last night in Wal-mart (the supermarket formerly known as ASDA) on an ill advised venture beyond the food aisles, 'nite and I found the holy grail of home electronics: an all-in-one remote which can actually talk to all of the screwball AV devices that live in our house.
There are no less than eight devices in my living room that can be operated by remote, seven of these have controllers (the Tape Deck was an end-of-line model that came without) and because of their Byzantine relationships with one another, any simple action like say watching a TV programme, can require the user to juggle three or more remotes! Until now two of the eight boxen have thwarted our every effort to unify them: The TV is an obscure 'ONDigital' branded set with a peculiar hybrid remote that nothing else has ever seemed able to mimic, and our TV is all channeled through Anita's TiVo which has a similarly unique handset. However last night we found a multi-remote that we'd never tried before and, after some pretty straight forward setting-up, it happily conducted the entire digital entertainment orchestra without a hiccough!
OK I appreciate that for everyone else on the planet this is probably really mundane, but I'm thrilled about it so there. Tonight I'm off to celebrate the "blossoming" of Spring with some friends at the Beltane Fire Festival which should provide much more enganging material for the next entry ;)
The random musings and happenings of a young-ish professional-ish man who lives in Scotland, thinks in Mandelbrot shapes and frequently feels too much
Friday, April 30, 2004
Thursday, April 29, 2004
blip
Slight gap in my hosting service again this week, however the new guys have a really good excuse so I'll let 'em off this once ;)
maybe I'm jynxed? anyway if you've sent me email in the past couple of days and it's bounced or just not been replied to then please resend it - ta!
incidentally while I've been unable to publish them for two days, blogger has still been accepting posts so there are some backlogged entries further down the page...
maybe I'm jynxed? anyway if you've sent me email in the past couple of days and it's bounced or just not been replied to then please resend it - ta!
incidentally while I've been unable to publish them for two days, blogger has still been accepting posts so there are some backlogged entries further down the page...
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
dripless
I just put gutters up at the back of my house. It rained when I'd finished just to prove that they work too (what considerate weather eh?) and I danced in the yard to celebrate (and to make Anita laugh).
Next time it rains at night, it will do so without dripping noisily into the yard outside my bedroom window for the first time since I bought the place two years ago! There were gutters up there back then, after a fashion - old metal ones that didn't fit properly and which leaked like fury - they, and the front door represented my two biggest mistakes in buying the place (the "oops, I should have got that from him in writing" kind of mistakes: the gap-toothed maniac I bought the house from assured me both were being fixed...) and both took me much longer to sort out than I'd originally anticipated, mostly because, well, they're outside. Most of the time I am not outside, so outside jobs end up being the "I must get round to" ones. That said, the yard is now fast approaching the stage where it will be a very pleasant little outdoor space (instead of a tip) so I might spend some of this summer out there, and if it rains on me I won't care because I have gutters!
Next time it rains at night, it will do so without dripping noisily into the yard outside my bedroom window for the first time since I bought the place two years ago! There were gutters up there back then, after a fashion - old metal ones that didn't fit properly and which leaked like fury - they, and the front door represented my two biggest mistakes in buying the place (the "oops, I should have got that from him in writing" kind of mistakes: the gap-toothed maniac I bought the house from assured me both were being fixed...) and both took me much longer to sort out than I'd originally anticipated, mostly because, well, they're outside. Most of the time I am not outside, so outside jobs end up being the "I must get round to" ones. That said, the yard is now fast approaching the stage where it will be a very pleasant little outdoor space (instead of a tip) so I might spend some of this summer out there, and if it rains on me I won't care because I have gutters!
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
(whizzy) WOO HOO
finally BT are set to make broadband available to 'the rest of us' and I'm told that by August 4th my local exchange will be ADSL enabled. Either this is a very cruel joke, or else I've just seen light at the end of the rural dial-up tunnel
*patrick does the snoopy dance*
:)
*patrick does the snoopy dance*
:)
Vital Spark
My spell checker wants to change 'Pitlochry' to 'