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Below are the most recent 21 friends' journal entries.
| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 |
footpad
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8:56p |
Oh Bugger Our landlords just visited and explained—very nicely and reasonably—that the husband had had his income drastically reduced, and they were going to need to sell one of their houses. In short, while they haven't yet sent us the actual letter, we've basically got three months to find another place, get it set up, and move into it. And all this while I'm in the middle of organising a move to Zurich. It could be a lot worse, of course (I read recently of a friend who got an eviction letter at two days' notice because their roomie had broken the rental contract), but it is still An Embuggerance. Not to worry. I have faith. With ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) akeela's ingenuity in finding a place and making it habitable, and my chaotic enthusiasm applied to moving house, and Mischa to keep us all sane—we'll manage somehow. All is not lost while we have some kind of shelter and enough money for dog food. Still. Bugger. Current Mood: philosophical |
footpad
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1:49p |
Language woes where money goes Bless you, National Public Radio, (and indirectly collabi for directing me to it). And hello to my bank: we need to have words. Because, on listening to NPR's This American Life / Planet Money programme on the freeze-up of the commercial paper markets, I suddenly realise that what they're talking about is exactly the thing my bank adviser sold me as a safe vehicle for over 35% of my money. How safe would that be, exactly? Naturally it could be as safe as anything is these days. It may be guaranteed by various governments or by the bank itself, and plenty of things may have changed since the programme was recorded eight months ago. But given one or two irritating failures of communication with the bank recently, I'm beginning to question my trust in them—not, be it said, because they're inherently untrustworthy, but much more because I simply can't persuade my adviser to slow down her speech to my level of German. I accept my obligation to learn the language (and I'm trying, dammit), and I sure as hell shouldn't have signed for an account I didn't fully understand, but by the time she's rabbitted on for ten minutes I've invariably given up on the details of what she's saying while I scrabble for the gist. Whereupon, three months later, a letter arrives telling me my money's somewhere I didn't expect or want at all. Incidentally, to German-speaking friends: how insulting is " dummer"? Is it gentle like "goofy", or offensive like "stupid"? For instance, if I (rather stupidly) leave a purchase at the supermarket checkout desk, and the supermarket employee calls me back with " Hallo! Dummer Mann!" (and no smile) then should I grin apologetically or complain to the management? [Edit: akeela points out that she could easily have just said junger Mann, which is so much more probable and reassuring that I happily accept it as truth, even if it means I'm paranoid and deaf.] Current Mood: grim |
slycat
|
7:00a |
Xbox 360 Avatar  I made the avatar back on the 14th when I got the preview of the NXE but only now have I figured out how to view my avatar on my PC. To be honest, it doesn't look a heck of a lot like me. Mostly because that's as fat as they go :P Microsoft have announced they're making new clothing available every 2 weeks for 6 months. I hope they introduce the ability to make your avatar more furry! |
| Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 |
zawolf
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5:16p |
Randoms Why do hotels always give you a new bar of soap? And, more importantly, what happens to the old stuff? You only ever use like 5% of it tops. Is there just a mountain of un-used soap they collect, melt down, and remould into new soap? Also, I love how the media work. How long do people think it will be till the media claim the terrorists on the Sirius Star trained using COD4's wetwork? Or 'Ship Simulator 2008' :P And, from work: Who would you go to for an un-biased comment regarding a minor spillage of nuclear waste? The Campaign Against Nuclear Storage and Radiation, if you're the MailonSunday.co.uk. |
| Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 |
footpad
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11:22a |
Great moments in dog ownership
So Mischa and I have just got back from our walk. As is his wont (which I condone against all the rules of decent dog training, which in turn explains why he's so badly trained), he flops down in the driveway near the kitchen door, and I hitch his leash to the garden gate, where he can wander around the driveway a bit but can't get under pedestrians' feet. It makes him happy to lie there and watch the world go by, and what makes him happy makes me happy, so I let him. While he's watching the world go by, I butter some crusty bread and brew a decaf, and then I go and sit on the kitchen step to share the moment.
It begins to rain lightly. Mischa gets up and shifts himself into the shelter of the goddamnleylandii. Observing how neat a dry patch he's lying in, I go over and join him: my legs are still getting rained on but the rest of me stays dry. Unwisely, I set my Butterbrot down by his forepaws, whereupon he claims it according to his right under Malamute Law. After he's licked the butter a few times I decide to let him have it.
