What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?

Continue reading ‘All the Trimmings’

I haven’t got an advent calendar. Crap. Every year I do this…Shall attempt to find one this afternoon. I avoid the chocolatey ones as they often repeat pictures, which is crazy - how difficult can it be to find 25 christmassy images?

Update: Found a decent one hiding at the back of John Lewis.

Almost forgot to mention Paint.NET, a freeware (and open-source) photo editing package that’s pretty impressive. It’s designed to be a replacement for the standard Windows Paint package, and to be as easy to use. I’ve been testing the betas for a month or two, and version 2.5 final was just released. It’s actually faster for editing than ACDSee, which I’ve been using for years. Features include layers, undo history, alpha transparency, the standard photo manipulation tools like resize/levels/crop, and magic wand/selection tools. Worth a look.

Turns out that ear syringing isn’t as bad as it sounds. A reasonably strong jet of warm water is fired into the ear, and whatever comes out is caught in a cup. I was expecting some kind of syringe to be involved, and a popping suctiony type sound. I’m happy to say that it worked very well, and I can now hear again! Only problem now is that the other ear feels blocked in comparison…The nurse said it was quite full, but you need to apply drops for three days prior to syringing so couldn’t do anything about it. There’s apparently some soreness in both ears, which isn’t very normal, so I’ll have to make a doctor’s appointment to get it all checked out at some point.

After learning it in my guitar lesson this morning I’ve just purchased my first ever song by Green Day, a band which didn’t appeal in the slightest before now. Wake Me Up When September Ends is the track, and I quite like it. Last week it was Smash It Up (Parts 1 & 2) by The Damned, so I’m really expanding my musical horizons at the moment Currently trying to get to grips with pentatonic scales - I’ve never had any real understanding of music theory and it’s not so scary as I thought. I seem to have been born without the ability to tune or identify chords in the same key, however.

This morning I had a half-hour chat with a very pleasant BBC researcher about my experiences at Live 8. I hadn’t had any breakfast so probably wasn’t on my best form, but hopefully I gave him the kind of information he was after. He said they’ll talk to as many people as they can and then decide who to film for the BBC2 show - that would be exciting!

Finished writing this twenty minutes ago, then got distracted by first time housemoving tips over at Ask Metafilter. It’s such a useful website!

We just had a power cut and I had trouble even making it downstairs. Normally I use my phone’s backlight in those situations, but I couldn’t find it :-)The sheer number of times I walked into a room and thought ‘I’ll turn the light on’ is just embarrassing.

Just received confirmation that the completion date will be 6th December - next Tuesday. Phew! We’ll try to decorate it that week - there should be very little that needs doing other than the bright pink wall - then I’ll move in the following Saturday.

I never did decide on a broadband provider, so I’ll do that this afternoon. I’m still looking for the elusive 1mb/uncapped/<£20 deal…

Also, I have an appointment with the nurse this afternoon to sort out my ear. I’m thinking it’ll be gross It’s starting to hurt now, so it’ll be rather a relief when it’s sorted.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream always was something of a bizarre play, but had a certain charm. I was quite impressed when this evening’s re-imagining managed to squash that charm completely. I gave it one more chance after:

Queen of the Fairies: My name’s Titania
Bottom: [looks down] I’m not surprised

but then Oberon said:

Is Puck short for Puck-up by any chance? Get anything else wrong and I’ll stick this midsummer night’s dream up where the moon don’t shine

and that was enough for me. Not my style of humour Such a shame, when Much Ado About Nothing was so good a few weeks back.

50,039 words. Woohoo!! I now have a NaNoWriMo Winner’s Certificate on my desktop.

Also, the Institute for Creation Research is getting nothing.

The story is finished, too. It’s called ‘The Legacy of Tom Bassford’, and is an adventure story. A blurb may go something like this:

When Tom Bassford killed himself, he left behind the first hints for solving the largest treasure hunt ever created. His friends dedicate themselves to solving the puzzle, aiming to dedicate the $1,000,000 prize fund to Tom’s memory. But all is not as it seems, and when the man behind the competition is found brutally murdered events quickly spiral out of control. With an assassin hell bent on revenge and an MI5 team who will go to any lengths to crack the code first, the friends are in over their heads.

Or something Is it great literature? No. Am I proud of it? Definitely!

It needs a fair bit of work before it works as a proper novel. For example, the first ten chapters are in diary form. I got annoyed with that, so they’ll need to be rewritten! Also, characters’ personalities changed as I progressed, so I’ll need to fix their earlier scenes. I’ll try to do that this week. On Thursday 1st December I’m going to upload it to lulu.com and order myself a paperback copy. Yeah it’s a little vain, but I really want one Lulu.com are actually offering free copies to NaNoWriMo winners, but only in the US, sadly.

I’m going to go rest, read the congratulatory chapter in the official NaNoWriMo book, and relax.

Phew.

Just back from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I found wonderful. I’ve liked each successive film more, and this was no exception. While telling a remarkable amount of the book in a two hour film, it still managed to cram in layer upon layer of interesting and beautiful little moments. I won’t spoil any, but if you’re a fan of great storytelling I recommend it very much.

