The musings of a sheep

Books

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:31:31 GMT

2009 so far:
Neal Stephenson - Anathem - a heavy tome, but excellent. I even enjoyed the 'calcas' (explanations of theorics - aka theoretical science and mathematics), but I may be weird.

Tom Holt - You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps - Good comedy fantasy. I should read more of his books (I love Who's Afraid of Beowulf).

Ken MacLeod - Star Fraction - Definitely one of the best books I've read in a long time. Near future sci-fi, with a good smattering of politics and computers. Just my cup of tea.

I also finished off Tucker's 'Instead of a Book...' although I skipped most of the section on banking since I currently have no idea what he was talking about (he seems to have assumed that his readers would know the basics - not a bad assumption when writing for Liberty really - I'll go back to them when I know what he's defending from the critics).

Currently reading the sequel to Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, which is so far proving to be just as good (if not better).

Brrrrr,,,

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:02:01 GMT

This is that mild winter we were promised I take it.

Rearranging

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:28:08 GMT

We've been very productive this weekend...

Yesterday we were collecting for HAWS.
We then moved the last remaining fish to the small tank and emptied the big one and moved it across the room.
Then the couch was moved.

Today the tree went up and moved the TV etc so we can see them from the couch again.

Unfortunately, the back room is now a tip resembling a teenager's bedroom (you need acrobatic skills to move from one side to the other...)

Poor Milford has been a bit perturbed by the changes, but now we're tidying rather than rearranging he seems happier.

Boiler

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:00:20 GMT

Boiler is fixed. Hopefully this will lead to showers without the water suddenly going cold...

Not only was the fan on its way out ('twas the first suspect and has been replaced), one of the circuit boards was fried.

Last night with no heating would have been very bad if it weren't for delph_bunny and leonerd who very kindly let us borrow two electric heaters (thankyou!). The bedroom was nice and warm last night, even if the rest of the house was a bit chilly this morning.

Apocalyptica

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:47:54 GMT

Missed the work Christmas do because we'd already booked tickets to see Apocalyptica.

It was worth it, one of the best shows I've seen. Good music, entertaining show and Finnish accents.

It still amazes me that they can get such sounds out of cellos. I suspect the use of a wah-wah pedal twice in the show, but that was it.

They were more metal than some metal bands, even when they played the Greig...

bloodofareptile's obsession has been fanned again however.

meme

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:22:42 GMT

I may as well do LJ properly....

1. Answer each of the questions below using the Flickr Search engine. 
2. Choose a photo from the first three pages.
3. Copy the URL of your favorite photo into this site: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php 
4. Share!

The questions:
my name / favorite food / hometown
favorite color / celebrity crush / favorite drink
dream vacation / favorite dessert / what I most want to be when I grow up
what I love most in the world / one word that describes me / my username

Need a band....

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:22:20 GMT

To record 'Livejournal Addict'...

Snow!

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:52:12 GMT

In the office...

Air conditioning sagas

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:25:33 GMT

This building has crap air conditioing which results in the office getting too hot for any reasonable person all year round unless we have windows open, which often results in a rather brisk breeze across the office.
A year and a bit after discovering this flaw we finally got our own air conditioning put in and yesterday was its first day.

So we had working air conditioning for about 5 hours, before someone got a shower from one of the units.

Today, they've fixed that, only for one of the controllers to start flashing a red light and giving some unclear error message.

We havn't even had a chance to argue about what temperature the air conditioning should be set to yet!

One of a series of very occasional posts

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:43:25 GMT

Things here are pretty good. We've settled down into married life pretty well.
Work happens, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but it could be worse...

We have the fish tank going, 11 neon tetras and 4 bristlenosed catfish. More fish will be added soon hopefully, its a rather big tank so there's plenty more room.

We're also fostering cats. Currently we have a lovely young male called Milford.

Apart from that, life goes on.

Sporadic post

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:57:19 GMT

I hardly bother to read LJ these days... this must be the first time in months...

What is needed is a tool to get a friends list and then get the rss for those journals. Then they can just be incorporated into my daily read... Anyone know of such a tool? (other than by hand :-p)

As for me:
Married life is good, although Carrie is currently rather unwell. We should have a couch coming today :)

I'm still at Wammux and we're now in the BSI building (formally IBMs UK headquarters) all the way up on the 15th floor so we get good views.

Not much more to say really, life is good, its trundling along well in a fairly quiet way.

Hope people are well.

Steak

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:59:57 GMT

I just had the most wonderful steak ever.

We were going to go to Dux in the Orlando Peabody hotel (it has ducks living in it) but the menu wasn't that great so we went to Carpaccio which is next door (also in the hotel). They did the most wonderful 24oz ribeye and Carrie had a perfectly cooked 12oz filet.
These were followed by dessert shooters - small desserts served in tall shot glasses.

So I am very full :)

Update:

Thu, 31 May 2007 03:40:22 GMT

So, am married :)

I'm also absolutely exhausted :(

Carrie does have her visa though and I've just had a lovely meal with my father.

