New Year Murder

Did a murder mystery party tonight. This is where we all get togther and act as criminals for the evening. The murder was vampire themed, and I played the dodgy butler to the "old master". The whole thing was internet driven, which turned out to work very well. It is the first time I've actually done it this way, but the way that the system set up a web site and managed the invites to the guests was rather impressive. Take a look here if you want to have a go.

Earlier in the day Jeremy came to see us. I've not seen him for 18 years or so (seem to be meeting people from the past that the moment). It was nice to see him after all this time. We showed him our pinball table and he told us about the Porshe that he has just bought. I guess the mid-life thing hits different people in different ways....

Holiday Marking

Spent today holed up with a bunch of exam scripts for company. I found a seat near the window where it is a bit cold, just to keep me awake, and set to. The good news is that on the whole the marks are pretty good. The bad news is that I have had to spend the day finding this out.

Brrrrrr

Very cold today. I got this window thermometer thing for christmas and it lets me read the temperature outside. Minus four at the moment, which for this part of the world is quite cold.

I've decided that I'm bored with the cold. It was quite cute at first, seeing frozen duckponds in villages, and white snow and stuff all over the place. But now it is getting in the way a bit and I'd like to have the warm bits back. Now.

Number of the Beast

The number of posts that I've made on blogger is now at 666. Scary eh?

Except that now it isn't.

Successful Piracy

We went over to see Geoff and Anetta tonight. Geoff had a new game which was kind of piraty. It is beautifully presented in a wooden chest, with lovely ship pieces, heavy money and a cloth pirate map to play on. The game involves shivering timbers, becoming a dread pirate, and skirmishing for gold and diamonds. Number one daughter and I teamed up to take on the others on the high seas.

Half an hour in and things were not well on board. We were down to our last doubloon and fighting for our very survival. However, survive we did, and a little while later we came out the winners. I love that game.

Day of Dire Driving

Drove back today. Well, I say drove. More like crawled. The roads were packed. The roads were wet. The roads were slippery. It took us a shade under 8 hours to get back, which is a long time to spend in a tin box, however shiny. We did stop off to see family, and take on provisions, but even so it was not a fun trip. By the end the weather was throwing everything it could in our direction, as was a passing gritting lorry (I hope that part of the car is still shiny).

We stopped for a bite to eat and got another nice sunset.



Literally five minutes after this shot was taken you couldn't see in that direction at all for a snowstorm. But while it lasted the sunset did provide a nice light:



Finally we made it back to our little house and collapsed into bed.

Off the Map and into the groove

On Boxing Day it was back into the shiny car (now considerably muckier) and off to visit Bridget and Lassa (who've I've probably just mortally offended by spelling their names wrong). I've known Bridget since I was three (although I've no actual memory of that meeting) but not seen her and family for about 20 years. They now live a stones throw from Cheddar Gorge in a splendid, 500 year old house. Actually, their place is very easy to find. Just drive towards Cheddar until your GPS goes bonkers, then turn left and stop.

Margot took us all out for a meal in the evening, which was splendid. Everyone had cameras and picture phone and was snapping away. I took pictures of the food.



At the meal Lassa and I had a discussion about our "proper" ages. We both agreed that physical age is one thing, but actually you have a proper age, which is the age you really are. I decided that I am really 12 years old, obsessed with toys and essentially a big kid. Lassa reckoned that he was around 18, which makes him broadly similar but with a slightly different outlook, hem hem. We asked number one wife and she said she was 21. I've been going out with an older woman for all these years. Gosh.

Then it was back to the house for some Playstation Songstar stuff, where you sing along with a tune and the clever software marks your singing out of ten. I am not a great singer (unless you spell it grate) but I did managed to out sing my father, which cheered me up no end. Then number one wife out sang me. Great fun. And so to bed.

Ho Ho Ho for Christmas

Got up at a very pleasant 8:00 am. I think the kids are a bit less excited about christmas than in their younger years, where 3:00 am was more the norm. Cup of tea and then presents. This year we all had stockings:



Then it was on to the bigger stuff. I got PDA watch which is rather cool. If only I could read the screen. And a calendar which will make for 12 happy months (especially if I leave it on January all year)



Then it was time for lunch.



Do you feel lucky?

Rodney got this in his cracker. The jury is still out on what it is.



Then we went out for a post prandial perambulation.



Pity it was shut.

Christmas Eve Driving

And so to the motorway. We all managed to fit into the shiny new car without to much difficulty, which was a relief. I'd hate to have had to leave one of the kids behind if there wasn't enough room for the gadgets.

The motorway was fairly quiet. Driving the family is much more fun now. No more arguments over what music to play. Everyone just puts on their headphones, plugs themselves in and leaves me to get on with it. Got to our destination in time for a nice sunset:

"Working From Home"

Working from home today. This means that I get to provide the heating, computers, electricity and networking bandwidth that I normally get in the office for free. And the tea too. The good news is that I can take breaks when I want and play really load music (although the kids do tend to complain a bit).

I've taken a little time off working to pack up for our trip away. We are spending Christmas away with the inlaws so I have to prepare properly. Around an hour or so selecting gadgets, finding power supplies, packing leads and so on. Plus five minutes for clothes and everything else. We are taking all our christmas presents as well. I just hope that the shiny new car is big enough.

Upgruntled

I've invented a new word today. Upgruntled. It is the word that describes the feeling of a gadget lover when they find that one of their pride and joy gadgets has been superceeded by a new model and is therefore no longer the one to have. My lovely Fuji FinePix F1o has now been upgraded to the F11. The new one looks exactly the same (apart from the name). It probably produces identical pictures, although it has some new fangled picture modes. And my F10 is still brilliant.

But I still feel upgruntled.

Dodgy Moon

Dug out my moon picure today. Not too bad, but then again it could be a hole in a piece of card.....

Bradford Bound

Number one son and I toddled off to Bradford today to visit our chums at Matrix Multimedia. We are doing some stuff with them which is great fun (but we mustn't let them find out that we enjoy doing it or they'll cut our rates).

Anyhoo, the meeting went well and on the way back I persuaded number one son to take some pictures out of the car window:

You do get some nice skies at this time of the year.

Stealth Jokes

I like stealth jokes. These are the ones you can slip under the humour radar without anyone noticing. We were talking about ET in coffee (I forget why). I asked Derek what ET was short for. The answer is, of course, because he only has little legs. Nobody noticed the joke for a while. And then when they did they wished they hadn't.

Weak Minded and Strong Meetings

We all went shopping today. I feel bad about the fact that I bought a new toy, but it is very nice and replaces an old one. I'm going to put a review of the new device onto the TinyThings site as a service to gadget lovers everywhere. I'll put a link up there later. I make all these resolutions not to buy anything silly and then I find that they have one in stock and it looks really neat and will change my life and then..... Ho hum. At least I don't drink or smoke.

We had lunch at an "all you can eat" chinese place in the middle of Hull which was really nice. Get a bit of everything, find out what you like and then go back and get a plate full of it. And they had jelly. The only sad thing about the trip was that the middle of Hull was looking super duper and I had forgotten my camera.

Then back to work for a quick meeting. I've long known the secret of meeting success. You must make sure that everything that you talk about doing is written down and assigned to people who are going to do it. Then you can review the progress at the next meeting. Sounds simple but not everyone does it.

Stupid Printer

Needed some printing in a hurry this morning. Stupid printer wouldn't work. Didn't work last week either, so I wasn't able to print out my maps to Doncaster (as if I'd forget where it is). I was in the middle of a good cursing session when I noticed the printer cable dangling down the side of the desk. A couple of weeks ago I unplugged the printer for some reason, and I hadn't plugged it back in.

Still think it is a stupid printer though, it should have told me that it wasn't plugged in.

Cars as Ornaments

Washed the car today. It is now properly shiny and I daren't drive it anywhere.

Happy Family

We now have all the family under one roof for christmas. The network is running slow for me and all the milk has vanished from the fridge.

Big Moon

Apparently the moon is very big at the moment. I've noticed this. I've also tried to photograph it. Unfortunately cameras are not very good at capturing things like the moon in a dark sky, and so what I ended up with could have been quite easily replicated using a piece of card with a hole in it. Apparently I'll have to wait another 18 years for another chance. Oh well.

Little known facts about the moon: Number one and only:

The combined width of three matchsticks held at arm's length will more than cover the moon in the sky.

Meal Out and Marking

It was the departmental christmas lunch today. Good food, good conversation (I didn't say much) and a good time was had by all. Then I went back to my office and did some marking. Who says I don't know how to have a good time?

