Triangle Walks | Video

Triangle Walks | Video

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Showdown

Who knew but there is an ISO standard list for currency codes.

Most Dangerous foods....

According to Time Magazine Hot dogs are pretty dangerous to Children under 10, however my personal favorite is leef greens. Despite whate vegitarians preech that only meet contains harmful bacteria and viri leaf greens can give you Nirovirus, E Coli and salmonella, though this is only is improperly handeled or stored.

More from Big Brother

Who knew that DEFRA supported such projects of Wythenshawe FM? The Register has a story about how DEFRA spent £8m over two years to civic society groups if they spread the correct message about Global Warming.

Halcyon

Dropped Kath off at the airport this morning. It had decided to snow overnight, I opened the door at 5 this morning to see the road [and the car] covered in snow. At times like this I wish Kath could fly from Manchester rather than Liverpool. It was still snowing as we drove the M56 was terrible, especially past the M6 junction snow covered all the carriageways.
Her flight was at 7.05, fortunately we had done the web check in the night before and her flight was slightly delayed otherwise would have missed it. I tried the M62 on the way back. The road surface was slightly better but it was still murder.

We have had a great few days together, Kath arrived on Thursday. We went round to my parents to say hello and take Storm for a Walk. In the evening we had a meal at my house,

Friday we went out and did some shopping, and had a walk around Stockport. Martin and Charlotte had invited us and Mark and Joe round for a meal. Charlotte cooked white fish wrapped in bacon, which sounded a bit of an odd choice but was really tasty. There were multifarious conversation as we went from Religion to Marriage, Martin and Charlotte Married life, Joe and Mark's upcoming wedding. Mark Martin and I had a good laugh about Slayradio, and geeky stuff. Everyone was nice lovely to Kath, she told me that she really felt at home, especially when Martin said she was one of the family.

Yesterday we had a lazy day at home, though I did have a few tasks to do. The weather was good so I washed the car, and in doing so realised one of my drains was blocked. Fortunately I was able to clear it myself though the smell was something else. After cleaning we had a quick trip into Wilmslow for some shopping, we went to Waitrose and bought some nice things for lunch. After that we spent the afternoon enjoying each others company. I made Chilli for dinner with chorizo, it was really tasty, as was the wine Kath chose to go with it. After dinner we had a cuddle on the sofa, was great just to be together.

Kath just phoned me from the plain, they haven't left the UK yet, still sat at Liverpool airport waiting for a takeoff slot, it may be some time. I heard on the news that Manchester airport has one runway closed due to the snow.

Spirit

:)

I sent Kath some flowers for Valentines day, the florist did a great job and she was really pleased.

In the Backseat

Managed to not get much done today. Had a nice chat with Kath via skype, paid some bills and ironed my shirts.
I went shopping to Waitroise, I love their essentials, a bit more expensive than Tesco or Sainsburys essentials stuff, and good quality, so great value for the money. I did also manage to go to Sainsburys, got my recycling done there. I also got t witness the power of Advertising; I bought some beer, took me a while to decide which offer was the best. They had a box of 12 330ml bottle for £13.68 which works out a £3.45/ltr, then there was an offer on two packs of 4 330ml bottles for £8, which comes in at £3.30/ltr (though the price per litre wasn't marked had to use the calculator on the Blackberry). Finally they had £ 2.09/bottle which was the cheapest option at £3.17/ltr. Cunningly they omitted the price per litre from the offer and on some of the items they marked the price per pint making it very difficult to compare.

My parents invited me for dinner at their house, they made beef bourguignon it was delicious. After dinner we sat and had a nice chat by the fire. I miss the fireplace, there is nothing quite like an open fire on a cold winters day.

This evening I went round to see Chief, he is preparing to move out of his apartment in Manchester to join his girlfriend in London. Its the end of an era really all the happy nights playing Wii with them, and partying at Abito. We had a chat drank some tea, he has got himself an IPhone and I showed him the awesome Remote app to control Itunes from his Iphone. I also managed to get his flip camera videos working on his Mac book.