Fortunately he doesn't get my decaf, so I use him as a pillow, sipping occasionally from my mug, while pedestrians and their dogs go by, birds fly overhead, the overcast sky slides past the bare lime-tree branches and the goddamnleylandii above us. And life is good.
Mischa is looking simply gorgeous these days. His coat is thickening for winter, and he's in impeccable physical condition. His weight is hovering around 36-37 kilos—at last as heavy as he was when we got him, and a far cry from the 31 kilos his weight dropped to in the first months after he came to us. But in the first days his weight was weak fleshiness. Now he's got just a little suet around his chest, which I consider healthy enough, and the rest is muscle. His flanks curve in neatly between his chest and haunches; his belly is powerful but lean; his neck is thick with fur, his tail seems twice as thickly-furred as when we got him (‘skrinky’, I called it) and his pelt is in such gleaming beautiful condition that you can stroke it backwards as well as forwards, whereupon it falls back into place in a soft wave behind your hand. It does the heart good to see him.
Current Mood: happy |
orona_red
|
1:13a |
Two things that I am completely in love with - TiddlyWiki - This is easily the best way of making notes on a computer. I was keeping them in one plain text file but managing it was becoming a pain - this is so much simpler, you just download one file, double-click to edit items. It even has tags and a pretty good search - all in one HTML file. I store everything in here from notes to code snippets ^^
- CandyFab - This is a 3D printer which prints using sugar! The results are incredible - I really want one, but I don't know what I'd do with it if I had it. It was interesting to watch this project grow - eventually they get the resolution down to 20dpi, and actually make the final output edible, too. :D The whole process is fascinating, too, particularly watching the final shape appear out of a bunch of bizarre patterns. I'd never really given much thought to 3D printing before but it's definately piqued my interest! Okay, I just want a machine that can print cakes
Current Mood:  mellow |
orona_red
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12:38a |
All of the RBW lanyards and wristbands arrived :D They're really awesome and they glow in the freaking dark!I'm sitting here basking in the crepuscular glow of a box of glow-in-the-dark wristbands. I feel so evil :D Current Mood: cheerful |
| Monday, November 17th, 2008 |
dogtoy
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6:04p |
I've just fixed my MacBook Pro's DVD drive with a bike pump. It's now reading burnt CD-Rs again and not telling me they are blank. Now to try and see if it works burning CDs and DVDs again. So maybe just dust and not firmware problems like I've been messing about with... whoops! Current Mood:  pleased |
arricc
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2:06p |
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arricc
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12:38p |
Dragon Riding... Yesterday I indulged in my sense of purile nonsense :)  |
| Sunday, November 16th, 2008 |
kytheraen
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10:06p |
Alun and I went down to see my folks this weekend. Was nice to get away. On Saturday, Alun and my dad went to the pub to watch rugby and get drunk while me and my mum went kitten shopping, grandma visiting and garden centre browsing. There's a little animal rescue centre not far from the parents' house, and mum was looking to replace the cat they lost recently... poor Truffle has been missing for about 8 weeks and Gizmo seems to be a bit spaced and not sure what to do with himself. He's never really been a lone cat. Anyway, we picked out this gorgeous 5 month old tabby/white girl called Honey (for the time being), and she is adorable. ( Click here to see our oops... ) Current Mood:  happy |
arricc
|
1:29p |
Rugger
Anybody fancy some Rugby?