Filthy Car Blues

My shiny new car is filthy. Really filthy. We did some country driving yesterday and now the poor thing is wearing big chunks of the land. Looks like I'm going to have to wash it again. I always wash cars by hand. I've never been keen on automatic car washes since a memorable occasion a while back with a previous car when the carwash removed a radio antenna, scratched all the paint and then hot waxed the windscreen. So I shall be out with the bucket and sponge again soon.

One place nearby has a car wash where you can use a squirty thing to cover your car with foam and then rinse it off. That looks kind of fun, but I'd be worried about the thing cutting out when I was half way through the wash. The only thing worse than a dirty car would we one which is half clean I reckon. It might even affect the handling.

tree test

tree test
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Christmas Shopping

Took a day off work today and went christmas shopping with number one wife. (incidently, a few people have told me that they think refering to my "signficant other" as number one wife is not the done thing. I can't see a problem with it myself. And she calls me "husband zero".)

Anyhoo, we went to Leeds so that I could buy some clothes that fit me. Apparently my wardrobe is in need of replenishment as the corners have worn off some of my shirts. I don't know; you buy these things and then, after only five years or so, they become unfit for public display. Once I was sorted it was off to look at ladies clothes for a while.

Now, some things I can be counted on to have a strong opinion about. Ask me what I feel about C# versus Java and you will be rewarded with a well structured and closely reasoned description of the advantages the former has over the latter. For three hours. Show me two items of womens clothing and ask me which is nicer however and things get more tricky. I have had considerable experience of dealing with the dread question "Which do you prefer?" but only have one peal of wisdom to impart:

If a women asks you "Which do you prefer?" she is not actually asking you which you prefer, instead she is asking you to deduce which one that she prefers and then say that one. Except sometimes, when she hates them both and is only asking you the question for callibration purposes....

But they did have some nice christmas trees in Leeds:

Got My Screws, and a Tasteful Friend

Got my screws today. The man at Staples was very helpful. So we bought some staples while we were there too.

Just what you want

Then I went round to see Chris about problems with a computer (pesky spyware). It seems that he does not have the same inhibitions re christmas lights on his house as I do....

Loose Screws

Where would we be without screws? I'm not sure who invented them. Perhaps the person who invented nails was looking for a good follow up when they saw a spiral staircase and the rest is history. I don't think that even Google knows how they came about. And also, the Google spell checker still doesnt' recognise "Google". Very strange.

Anyway, screws are jolly useful and you'd definitely know if they weren't there. Like they weren't for me today. I bought a new chair for the office and got all the bits. Except the screws. Wah! I had the plans, the right screwdriver, all the fittings, but nothing to hold them together. The chair is now a forlorn pile in the middle of the room and I've got to try and track down some replacement bits. Such is life.

And finally, questions of etiquette. Does a piece of cheese and a Snickers bar count as a two course meal? If so, which course do you eat first?

Daring Driving and Meeting Levity

Drove to Doncaster for a meeting today. It was foggy. And the world is full of idiots. I wanted to drive at a safe speed, i.e. appropriate to the conditions. The idiots around me wanted to go faster and kept whizzing past me into the thickening mist. I was therefore forced to the conclusion that I had to drive the same insane speed as all the mad people just to avoid them crashing into me. There is probably a metaphor here somewhere. I'm just glad nothing untoward happened, otherwise I'd be starring in a traffic report about now.

On a digression, the terms they use when crashes happen always strike me as strange. They say things like "..the car went out of control..." which implies that the car has a will of its own and decided to head for the nearest tree or "...the driver lost control..." which is even more odd and makes me think of the driver going "...is it in my wallet?, or perhaps on the sideboard? I'm sure that I had control here a minute ago..." just before they pile into the river. What all these euphemisms usually add up to is "the driver did something stupid" but I guess this doesn't read as well on the reports and can lead to litigation.

Anyhoo, thanks to my satnav I arrived near enough on time, and in one piece. The meeting was already deep in intense discussion when I entered and lots of earnest discussion was in progress. At one point a bunch of reports were dished out and everyone was saying things like "I've got the Business School Report, can you pass me Integrated Technology?". I like to think that I lightened the atmosphere by asking for Mr. Bun the Baker.

