Monthly Archives: April 2004

Went to Andy and Lisa’s yesterday to act as official portrait artiste (AKA most available person with camera) for Lucy’s first photo call aged four days. You’ve probably seen one of the photos, Andy mailed it to a million people. If you haven’t, think of Winston Churchill, all babies look like Winston Churchill.

Tiny thing, talking already.

(Ear-splitting cries mainly.)

Some of the other photos have come out well. In one Lucy has already apparently mastered the “please point that camera away from me” expression.

Lisa allowed/made me hold Lucy for a few minutes. I emerged unscathed, and so did she. I successfully failed to drop her. Lisa did graciously offer to let me change Lucy’s nappy, but I decided that Andy’s invitation to look round their soon-to-be-extension was more tempting. Anyway, green’s not my colour.

Just back from seeing new Brit RomZomCom Shaun of the Dead. Pretty good. If you liked Spaced you’ll like this, as everyone from Spaced is involved somewhere or other.

I wouldn’t be a good film reviewer, as I hate the way film reviews tell you most of the plot. Oh, all right. There are zombies and that.

Last August 20th just before redundancy, Avaragado shut down his development box, boston. It had served him for several years, desktop and server. Once sat proudly beside him, boston had been relegated to the server room to skulk beneath some more impressive towers. But they’d had fun together, boston and Avaragado. It was with a sigh and maybe a hint of moistness around the eye region that he’d wrapped it up and shipped it off in Bob’s Big Van to the other place, to serve a new master, to be the plaything of Mr Hall.

But Mr Hall had other toys. Boston lay unwanted. Unpowered. Until its former owner called again, contracted to the Squid to update a training course.

And so, eight months later, they are reunited. Today boston woke for the first time since that muggy August day. Dazed and confused, blinking in the sunlight, wondering where its network was, with a nagging dependency on tools.cid and not altogether sure of its name, but alive once more.

But his former master is fickle. He has another server now. And a Powerbook. And he’s paying the electricity bill. Boston had better watch out.

Random realistic Daily Mail headlines:
http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/other/dailymail.php

We went to the trendy River Bar & Kitchen last night (photos).
Lots of things to celebrate, including my birthday, Melanie’s
birthday, Andy Shire’s birthday (two weeks early since Lisa is due
today), Chef’s new job (in glorious High Wycombe) and Sam’s new job
(Bango).

There were 25 of us, which made the restaurant a little nervous
(“We’ve only got a small kitchen” said the man when I booked), but I
think it worked out. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the meal
was pretty good. I’ve just about recovered.

Avaragado’s rating: twelve peas.

I guess I can’t get away with saying “early 30s” any more. It’s definitely “mid 30s” now.

Turning 35 means that I suddenly find myself part of a different demographic. The box I tick is now “35-49” instead of “18-34”. I am officially a cardigan-wearing, slipper-collecting, Radio 2-listening middle-aged man.

I’ve done my best to subvert this on day one of the new demographic by buying myself some new jeans and trainers and a new shirt. I’m not “trying to regain my youth” – I’ve always worn jeans and trainers and don’t see any reason to change. I’m a kidult I suppose (though I’ve never read Harry Potter, nor The Amber Spyglass).

I thought about finishing with a comedy burst of yoof-speak, but then realised I don’t actually know any. Phat, is that one?

…you realise you have over a third of a terabyte of hard disk in your flat.

Just bought a 160 GB disk for my PC (Western Digital, £80 from Dabs). Currently transferring data from the old 40 GB disk onto it, after which that disk will be recycled as a big bucket of storage in my Linux box (which has been struggling on just 10 GB). So my web server will be going down later today.

That will leave me with…

• PC: 60 GB + 160 GB
• Mac: 80 GB
• Linux: 10 GB + 40 GB
• Total: 350 GB

Cue nostalgia about getting 100K on a Spectrum Microdrive, my 80 MB Amiga hard disk, etc…

Today’s new word: flovie (n) flash movie

For 80s arcade game fans: MAME Jump. Also MAME The Night.

I apologise if I am the last person on the planet to hear about these.

Another hilarious anecdote from Avaragado’s never-ending supply.

I’ve discovered how to make the noisy fan work on my Powerbook. All I do is run a program called Xjournal, which is the LiveJournal client I’m using to write this very entry.

I guess something’s spinning in the code, which warms up the CPU enough to start up the propellor.

Memo to self: avoid burnt lap.

Hmm, Tarantella has bought another company: Caststream. Broadcasts presentations over the net with synchronised video and audio, apparently. “Completely cross-platform” supports both Windows and Mac. But not Linux apparently.