Scotland V Canada at Pittodrie on Saturday (22nd)? About £20/head...? (£30 for better seats) |
arricc
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1:18p |
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mattlazycat
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11:22a |
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| Saturday, November 15th, 2008 |
arricc
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7:29p |
Play pre-orders I'd completely forgotten about this until a conversation in the pub last night...  |
slycat
|
1:45a |
Xbox 360 NXE Sooo, after I applied to get hold of the new Xbox dashboard some weeks ago, I heard nothing more of it. Until today when they decided to issue a third wave of applicants access to the new dashboard known as NXE, 5 days early. It came in the form of an automatic dashboard update when I fired up my Xbox this evening and it installed fairly harmlessly. First impressions are that the interface is really slick and easy to use. At first it took a while to find everything I'm used to but I've pretty much got the hang of it now. There's only a few negative points so far, however all of which I expect will be sorted on the 19th when everyone gets access to it. Firstly if you have the new dashboard and you chat with someone with the old dashboard over the microphone, it's next to impossible to work out what the other person is saying. It's fine in game however so it must be an incompatibility between the two which will obviously be fixed when everyone else has the new dashboard. Secondly, the Primetime feature which was advertised as one of the features which would be in the new dashboard, and one I was quite keen to try, is absent. It turns out it wasn't finished in time, but due to the new architecture of the dashboard, apparently you don't have to wait 6 monthly periods for new updates so hopefully it'll turn up in the new year. To those who don't know what it was suppose to be, it's basically an area where scheduled games occur. The main application is for massively multiplayer events such as a 100 player game of 1 vs 100 (the quiz show), etc. The other gripe is one I doubt many will have anyway. Basically Scene It! Box Office Smash is supposed to be one of the first game with the Xbox's new avatars (Miis) in game. However the game seems to totally ignore the fact I've got my own avatar and just has you select one of the default ones. Hopefully this is something which will also be fixed on the 19th, maybe via a patch. Talking about avatars, no, there's no furries in there... yet. At the moment, you can get some growly teeth and tiger face paint along with pointy ears (but more in the vain of pixie ears) but at the moment, all avatars look distinctly human. There's certainly scope for them to be add animal features in the future but you can be sure it'd be for an additional price. Ultimately, the avatars seems like another revenue stream for Microsoft like themes and gamer pictures are at the moment, where you're buying stuff to customise your console and not actually buying anything tangible. Otherwise, the new dashboard is a big improvement over the old system. It doesn't go to the extent of making you feel like you've got a new console which is what Microsoft would have you think, however it's certainly a nice new skin for the system which does give it a new lease of life :) Current Mood:  pleased |
| Friday, November 14th, 2008 |
footpad
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12:04a |
Oh woe and despond.
Damn. It looks like I've got a job.
It's about a year and a half since I last worked and, while I've made the occasional noise about needing a job, I can't say I've been looking hard. I still have enough money to keep me and Aki in beer and warm socks for at least another eighteen months. I know I've lost my edge, so I've been sorely unconfident about finding a job in the contracting market around Düsseldorf. The alternative would be to work (for considerably less money) in a German office, but I still doubt that my spoken German would be up to the demands of business. Finally, I lost a lot of time to depression, and for the past few months it's been really nice just to actually enjoy my leisure for a while.
But now fate has intervened. My old boss from The Bank rang me up, asking if I wanted a permanent contract in Zurich. Aki and I discussed the matter, and we've decided I should go for it, largely because the economic recession makes it a very real likelihood that we might not be able to get good jobs before our money runs out. We'd survive, but it wouldn't be any fun at all. So I took the job; nothing's signed yet, but it was a "we're sending you a contract immediately" sort of thing.
Good news, bad news. At least for the immediate future, it'll mean I go to Zurich alone. Once upon a time I liked that idea. Now I don't; I'll miss Aki and I'll sure as hell miss Mischa. We'll visit each other of course, and perhaps they will come out and spend longer periods in Zurich too, but there'll be a lot of separation to start with. We'll both manage, but I'll have no-one to poke me in the ribs when I'm down in the mouth, I just know Aki won't keep the bathroom sink clean on his own, and Mischa will lose his main dog-walker.
Still. It's enough money to tide me and Aki over the recession (assuming I don't get laid off too soon); it'll get me technically on the ball again so I'm fitter for the contracting market; and it also restores the prospect of doing something. If I had to get a job, then this came at the right time. I look around and see so many friends plagued by bad luck, that I find it hard to understand why mine seems always good.
Current Mood: sleepy |
| Thursday, November 13th, 2008 |
orona_red
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1:13a |
Brief Life Update At the moment I am: - Stressed
- Busy
- Stuck in a tunnel under a fictional university with with a shotgun
- Suffering from a severely reduced attention span, for some reason
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| Saturday, November 8th, 2008 |
mikosquirrel
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10:03a |
Geek history
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:-)
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use
:-(
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| Friday, November 7th, 2008 |
orona_red
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8:37p |
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arricc
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9:52a |
Is it just me...
Or is the new profile page even worse than the old one??? |
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