Driving home I felt a sense of loss, someone else moving away unless things change for me I don't imagine very many London trips, not on the current budget anyway. Feel a bit depressed this week, work has been awful, and no end in sight, anyone know of any programming roles give me a shout.

Mega Shark versus physics

I love the humours appliance of science, so I simply love this infographic. While not quite as fast as Thrust SSC's 1228 km/h Mega shark would have needed to reach just over 700 km/h to gain the height necessary to take out a plain.

Love cats

I used to think it was a pain that there are no direct flights from Manchester Airport to Warsaw, maybe its not so bad after all. Given that aircraft controllers have had to change procedures after not one but two collisions by aircraft while Taxiing.

Fortunately Kath will arrive to Liverpool Airport where hopefully the air traffic controllers can direct the traffic. Only a week now I cant wait to see her. Martin and Charlotte have invited us for dinner next Friday, which should be a nice evening out. I think Endo and Jo will be there too so it will be a nice opportunity for them to meet Kath.

It will be nice for me to get out too, I haven't been getting out very often. A lack of money, and time seems to leave me mostly home watching TV. I really need to start looking for a lodger to help cover some of the bills, or a raise.

Kaboom

Coast Guard footage shows a massive plume of water rising out of the sea on Wednesday, near the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

Blackstar

After nearly 7 years of blogging it looks like I am going to have to find a new home for Cookies world. Google/Blogger have decided to shut down ftp publishing of blogs. That leaves me having to relocate to Google servers, or migrate to one of the many other blogging products like Wordpress or Joomla which I can host myself.

Sweet disposition

I was reading the Daily WTF earlier today and found this story. It is quite interesting for any who programs, a lot of the comments are based on the premise the the coder didn't seem to know about else if or switch. In Business Basic the terrible old language I am forced to use there is no else if or switch case, so tricks like this are unnervingly common!

Last night I met up with Nick, Gilly, Ian and Bruce, we went to the John Millington for drink. We didn't stay there long though after 10 minutes stood being ignored at the bar we decided to decamp to the Governors house for a few drinks. Managed to get served quickly there, though the Neil Diamond impersonator wasn't doing much for the atmosphere, we did however manage to bad a table near the back.

Nick left round closing time giving us a lift into Bramhall to continue drinking at Beluga then Nappa. It was pretty dead but we had a goo old chat about life the universe and everything else inebriated people talk about.

I felt awful this morning, nights out with Ian and Gilly do that. I looked out of the window to find everywhere covered in Snow. I tried to pull myself together as my dad was coming round to help me finish the spare room. Just got the curtains to hang up.

I had to pick up something from my parents, they were out but Storm was crazy so I took him out for a walk. It was really clear and cold playing catch, we both enjoyed it. Afterwards I went and rejoined total fitness. They had a promotion 14 months for £345, which seemed like a great deal to me. I went swimming and sitting in the sauna finally cured my hangover.

I got home and made myself tuna steak with a baked potato, asparagus and salad. I even made a lemon chilli drizzle to go on it and I am proud to say I even impressed myself. I sent Kath a picture (she likes to make sure I am not just eating junk food) and she was really impressed. It is amazing really I never much cooked for myself when I was living with my parents, but I have found there are loads of healthy, tasty things that can be made really quickly.

Safe from harm

I always wondered why it took GPS devices so long to acquire a signal given a clear sky, maybe it has something to do with the extremely poor definition of the protocol as described here I was speechless :|

I miss Kath, evenings feel empty without her around and its not a nice eating alone. Fortunately last night Martina came round to keep me company. I tried to make Spiced rice with prawns [NB without the bacon as Martina is a vegetarian]. It turned out pretty tasty though I think we ended up putting in too much curry paste so ended up more like a Chinese / Indian fusion food.

After dinner we had a chat and a catch up, she told me about her trip to Scotland and her recent relationship. I told her about Kath's new job and moaned about mine.

This evening I went to B&Q with my dad to get the 10% discount on a few bits I needed. I havent really done any decorating since moving in, working and day to day life seem to eat all my spare time. Saying that I have spent the last few hours watching Pulp Fiction. I really love this film, its clever well acted well scripted pretty much everything I could ever want in a film. I cant believe it was released in 94 I doubt Avatar will be anything more than a curio in 16 years.

