Gosh, it’s quiet around here…

Unless you count the comment spam, of course. 400 today, and counting. I wouldn’t mind so much if the URLs that they’re trying to Googlejuice actually existed, but leading-flowers.info doesn’t even 404.

The silence is caused by a) job hunting and b) building a bathroom. The two are not related - if they were that would make me a plumber, which would render a) unnecessary.

And it’s dark and cold, which makes everything harder than it should be.

Why I can’t get any work done after 6pm…

Max waiting to be fed

A subtle reminder to get into the kitchen and open a tin, cat-style. Note the juxtaposition ‘twixt me and keyboard…

Current frustrations

1. Having managed to find a PS/2-to-USB converter (no problem the other way around, but there’s obviously few of us out there who need to connect a PS/2 mouse to a USB port) and plugged in my trackball again, it’s now playing up - the pointer speed is fine in everything but Safari, where it’s half the speed.
2. It seemed like a good idea to take a quick look under the horrible lino on the bathroom floor to see if was glued down - as a prelude to ripping it up and tiling the floor. It was glued down - but by mould rather than glue. It turns out that the shower tray has been leaking for a considerable period of time - so the base was rotten and the plasterboard behind the tiling has gone manky. So now we’ve got a large hole where the shower cubicle used to be, and I’m wondering how much of the plasterboard on the two affected walls I’m going to need to pull off so that it’s possible to get the tiling back on and looking half-decent.
3. Authentication on the demo wiki is playing up for no good reason, which is going to make it difficult to demo to a client tomorrow.

So anyone trying to sell me something through a cold call this morning will be in for a shock…

Carpal tunnel

My right wrist is currently aching like hell (stop sniggering at the back), so I want one of these. $249 being a bit steep for a keyboard, I’ve gone homebrew and constructed a stand for the Powerbook made out of the front panel of a drawer that got taken to bits after the desk it belonged to fell to bits during the house move. (It actually looks better than it sounds - stripped pine seems to go with aluminium, at least it does if you’ve decided you can’t afford a iCurve.)

All of which construction means I can now hook up my old Microsoft Natural keyboard, which is forcing me to keep my wrists in the right position - not that it’s doing anything for my typing speed at the moment. And not wanting to use a mouse because it hurts is a powerful incentive to get properly to grips with Quicksilver. Tomorrow’s job is to see if it’s possible to get a dongle that converts from a PS/2 trackball to a USB connection - in which case the trackball is going to be pressed back into action, and hopefully my wrist gets some relief.

Until I started suffering, I would never have believed that crap mouse technique could have such a significant effect on your joints. It was all the fault of a contract job I did a couple of years back, where I spent entire days building screen forms a click-and-drag at a time - ever since when my right wrist joint has felt like it’s filled with carborundum grit…

Q: Why are you sitting typing on a Powerbook instead of being asleep?

Q: Why are you sitting typing on a Powerbook instead of being asleep?

A: Because of the cat.

Q: How so?

A: Because being a feline with a brain the size (and processing power) of a walnut, he disappeared back outside about 10 minutes before we went to bed, despite having just been found, picked up and brought inside. And then reappeared outside the bedroom window at 01:30am, crying to be let back in again because a) we don’t yet have a functional catflap; and b) it was cold out. So your correspondant cat-slave gets up to let him in, upon which he gets a prefunctory greeting from the ungrateful animal before it buries its nose in the foodbowl.

Q: Where is the aforementioned cat now?

A: Asleep on my wife’s feet.

FQ TOPIC: Possession

FQ1: What is your favorite possession made mostly from wood? Metal? Plastic?

Wood: The dresser in the kitchen, which was the first major piece of furniture we bought after we got married

Metal: my wedding ring

Plastic: my Powerbook (although there’s a significant chunk of aluminium as well)

FQ2: What is your favorite possession colored mostly red? Blue? Green?

Red: my bed (because it’s got a reddish duvet on it at the moment)

Blue: not telling
Green: the small green rubber dinosaur found by the offspring that gave this blog it’s name…

FQ3: What is your favorite possession looking mostly soft? Sharp? Fragile?

Soft: my wife
Sharp: my wit, of course…

Fragile: my ego

FQ Net Worth: If your nine prized possessions listed above were stolen, what do you estimate the total cost would be to replace them?

Hmm - difficult, because some of them (see soft etc) are irreplaceable. If my experience of past insurance claims is anything to go by, they’d probably cost about 25% more than the eventual payout…

Of moves and cats and sneezes

It’s been a bit quiet on here of late. This is largely due to having just moved - apparently the second or third most stressful thing you can do with your life according to a Large List Of Stressful Things. Currently my life is full of boxes of stuff that I obviously don’t need because I haven’t unpacked them yet; a loooong list of thing DIY to do; and a cat.

The cat has been fostered by my brother for the past two years while we’ve been gadding around the country, so while it’s nice to have him back (in a “I’ve really missed being affectionately headbutted at 0500 every morning” kind of way), it seems that my immune system has taken advantage of his absence over the last two years to develop a really quite impressive cat allergy. Which is turning into something of a problem, because as cats go, he’s very affectionate - hence the headbutting at 0500. We brought him back up from London by car - initially in a box, but after about 50 miles and some really quite impressively harmonic yowling, on the non-driver’s knee - and by the end of the journey my nose was running like a tap and I was scratching my arms like I’d contracted galloping scabies. Now he’s reverted to his previous habits of climbing onto the desk and sitting ‘twixt owner and keyboard, so I’m typing this through a cloud of feline allergens and attempting not to sneeze.

Hopefully my immune system will calm down again, otherwise I’m faced with a choice of eating Benadryl like Smarties for the forseeable future, or shrink-wrapping the damn creature. And if he reverts to another of his habits and starts perching on my Powerbook, he’s mittens for sure.

House move progress

The building society have processed the mortgage and issued the offer (they say - excuse my rampant scepticism, but we have heard that before), so now the only delay are the solicitors. We’ll be in by Christmas, I know we will…

FQ TOPIC: Culinary

FQ1: In addition to the dearly departed Julia Child, who is your favorite food personality?

I’ve no idea who Julia Child is, but the alternative would have to be Keith Floyd. Continuing the finest traditions of English eccentricity, he was best known for getting steadily pissed through the course of the programme as he drank the marinade.

FQ2: What meal would you have this culinary genius prepare for you if they asked?

Given a typical Floyd recipe, it would probably be dead animal in alcohol. With a side order of alcohol.

FQ3: If they refused, and you could eat at any restaurant you wanted as a consolation, which one would you choose?

Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saison, which used to be just down the road from me (they’re still there, it was me that moved). The kind of place where if you have ask the price, you can’t afford it. Failing that, the Five Arrows in Waddesdon, which not only does superb food, but has the additional advantage of being part of the Waddesdon Estate, home of the Rothschild family. That’s Rothschild as in Chateau Rothschild, so the wine list isn’t bad, as you might expect…

FQ KITCHEN: Share with us a favorite recipe or cooking tip.

Page 58 of A Feast Of Floyd…

As of 2pm this afternoon, I’ve no longer got a mortgage…

As of 2pm this afternoon, I’ve no longer got a mortgage. Instead, I’ve got the largest cheque that I’ve ever seen with my name on it, and slightly more worryingly, a two-week gap before I’ve got somewhere with my name on the deeds to live again…