Red's Place

Lever commented about upstream bandwidth, and needing more. Yes, I'd like more too. Bulldog's product is available here, but they seem a little bit in chaos. (Having been on the NTL cable trials in 99, I'm a little skeptical of signing up for a heavy demand ISP!). Anyway, I'm now zooming along at 2mbps down, 256kbps up, and its only £18 a month (for 3gb).

Ordered a Dell LCD monitor over the weekend, managed to order it on the last day of April, so I got the April discount. Wonder if they'll actually manage to deliver it :)

Just ordered an Apple Airport Express to plug into my hifi and play my iTunes properly. Should be fun. Looked at getting a Mac mini, but I think I may save up for a proper Mac, as the mini has a crap hard disk.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4515101.stm

Well, the work situation is a little clearer now, the press release that went out yesterday is mostly to alert the finance lot. We already know whats going on with the restructuring (its been going since Jan), and doesn't affect my dept.

So today, I had three items of new kit turn up in one day! WooHoo! What a rush. I've been so busy playing, I've forgotten to sort out food. Oops :)

Anyway, the main toy is a new screen for my home PC. This is a ultrabright Dell LCD, and its fantastic. Seriously bright and seriously clear. I thought my work laptop was good before, but this is utterly amazing.

The other toy is an Apple Airport Extreme, so I can now do the AirTunes magic, and play my iTunes music through the HiFi, from any PC on my (W)LAN. :) Magic.

Is that just Blair tongue tripping, or is he really wanting to be President Blair ?

Ok, so nothing has really happened since last week, so thats why no posts. Although I did come across this great website today, so enjoy!

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Adult-orientated Rock (or oriented, if your not from around these parts).

Was wasting a few hours surfing through the iTMS, playing snippets through my stereo (AirTunes rocks) and found the new Essentials category. Clicked on "AOR, The Basics" and 25 songs were listed. Its damn close to my taste. Scary :)

So, what have I been upto you (don't) ask?

Using a small screwdriver to crack off 4.5 years worth of limescale. Arrghhhhhhhh

Time to go and buy beer.

Life that is, not music. Yep, I can no longer be considered young, now I'm officially in the grey zone. Not young (<25), not old (>40/50) but slap bang in the 'zone'.

Quite a few beers, and some other alcholic mix, thanks to C&V last night. Fantastic patio heater and BBQ they have, and great company. Mucho Grazias.

Phut - lol, senility kicking in a little early maybe, you got a couple of months to go yet ;)

It just was anyway. Spent a bit of time this weekend looking over David's Mum's dead PC. Power supply died, but unfortunately it was a non standard box/psu combination. Tricky e-machines of 4 years ago.

So trying to replace with box, motherboard combo from the "decommissioned old parts" store, using the DVD-ROM/CD-RW/HDD of the e-machines, and a wireless USB card. Getting there slowly, its just the wireless is sporadic and keeps coming and going.

Had a good weekend otherwise, got a book from my parents of 100 Ray Bradbury short stories, and the bonus... its signed by the author! Nice :)

Also they picked up (and I paid back) some BOSE noise cancelling headphones, significant discount thanks to the exchange rate. They're very good even at home, and apparently are stunning on aircraft. Looking forward to using them.

Went out for a very nice meal on Saturday night with parents, and godparents, for three reasons, my dad's birthday, my birthday, and just because. Very nice, and a nice bottle of wine shared between us.

Our pathetic quiz team showed we were useless tonight, but with two members currently in New Zealand, and the other AWOL, it wasn't really unexpected.

Still very annoyed (or "pissed" for you USers) at the weather, it should be getting nice about now, but its still early April style. Grr.

Guess I should get some shut eye, its work tomorrow. Have fun all.

Can't shake it, feeling tired all the time. Think I've finally tracked it down to my eyes, as they were aching last night when I was trying to get to sleep.

Perhaps its too much VDU use, or too much VDU + too much car + too much TV + too much life!

Or, I've got 'dry eyes' and need to get some optrex or something. Or I could just cut my leg off and start crying or something. Whatever I need to do something this is getting very boring very quickly....

This opinion piece in the Washington Post on Monday got me thinking. Is it the same in old blighty? I think it might well be.

Non business aware bean counters (ie, accountants who don't know the actual business, brought it by the business to watch funds) have been making recommendations that are followed by large firms for a long time. This sort of approach, modified and twisted, has been picked up by society as a whole. Where will it end? Will China outsource to Africa in 150 years time? Will there be riots in London in 10 to 20 years time, and in Beijing in 200 years time?

So, the first real warm day/night has arrived. Guess its a one off according to the weather reports (bbc, and uk.weather.com). Typical. Anyway, guess that's the bank holiday to blame, hope it gets better again in June!

Saw this tonight, very very cool, and it works in IE and Firefox! Now thats smart.

(title is in recognition of the talent of the great David Bowie)

So, about a week ago I decided to leave an online community that I had been at the inception of, just under 10 years ago, as it wasn't something I found relevant anymore.

Today I spent time brainstorming my education plan, which is a little ambitious, but doable. However I will need to ensure I have no life, and hit the books, but the investment will be worthwhile. Now just to find out if I can get the books and exams funded, or if I'm going to have to do a kinda-PPP (public/private/partnership) with my enmployer. Who knows yet.

So, Ribby, any comments on the Oui/Non vote this weekend? Looks like Chirac maybe in trouble again, nothing unusual there ;-)