If I Had a Heart

Following last nights shenanigans I had a very lazy morning basically not moving from my bed until afternoon. To compensate when I finally got my act together I decided to do some cleaning and get the kitchen a good going over. Stainless steel looks great when its clean, not so good covered in dirty marks!

Spoke to Jo, he was asking me some advice on ow to get his tv working post digital switchover. I found him a cable to fix up his old NTL box upstairs. He and Holly were taking a trip to Ikea which was great for me as I was able to get them to pick me up a laundry basket and a side table.

I went round to Bruces this evening, we upgraded the Server room to the latest version of ISPcp. It went fairly painlessly except for one heart stopping moment where the upgrade failed. Fortunately we were able to work out that in editing one of the files I had inserted a misspelling which stopped Apache from restarting. It is now all up and running.

I got the train to Manchester to go to the desperately seeking Alex event. I did not know what to expect, it promised fabulous evening of poetry performances and open mic, musicians, burlesque dancers, classical quartet.

I arrived to find a very packed green room, having missed the string quartet in time for the poetry reading / open mic. I found some of the poetry hard going, I can appreciate the clever writing, but some of its was a bit too arty for me, I suppose that I am just a philistine.

I stood and had a chat to a few people including Holly back from her backpacking adventures. Unfortunately it transpired one of her friends contracted Dehghi fever which had rather coloured the last part of her trip. Hopefully her friend will recover soon and then I suppose the she can focus more on the good memories.

Paul, Righni, Jo and Ian were to play with a Gypsy's playground revival gig as part of the show. Paul looked very tense as they were getting ready, and sounded surprisingly nervous talking to the crowd. Fortunately as they kicked into a version of old school which was awesome. They also played another funky number, which I didn't get the name of but was good.

While it was all in a good cause we felt hot and crowded so we decided to move on to another bar. Paul, Ian, Myself Dave, Claire, Paul Righini, Danny and Nick headed to Space. We sat and had a couple of drinks before heading to the the Bridge. Nick gave us a lift there before heading off home.

After warming up in the Bridge we headed to Mojo by which time I was already feeling a little drunk. Someone had the idea to move to corridor which we did, it was nearly empty, I think we were going to leave but Dan had already bought a drink and got a bit stressed. So we stayed had a few more drinks before finally getting a cab home. The cab ride was amusing we were one too many so Woller sat on the floor trying to look inconspicuous!

Serenity

Since starting the new year work has been crazy. I feel like I just spend my life fighting fires, figuratively speaking. I feel like I am lost at sea most of the time, no matter how hard I work there is always something else, some shifting priority or new task, I just feel tired and de motivated. Due a general lack of foresight I ended up having to work well into the evening several night this week which was especially annoying tonight as I had arranged to meet up with Ian, Paul and Dan for a quiet drink.

I did manage to get out of the house on time just to pick up Ian and Paul just after 9. After wishing each other a happy new year we crawled through the ice to Bramhall where Dan was waiting.

We had a sit and a chat, Dan was telling us about his new romantic interest. Paul told me an interesting story along the 7 degrees of separation scenario. The previous boy friend to my ex girlfriend Jenny, was Robert Bud. He also used to go out with Paul's sister and is now married to the first girl Ian kissed (which ironically was in Paul's house about the same time he would have been going out with Louise!

We also got to talking about holidays and raised the potential for a boys excursion to Amsterdam. Sounds like fun, just no Pedalo adventures after Ian's experience I would give that one a miss.

Dan was in a very boisterous mood pleased about his new relationship, upcoming kitchen installation, and impending bonus. It did feel a little like his exuberance was spilling into arrogance though, and I don't think Paul was impressed with the number of digs he made at him, I do think sometimes he goes too far, I was really getting worried when he broke into a rant about the life Paul is lead. I think that he doesn't realise how angry Paul was getting, empathy is not one of his strong points.

Overall it was a nice evening, I enjoy their company and our meet ups seem to be fewer and farther between. Fortunately tomorrow we are going to Manchester, Gyspys Playground at playing at the Desperately seeking Alex event so I'll watch that then go for a few drinks.