What's Doing

It is Good Friday so I’m at home. Bobo is out having coffee with a friend and I’m taking the opportunity to just "muck about" on the internet with my two machines at home. I know, how bourgeois. It has been commented that our dining room table more resembles the bridge of the Starship Enteprise than somewhere to eat when I am set up and working but I like it, so there.

I haven’t achieved a lot yet, apart from to catch up with some of my favourite web sites and to peruse some usenet groups. I have managed to update my personal email to Mozilla from Netscape 4.7 and will have to settle for that as my major achievement of the morning.

Anyway, enough of this frivolity, I have to fix the distutils set up of PythonCard. Its glamorous being a geek you know.

There is a tannoy system in use at the building where I am currently working. Why? Because there is. Anyway, there was an announcement this morning which I could have sworn was;
"The Rabbit Prototyping demonstration is commencing in training room 1a"
The rush for the doors was quite imposing, almost a stampede. Well, actually it wasn’t but some puzzled looks were exchanged. Until we realised that they actually mean ‘Rapid’ and not ‘Rabbit’.

Its a shame really, it would have been interesting to see what all of the engineers in the building would have come up with when they tried to prototype a rabbit.

The headline? Well, it refers to the fact that there will be a misunderstanding in tonights episode of Neighbours.

Another wedding item can be ticked off on my to do list. I’ve booked our flights to the mother country, and whilst I was at it I hired a car to travel around in. All very painless and easy, thanks to the lovely people at Flight Centre.

For those who care, we are leaving Sydney at 14:40 (local time, 06:40 GMT) on Virgin Airways flight VS522 on Monday the 1st of July. We have a three hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur and depart from there at 23:40 (local time, who knows when GMT) for London on flight VS502. We land at Heathrow’s terminal three at 05:50 (local time, 04:50 GMT) on Tuesday the 2nd of July.

We will be picking up our hire car (a Ford Focus) from the Hertz rental depot at the airport and shall then be making our way to our destination. The only thing left to do is figure out our destination, but I’m betting at this stage that it will be Perry towers in Bracknell.

Everyone is talking about the Oscars, even Ciaran. I’d just like to say that I watched the show for about thirty seconds last night (we get a delayed telecast here – thanks Channel 9) and then Bobo had to change the channel just to stem the stream of foul languague coming out of my mouth. Utter rubbish. Overblown preeners who should really get off my television.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an avid consumer of Hollywood’s output. I watch more television than is good for me, I even go to the cinema every now and then. What I object to is self indulgent back slapping award fests that take up over four hours of prime time television. Do we really need to hear that the guy who did the make up for Lord of the Toss really liked New Zealand? I think not. Next year, just post the winners on a web page and let the rest of us get along with things.

Success should be its own reward. Bah, humbug.

An interesting day in prospect today. But first, see when you are going to cark it [courtesy of Scripting News]. My personal end day is in July 2042. If I was a morbid person this could prompt me to deep contemplation of my own mortality.

Luckily I’m very shallow, so lets move right along. Specifically to Ribs and Rumps for a large slab of beef and some lovely red wine tonight. We are taking the international man of tax out for a wild night in Manly, and dragging the Palmers along as well. Who knows, we may even end up at the Steyne for a refreshing beverage or two after dinner.

All I need to do is make it through a taxing day at work and my reward will be waiting for me. Marvellous.

We were woken by the telephone this morning (well, it was 9:15am). The Lewis family were on the line to let us know that Nigel is going to be gracing us with his presence.

Its a bit of rush visit, apparently the local ratcatchers need some help from an "International Man of Tax" to sort out a couple of thorny issues.

Due to the lack of planning he is only going to be here from Sunday night until Wednesday. That hasn’t stopped Bobo from frantically trying to organise what little spare time he will have during his visit. I think the trip to Uluru may be a little ambitious though.

How do you pickle pepper? You know, as in "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Pepper"

It is another pleasant autumn afternoon in Sydney, the sky is blue and there are some light fluffy clouds about. The wind is, unfortunately, from the South East so that is keeping the temperature down to about twenty degrees centigrade. Still, a comfortable enough temperature to walk around in a t-shirt and shorts during the day.

Life is tough.

Well, perhaps evil is a string word, but collapse certainly does soak up time like a sponge.

This game joins tetris and bubble puzzle as seemingly innocuous little game-ettes that will soon have you dreaming of coloured shapes. I’m sure there is some deep psychological point to be made here but I’m too busy playing to figure out what it is.

Ciaran has now got a website. Say hello to Really? I’m sure it will be a riveting read. Just watch out for the Star Wars and Lord of the Toss references, I shall be keeping count just to make sure that the number does not veer into the "extremely sad" range.