General

Why do I blog?

I love this, Frank Paynter’s collection of responses to Why do You Blog? I’ve been thinking about that as well, although with more of Who am I Blogging To twist to the question. And this survey definitely clarified where my head to at, in that it’s not who but why. For me, I’ve decided I […]

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life

The Ultimate Films

Over the weekend, caught a fair bit of Channel 4’s The Ultimate Film Top 100 Movies. Plenty of good clips and some surprising films. This was based on actual box office numbers and showed the high cinema attendence in the ’30’s and ’40’s. Of the top 10, I’ve only seen one of them at the […]

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technology

Zen Portable Media Centre

Downloaded my mp3s/podcasts this morning to load them up for the commute. Got 2 minutes down the road and it just stopped. Looked at it and it was displaying a pretty generic, non-language based error screen that basically told me that the hard drive is shot, put it in it’s box and take it back […]

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technology

Apple Store

I wandered down to the new Apple Store on Regents St at lunch time on Friday. I was strangely underwhelmed by it for some reason. I’ve never used a Mac and don’t have an iPod, so the first thing I did was walk round trying all the stuff. The layout is great, with plenty of […]

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life

Blogs and Spam

Reading the UK Blogs Aggegator there seems to be a fair number of people trying to get to grips with spam, like BigBabbleBlog, More a way of Life and Nik’s Journal. This blog was only up for 24 hours before being hit by lovely gambling spam. Took a few attempts to understand the implementation of […]

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life

Weekend

Spent the weekend just doing stuff. Tidying the house, packing things away in boxes, just general sorting. I spent a fair bit of the weekend getting the family history files up-to-date ready for the next assault on the Family Records Office. Whilst I get some lines back to about 1560, I need to focus on […]

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life

Champagne

I had a few things to say today, about my first attempt to follow the rules for a positive day and my wander round the corner at lunchtime to the new Apple store…but I’m afraid the staff bar, good gossip and 2 bottles of champagne have put paid to that. Tomorrow.

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work

Suits

I put in a little people watching whilst sitting in the lounge at Edinburgh airport tonight. The predominate occupant was male and in a dark suit. Realised how unusual that is in our office, where casual clothes are the norm and if someone does turn up in a suit they are either presenting in front […]

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work

The Power of a Positive Attitide

A day off work…hooray! Sort of. Spent today at a a seminar up in Edinburgh, put on by the IMS Scotland, by a motivational speaker called Ed Foreman. It was all about having a positive attitude and how this can improve your life. This was booked for me by my previous boss last January…no consultation […]

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work

Long hours again

A new project is happening and I spent most of the day on phone calls. Only really got to produce something concreate after normal hours – and then had to write up a lot of today’s calls. I’m waiting for Thursday and Friday now – the US are off for Thanksgiving and I won’t be […]

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General

Pinging..

After spending time looking at numerous US based blogs, finally found the UK Blog Aggregator which has plenty of stuff to read from this ccountry, including this – here’s a track-back to make you happy 😉

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life

Meritocracy – good or bad?

Reading the Sunday papers, I was struck by the contrast betwen the outrage against Prince Charles complaint about people been led to expect more than they are capable of (or ‘raising above their station’ as some papers describe it) and the praise for the new Pixar movie The Incredibles which argues against people been forced […]

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life

Photos

I’ve been trying to put up a photogallery so that I can share with family and get them to put their own pictures up. Got all the config sorted, but can’t load any pictures – tomorrow’s job to debug it.

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life

Emigrating

My granddad emigrated to Australia this week. He was 83, born into a flapper woold that moved into depression and war. He married my Nan over 60 years ago; a great tale was told about how Nan’s dad had come to visit them on their honeymoon in Buxton bringing some fresh eggs that he’d obtained […]

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life

Spooks

Just finished watching Spooks – did they upset all the actors this year? At least with Tom there was some kind of build up to his leaving. Zoe – boom, one episode and gone. No warning, no build up, just a single story. Looks like we’re going to have more standalone episodes and little story […]

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travel

Images from Australia

Here’re some images from holiday. First we have a view from the cable car down from Kuranda. This is over 7km of cable car over rainforest – you need to be able to cope with heights. Here’s an attempt at an arty shot – a cycad they were saying was about 2000 years old. We […]

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General

Back to Scotland

spent the weekend up in Glasgow at my first Committee meeting for the 2005 World Masters rowing champs which will be taking place in Strathclyde Park in Sept next year. This was a walkthrough meeting with the FISA Master committee to ensure they are happy with every thing we have got set up for the […]

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work

RSS, podcasts and PMCs

Seemed to spend the day talking enthusiastically about blogs, RSS feeds and podcasts to my boss and a few other team members. And then setting them up with Newsgator and iPodder so that they can access the information. Two new converts to this type of information feed. Now my boss wants to work out how, […]

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