Increase your word power

We all went out for a meal tonight. I asked Jackie to have the Beef Stroganoff because the menu said it came with a "Timbale of Rice" and I wanted to find out what that looked like. I think it is latin for "cup full" or something. Anyhoo, the meal, conversation and wine were excellent. Ian and Jackie are moving away soon, and so we only have a few months to work our way through the rest of the strange words on the menu.

I'm up for it....

Nothing Therapy

Not had a cold for ages. This week I've been finding out what I've been missing. I woke up this morning feeling awful and number one wife just about stapled me into the bed to stop me from going to work. There is something very restful about being forced to do nothing of consequence for a while. I suppose this is what holidays and weekends are for, but they never seem to work out that way in our neck of the woods. I've spent half the day in bed and the other half footling around, doing nothing of any great importance and keeping warm.

And I feel much better.

Scrapyard Coding

One of my must watch TV programs recently has been Scrapheap Challenge (stateside it is called Junkyard Wars). Anyhoo, a bunch of engineers are given an impossible task (for example build a man powered airplane in a couple of days) and then turned loose. The results are always amazing, especially if it all goes wrong. My personal favourite was when they had to build a device to throw a Mini car as far as possible. One team made a trebuchet (a kind of catapult) which flew apart in the throwing action in a most impressive way.

I was wondering if you couldn't do something similar with programming. A team of coders is given something to produce, say an invoicing system, and then sent out into a software scrapyard to grab the bits and bobs that they need to finish the job. The commentary would be great:

"And that's a terrific start for Team Hardcoders, that disused COBOL print formatting routine will make a fantastic interface to the barrel printer that they found earlier. But what's this? The other team seem to have discovered a stash of unused GOTO statements amongst a pile of punched cards. Noooooooooo!"

Boom Boom!

I was telling number one wife about a new film, "Mrs. Henderson Entertains". It is all about the first "erotic revue" which opened in London around the time of the Second World War. The revue exploited a loophole in the law which meant that it was OK to strip for the stage - as long as you remained completely still. The film stars Judy Dench and pop idol Will Young, who at one point has to get his kit off to persuade the girls to join in.

Number one wife was intrigued. "When is it out?" she asked.

"About half way through" I replied.

Christmas Lights Dilemma

I was out washing the car this morning. Aileen next door shouted over "Already this year?" - so I offered to hold her ladder while she fell of it. The neighbours are putting up christmas lights. Both sides now have pretty, flickering displays. The only lights we have are the ones which show through when the curtains aren't closed properly.

Anyhoo, the question is do I join the throng and add to the light pollution, or do I maintain my lofty disdain for such frippery - a stance which has been described as "humbug". A couple of years ago I managed a very poor display of old stock, which totally failed to set the neighbourhood alight, and so I'm nervous about making the same mistake again. Perhaps I'll see if anyone at the university has any spare lasers....

Open Day 360

We had our first open day of the admissions season today. I took my shiny new XBOX 360 (acquired yesterday after only standing for an hour in the rain) to show the folks that turned up. Well, we do run a games programming course.

Easy Mode

I was playing "Everybody's Golf" on the PSP when it suddenly said (in so many words)

"If you like, I can change to Easy mode. This will not affect your scores, but will make it easier to play"

Basically the game had decided I was not very good at it and offered to make things easier for me. At first I was annoyed but it did make it easier to play the game after that. However, I've since decided that I like the idea. In fact I like it so much that I want one for real life.

Perhaps one morning I could hear a ghostly voice which says "You don't seem to be doing too well. Do you want me to change to easy mode". After I have said yes the phone rings and it is Charlotte Church wanting help wth her new video and a envelope with my premium bonds winnings drops through the letter box onto the mat. I could live with that.

J'accuse

As part of the New Year Celebrations this year we invited a bunch of folks round to take part in a murder mystery game thing this evening. The whole thing had a vampire theme and I was the sinister butler of the "old master". Great fun.

The whole thing was run off the internet, you slap them some money using Paypal and then you get to manage a web site for the party, email invitations and instructions and get access to all the customised player instructions for download and print. You can find out more here.

University Dean in Tabloid Magazine Shock Horror

Went to see the dean today. I was waiting outside his office when my eyes fell on the magazines arrayed for his appointments to peruse prior to being ushered into his presence.

I suppose he gets it so that he can make sure he isn't being featured that week. Mind you, it was the one with Jordan's wedding in....