Tomorrow we fly off to Orlando Florida (I don't know how I'll cope with the heat) to swim with dolphins and fishies.

We also have the wedding photos. The photographer took more than he has ever done before, and in half the time. He also sold us the rights to the photos so we have the copyright and can reproduce them as much as we like :)

Will post more fully when I have time... (including photos I'm sure)

Married

Tue, 29 May 2007 00:06:15 GMT

Carrie and I are married :)

Despite much chaos and panic beforehand, the wedding was wonderful (apart from people throwing away our wedding cakes).

We're still exhausted, and have to run around getting marriage certificates and visas and things before we go to Orlando to swim with dolphins and fish.

Litmus rocked

Fri, 11 May 2007 23:06:31 GMT

Inner City Unit sucked...

Litmus supporting Inner City Unit tonight. Litmus rocked. They're tighter than last time I saw them and the jamming was far far better. They suffer a bit from losing their keyboardist (leaving just one guy with boxes of tricks) but coped very well.
Songs from the first album and the new one were played, plus White Light/White Heat which was rather good.

On the otherhand, Inner City Unit were a shambles. They seemed to all be playing different songs most of the time. Nick Turner only played in the wrong key once I think, but the bass player couldn't play in time, the harmonica player was a bit of a limelight hog and the electronics appeared to be pretty much just random.
The guitarist was good, but he couldn't salvage it.

To be honest I wasn't too disappointed, I was there for Litmus. ICU were more a curiosity.

The good news is Martin informed us that Litmus are going into the studio to record another album soon and new songs are coming along quickly.

Happy Tax Freedom Day

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 10:14:13 GMT

Well, if you're American anyway.

Us poor Brits have another 32 days before we start working for ourselves and not Gordon Brown.

What's your Squid Quotient?

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:35:07 GMT

Find out here.

Mine is 136.75 which means I apparently have a fondness for squid.
Personally I think its because I read Bruce Schneier's blog.

With music like this you don't need to smoke anything

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:10:59 GMT

Black sun master
Under starless sky
Black stone alter
They pray to the sign
The old ones were
And they shall be again
Yog sothoth is the gate
Interplanetary alignment predicts their reign

Supercoven

Have awakened the ancient ones
Mindless slaves to the black god
Moan dark hymns to the sun
They watch from the sun
Since our lives had begun
They want us to be free
If only we could see
Yeah! Turn to the sun

SUPERCOVEN! (repeat until you are stoned)

Platform 9 3/4

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:48:16 GMT

I've been reading a discussion on how platform 9 3/4 and the Hogwarts Express work and how they fit in with the muggle world. Its got quite serious...

I love the Internet

moop

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:35:10 GMT

Carrie's on her way back to the US now.
For almost 3 months.

Its going to be strange, and difficult, having the flat to myself now (well, apart from the fish and ducks)

At least its not for that long, and at the end of it we're getting married and then we should not have any more of these extended periods apart :)

Still, its going to be hard...

Adam Ant at Number 1, Judas Priest at 2 and 4

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:59:09 GMT

Don't get too excited. Its the mobile ringtone charts from one provider.
Even so, Adam Ant is at number one, and Judas Priest are at 2 with British Steel and 4 with Painkiller.

The other providers have Take That and some other stuff I've never heard of but is surely that crap you hear kids listening to on their mobile without headphones...

Rings

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 09:25:35 GMT

We have the wedding rings :)
Got them on saturday, they're good (nice plain white gold)

ooh livejournal

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 10:09:28 GMT

Hmmm, Livejournal, how I forgot about you...

Will try and read it... perhaps incorporate the friends page into my RSS feeds...

Anyway, it resurfaced in my world through discovering Uncle Nemesis has a livejournal.

Now I'm really reminiscing about all those old bands, even Rosetta Stone. Perhaps one day I should get off my backside and go out somewhere...

The flexibility of the english language

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 12:28:43 GMT

Whilst I may not always agree with Devil's Kitchen, I do admire his versatility with the english language, most admirably displayed here where he espouses sentiments that I whole heartedly agree with-

Because Tony Blair is a raddled old whore of an unwashed and stinking minge; when he opens his mouth, the overpowering smell of dead meat and rancid cunt oozes from the very pores of his tongue; the hideous, fucking evil that riddles his soul finding physical manifestion in the rotting shitbreath of his putrid fuckhole face. What a hideous, chancre-covered, running-pus of a prick he is; what an awful, sodomisation-without-lube-by-a-large-gang-of-coloured-gentlemen-with-unfeasibly-thick-cocks kind of a person he is, the quinessence of a diseased ego and corrupted conscience.

(Yet another) Music quiz

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:39:23 GMT

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.

You're Avante Garde Indie. You listen to abstract music like free-jazz and Krautrock. You drink too much coffee and you scare the fuck out of the rest of us. We're afraid to call you pretentious because we know that we all just don't get it. There are few of you out there, and most of you will probably die soon.
Take this quiz!

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Join

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I don't know if I can be called pretentious, given I like some pop music and try to take the view of if you like some music then you like it, just don't expect me to like it (although of course, I am the very measure of good taste :-p)