The above is despite the fact that my annual broken-ear problem has returned. It felt slightly blocked at around 1900, although I could still hear reasonably well, but when doofus here tipped in some warm water ¹ it completely blocked for good. This is the fourth time in as many years I’ve had this problem, and so far it’s always taken four or five days to fix. Last time I solved it myself by medically dubious methods² and I’d rather not do that again! I’ll pop into the pharmacist tomorrow and see what they recommend.

The novel hit 47,500 words this afternoon. Depending on how well the ending goes, I may make it to 50k tomorrow. I’m still a little unclear on exactly how things will resolve themselves, but hopefully it’ll all fall into place.

If you feel the need for warmer cockles on this bloody freezing winter night, I recommend Tycho of Penny Arcade’s post on the birth of his son.

1. like the books recommend, I’d like to point out [↩]
2. wax-dissolving ear drops, a pipette and some pain were involved [↩]

This video of bleeding-edge work on CGI water and fire effect is amazing. Fire’s still not quite there imho, but water is very impressive indeed.

Unless you happen to be in the exact same mood as me, this won’t seem funny at all. Really.

Continue reading ‘Sorry about this’

The solicitor phoned on Tuesday. She hasn’t been able to find anybody to set up an indemnity regarding the lease problem, and now says that the lease is actually fine as it does in fact comply with the 1985 housing act. Which is good. I’d rather this had happened two months ago, but it’s good nevertheless. So she has recommended to the Halifax that they approve the mortgage immediately. Woo! The estate agent, slightly bemused, called this morning and says he wants to push for completion on the 5th December. It’s unlikely I’ll actually move in then - there’s a bright pink wall that needs repainting, for a start - but it won’t be long after that. I’m just waiting for the phone call to confirm that the exchange can finally take place…

I love that the International Space Station just had a special screening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. According to the BBC article they have a DVD library up there - how cool is that I’m hopefully seeing HP4 this evening. When the book came out I read it too quickly and can’t remember the specifics of the plot any more, so the film should be more of a surprise than the first three. I’ve since discovered that reading anything in a day doesn’t work for me - it’s enjoyable at the time, but doesn’t work for fond memories. I’m looking forward to the Quidditch scenes, and I wonder whether Hermione will continue to steal the show from her co-stars - she has the character down pat¹, imho.

Update: I’m seeing HP on Friday…It’s not Friday today, is it. Why did I think that? I’m broken.

1. this feels very weird to type, and I had to check it wasn’t a phrase I’d dreamt. Apparently it originated in poker [↩]

Is anybody else using the ClearType font-smoothing option in Windows XP / 2K? I’ve heard from a number of places recently that it makes text much sharper when used on LCD monitors, so I just enabled it. In theory it works because each pixel on an LCD monitor is made up of red, green and blue sub-pixels. ClearType uses the sub-pixels to smooth out individual characters, which apparently makes them more readable, without losing the sharpness of the edges. The effect is customisable using the Microsoft Powertoy.

With LCD monitors being as sharp as they are, I’m used to reading text where each character is clearly visible. I don’t mind seeing each pixel, as it’s sharp and readable. Now ClearType is enabled, there are no longer clearly defined pixels making up each character, so it seems blurry. Everything seems bolder, but marginally less distinct. Characters seem to have a very slight halo, which I guess is due to the sub-pixels smoothing out the edges. I don’t understand the claim that text is sharper. How can it be sharper than rendering each pixel?

So, is it an improvement? My first thoughts are that no, it isn’t. Because it seems more blurry, I feel like I’m having to concentrate more to read the text. However, the smoothness does have a certain appeal, and even as I type this post I’m getting used to it. The text is bolder and darker without actually taking up any more space¹. I’ve been using standard font-smoothing for a very long time, and I’m used to it. The theory behind ClearType seems sound. Microsoft claim that it’s easier on the eyes, and various comments I’ve found online suggest trying it for a while and seeing how you go. Not very scientific, but I’ll give it a try for a while and see how I get on.

An interesting quirk is that the text cursor now goes all sorts of pretty colours when it hovers over text. With normal text, the cursor turns white if placed over a character, whereas now it goes blue and pink at the edges, due to the greyscale sub-pixels. I guess it must use a basic colour inversion…interesting.

If you want to try it, go to Control Panel –> Display –> Appearance –> Effects, then select ClearType as a font-smoothing option. The powertoy can be found here, and is certainly worth playing around with.

1. I think - this could well be nonsense [↩]

Do the BBC’s digital tv adverts with the floating heads disturb you? The BBC has received over 400 complaints! I don’t get it - do people think they’re real heads?

Edit: Dashed this off too quickly and should have re-read it. I didn’t really mean that people are too stupid to understand that it’s computer-generated. Of course that’s obvious! I can see that it’s a little unnerving - somebody in the room with me last week said they thought it was gross. I just don’t understand what would cause people to actually complain about it…But then I’m very used to CGI, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge Sorry if I came over a little harsh!