted it's way into my head for some reason.

Well If this works Pocket Blog should be fine. If not, it's off the PDA as useless. It did. Sort of. Multiple posts, but only errors on the PDA. So possibly worse than useless. Says it's not working when it is.

Probably due to Blogger's updated revamped frontend, which I have to say is slow. But then it is free. It seems there's been quite a few updates to it and some doesn't work. I'll have to check out the bloggerdev group.

I may or may not have mentioned a problem with my leg after coming back from Wolverhampton 2 weeks ago. It's not getting any better.

The next module starts in just over two weeks. There's a lot I would hope to have accomplished before then, least of which is starting the book. 2 weeks after it finishes I'll be off to Australia. Ulp. Well, it is definitely a challenge.

This next part if largely for my own notes. After removing Tomtom from Leaves I now get an error - couldn't start TTGPSENG.EXE which was trying to be started everytime it got woken up. Getting dbView helped me track it down. The reference to it wasn't in the registry or any link I could find. It turns out in the DB_notify_events database. Using dbView I could delete the item. one annoyance down, several to go.

Update on mum's car battery. Apparently the boot light was not going off, so the garage took the bulb out. Smart. At least it doesn't run the battery down now.

I have to stop looking at electronics. I saw this JVC in a Dixons store and fell in love with it. If only I could afford it.

Hmm. If this is to be believed, making an automnous bipedal robot has been done. Though I have to doubt the ability of a ton of Mini Cooper-cum-robot to stop a ton and a half or more of Land Rover.

Honda and I believe Sony have also made completely automnous bideds too.

Perhaps I've found my dissertation subject.

I must admit to have always had an interest in robotics.

For some reason, I started singing "Bring me sunshine".

I have added some of the posts from the livejournal blog - I just don't use it. So that's dead.

Other things - cancelled the RBS Mastercard as they dont have internet access for the account if you don't have any other bank account with them. But if you do have an account, you can get access. Also they messed me about with a payment that went to the wrong place. Had their chance - I'm voting with my feet - though I would say the customer service were very helpful and competent.

Moved the life insurance too. I don't know who'd get the 60k if I suffled the mortal tesla coil. What's this? A queue? How very British :).

Yay! Got the Socket GPS back today. Partially charged too. No description though. That's one thing I do miss about having no interface - no way of getting information out of the little blighter.

Eccles cakes. I seem to becoming dependent on them.

Along with Cheese & bacon slices from the 'chuck wagon' that comes to the office daily. Just under 2 quid for both. Yum. Though the slices are paling in niceness.

Having a quick search for "Ondine Road" (where I live) I came accross an artist taking pictures supposedly every year.

I wonder how many he has now.

It turns out there's a builder living a few doors away (no 72). Ondine Road is mentioned in the Charles Booth Online Archive which apparently is the first reference to it in 1899, though it didn't seem to exist in 1881.

Records of Robert James Lees (who?) have letters dated 1892.

The main street of East Dulwich is Lordship Lane.

Something to look into while whiling away some spare time perhaps.

I forgot to add. Had a wonderful lunch at Hisar in Lordship Lane (very close to home). Plenty of very nice food from this Turkish restaurant.

I had Et Sote (a lamb caserole with wine and onions). It was fantastic.

A busy day at work. Rebooted the email/www server as I don't have a login and it's not working. The IT administrator overslept and isn't in yet. No, that's not me.

Started looking at advanced driving techniques, just cos I happened over it searching for what IC1 means, when talking about people.

It seems it's thus:
IC1 White European,
IC2 Dark European,
IC3 Afro-Caribbean,
IC4 Asian,
IC5 Oriental,
IC6 Arab.

Dark European? Is that extra crispy? And what's Asian & Oriental? Most Americans won't know the difference just looking at the label. But why would I care about what they think?

Sunday was a gorgeous day in London. I don't know about anywhere else and as I'm not there do I want to know? Do you? :) I went to the nearby park and took a lot of photos. They've been uploaded to a service I'm checking out called Fotopic. Monday was a bust. Rain all day.

I have the next installment of my course due on the 6th. Ulp. I've not done anything except order the book! Must sort that tomorrow.

Last night BBC1 showed "Pearl Harbour", which I hadn't seen. In the past I wouldn't have been fazed at all about this, but I did find it harrowing. the subject matter, though, would make that so. Not a film I'd complain about as it did seem to be quite well done. Not sure if it could be done better. Would I buy it, though? No I don't think so.

A week ago I saw Gothika. Recommended. I came out being able to remember at least 5 character's names which is the usual yard stick for a decent enough film.
Saturday I saw "The Butterfly Effect". Intriguing film.