Staying In
Posted: Wed 28 February, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Milton Keynes, News, People, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Today, I chose to stay home rather than driving in what was supposed to be terrible weather. I made the choice when I was about to leave for the office, and there was a significant amount of snow coming down, at which “Sod that!” became the decision. (This is also related to the fact that all roads from my place to work are uphill, and last time it was like this, the roads were paralysed because dickheads couldn’t drive up them safely)
As it turned out, the warnings – for this area, at least – were unfounded. I could have got in OK, and got home. We’re an exception to the rule, admittedly – but I would’ve been OK.
All the same, I’m glad I stayed home. I’m happier to have been here, rather than the regular checking for weather changes, and wondering whether I’d get home or not (with the news having been suitably hysterical about the entire thing all day) so all told it’s been a lot easier on the mind than doing the travelling.
I’ll almost certainly go in as usual tomorrow and Friday, although we’ll see what happens on each overnight, and re-assess based on that.
Planted
Posted: Wed 21 February, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Since moving to the new place, I haven’t had a garden – although that’s fine with me. What I do have is a small yard, which I’ve sorted and improved over the time I’ve been here. None of it is permanent – although some of it will likely stay as and when I move – and it’s been enough. I’ve got a number of pots with stuff in, some of which have lasted a fair time, and some of which have changed each year so far.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been changing over the things that didn’t work for me last year – some that actually worked too well, because they took up too much space, and some that just didn’t work out, didn’t grow, or didn’t suit what I wanted.
This time round I’ve got rid of things like the flowering redcurrant bushes that grew way too much, and the raspberries that didn’t grow at all. (That was more down to a mistake when I planted them – I didn’t also add in something round the edges, so the cats treated those two pots as pissoirs)
The redcurrants have been replaced by small salix willows, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they work out. I replaced the raspberries with new ones, and planted some supporting/cover stuff round the edges as well, which should deter the cats.
It’ll be good to see how these things all grow and work out, and then next year replace the stuff that hasn’t worked out this year. Always fun, always changing.
Married At First Sight
Posted: Mon 19 February, 2018 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, I Don't Understand, People, Television, Thoughts, Valentine's Day Leave a comment »Following on from Valentine’s Day, Channel 4 has a documentary series going about people who have allowed themselves to be paired up by scientists and specialists, signing up to meet on their wedding day. (It turns out that this is actually the third series of it in the UK – and the results on the previous two series haven’t been all that promising!)
They’ve done it with some run-up in order to do all the stuff like declarations of intent to marry, telling family and friends, and make all the preparations. So they get told that they’ve been paired up (and are now ‘engaged’) and then six weeks later they’ll meet for the first time and get married.
Thursday’s episode was the first one, and basically all the set-up and preparations. From there I assume it’ll be about the aftermath, and how they work out once the wedding is done.
Marriage is something that, to be honest, leaves me cold – it really hasn’t ever appealed to me at all, and it’s never been on the list of Things To Do. And so far, there’s never been anyone I’ve been with who’s changed that opinion, or made me think differently about it at all.
But I do still find it an interesting concept, and the whole arranged-marriage type thing, of seeing how people handle that and so on. Whether I continue watching the programme or not is a different matter, but for now it’s at least vaguely interesting. We’ll see.
Post-Valentine
Posted: Fri 16 February, 2018 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Marketing, Thoughts Leave a comment »As usual, I did absolutely sod-all for Valentine’s Day. (A revelation that comes as no shock at all to anyone who knows me)
However, I am glad it’s over and done with. To me, it’s the end of the really useless marketing cobblers for a while, all the materialistic shite about presents, cards, gifts and the like. Sure, there’ll still be useless marketing cobblers about other stuff – Easter, Holidays, Hallowe’en and whatever, but at least that’s all at a greatly reduced level than the shite that goes around the Festering Season and Valentines.
Onwards and upwards, and all that piss.
Writing Tools
Posted: Mon 12 February, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Geeky, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Write More, Writing Leave a comment »At the moment, I’m waiting for some new tech stuff to arrive, that will (hopefully) enable me to do more writing while I’m out and about.
All my current easily-portable tech is either too big (laptop-sized) or has a shitty on-screen keyboard, which is OK for small amounts of typing (email etc.) but bloody hateful when it comes to writing larger amounts of text.
Weirdly, two are keyboard/typing alternatives, and the other is a new device that I’m pretty excited about, and hopeful for.
The first of the keyboards is the WayBlade – what looks like a really nice keyboard, and I’d like to finally get my hands on it. However, as I ordered it three fucking years ago, I’m not holding my breath for it to finally arrive.
The second one is a typing device, rather than a keyboard. It’s the Tap, a wearable device that appears to use chording as a typing method. It’ll take a bit of learning, but I had a device back in the 80s (the Microwriter AgendA) that also used a chording keyboard, so it shouldn’t be too unfamiliar.
Both of those will be useful to have (assuming they actually arrive) regardless – well, it’d be nice to have one or the other, but knowing my luck, both will turn up within a couple of days of each other. But whichever one works best will stay, and be useful with the phone at least.
The final device though is a bit different. Way back when I wrote about writing tools before, I waxed lyrical about the old Psion devices, the 3a/mx, the Revo and the Siena, that were tiny devices with brilliant keyboards – and how it was surprising that there weren’t any similar things around currently.
And now, there’s a new device coming, the Gemini. They’ve obviously worked from the same kind of viewpoint I had, including partnering with the people who designed the Psion devices. They look really promising, and I hope it’ll be as good as it appears to be.
So hopefully, going on the evidence of preview reviews and so on, the Gemini might just turn out to be a decent replacement for most of the stuff I currently use the phone for. It’ll be interesting to find out, anyway.
Slightly Explodo
Posted: Fri 9 February, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Single Life Leave a comment »This week has been an oddly distrubed one in some ways, which has ended up meaning it’s all felt a bit disconnected and weird.
Back on Monday, I drove home from the on-site office feeling rough, heartburn-y and so on, which wasn’t overly pleasant. I assumed I’d had too much caffeine or something.
But no. As it turned out, it was the start of a fairly unpleasant dose of food poisoning (so far as I can tell) By seven I was sweating and knew I was unwell, and by half seven I’d barfed my stomach out. Still rough, I went back downstairs, and basically passed out – which has happened before when I’m seriously unwell, so that in itself isn’t a massive concern. (It’s still not great, don’t get me wrong – but it’s not a “fuck, I need to get to the hospital” type of event like it might be elsewhere) I didn’t come round in a good state at all (and I’m not giving the details on that one, don’t worry) and still shivering and feeling rotten. By half nine I was in bed, and didn’t get up ’til eight the next day. To be honest, that’s always the biggest sign for me that I’ve been really bad, when I ended up sleeping like that.
Since then, I’ve been on the mend. Tuesday was pretty much a write-off, although I did get some stuff done, appointments fulfilled and so on, but didn’t go to the cinema screening I had booked for the evening. The rest of the week has been a bit calmer as a result, and I still don’t feel 100%, but I’m a lot closer to it than I was at the start of the week…