Well now it looks like my computer is really fuxx0red. If you need to contact me, email won't be working until I fix it. Try other methods.
Something strange going on with my computer at home. Getting all sorts of weird errors on the IDE bus. Looks like I'm gonna have to strip out all my drives and test each one to work out what the problem is.
That means no email until I get it fixed, since some pricks took the backup machine. If you need to contact me, use other means.
Email is working again, so you can contact me that way again if you need to.
Wow it's a been a busy weekend. Last night we, on the spur of the moment, went to Soxan in Whitechapel which was excellent. It was really really good, with excellent music and, here's the amazing combination in London, a really great crowd out for a good time. Had a brilliant time.
Today we had Holly and Matt's birthday party. Great day in an excellent pub, the Grand Union in Maida Vale. Excellent food and great company. Photos are here.
The sun is out and it's lovely! After the usual long and dreary London Winter, the spring has finally arrived. The trees are blooming, daffodils are breaking through the grass and our basil, chive and dill window boxes have finally sprouted.
Holly and I went for a little ride around our local area, checking out the local parks. They're quite lovely, actually, and even have hills! You can see the photos here.
We got broken into on Monday night and a heap of our stuff was stolen. They broke in while we were out for only 35-40 minutes and my guess is that they had a key because they knew they could get in and were watching us.
Fortunately they didn't steal much that was totally irreplacable, apart from the photos on the film in one of the cameras and a couple of months' emails on my craptop. They have, however, decimated my DVD collection, the Kevin Smith collection particularly hurts. I think I'll stick to the vastly cheaper downloaded DivX to get my collection back.
Bring back hanging, I say!
Yesterday I joined up to our local library. It's been years since I've belonged to a library. Probably the last one was the university library just after high school. I'd forgotten what glorious places they are and how much time I'd spent in my school years inside the things.
Libraries have come a long way since my last visit. I guess they've had to compete with the Internet for their core research usages, no longer being the only place to easily find authoritative information. In fact, most libraries can probably only give a certain type of source: authoritative, well-researched and biased in a specific, officialish, way. The Internet, on the other hand, gives a broad range of views, from the lunatic fringe to the conservative and sober.
But this library has got with the times. it's open seven days a week, has Internet access, DVD and CD hire and a comfortable atmosphere. I'm impressed!
Most importantly, this will save me a fortune in books. I've been exclusively buying books for the last decade or so, so this should make things a bit cheaper. Course I'll still end up buying the latest cyberpunk sci-fi novels, but for more run-of-the-mill stuff, it should be good.
Right now, I'm reading about the Spanish Civil War.
Well the days are getting longer and it's getting warmer. The daffodils have been poking through the last few weeks. It's quite amazing where they come through, mostly they're not planted but just poke through grass lawns and verges. They're everywhere! Blossoms are also appearing on some of the earlier flowering trees. Wahoo!
The change in temperature has been quite dramatic. A couple of weeks ago it was absolutely freezing. Riding my bike to work in the mornings, my ears would really ache from the cold wind whizzing past. Now it's getting so warm that I get to work all sweaty and I've started sometimes swapping my skiing gloves for my half-finger cycling gloves on the warmer days.
Bring on the Spring, I say! I have lots of plans for this Summer and can't wait.
We moved house over the weekend. The new place is fantastic: large, bright, airy and clean. We chose the place for those reasons. There's one rather major problem though: the central heating doesn't work. Ack!
Those of you back in Sydney might not realise quite what a problem this is, so I'll just point to the weather forecast. Note it's going to be -4 degrees on Friday. Big problem.
Fortunately there is a heater in the lounge room, so we've spent our first two nights on the sofa bed. Not ideal but at least we don't freeze! The landlord is sending a plumber around today. Good thing too.
So we're moved in. Enjoying the new place and having our own pad.
Well it took a bit of hassling get everything right but we now have our flat all kitted out. Yay! Considering it's going to be -4 degrees tonight, I'm pretty glad we've got the heating going.
We've had some problems with our landlord. The heating, hot water and shower were all broken when we moved in. The agent for the landlord who handles maintenance has been incredibly rude and uninformative. Fortunately she is efficient at least and it's all now fixed. The problem with renting in this country is that all your rights are basically tort law. If it's in the contract, you have the right. If you want to enforce it, you have to take the landlord to court. Unhelpful.
Regardless, the moral of the story is to put everything in writing, which is what we'll be doing for all future communications with the lovely Linda.
So the flat is all set up. We have a nice big lounge room. The phone was connected yesterday, though ADSL will is still a bit away. Last night we put up a bunch of our posters, turning the horrible watercolour prints in the landlord's frames around and putting ours over the top. Very nice! The Critical Mass tenth birthday posters Gabe gave me look very nice.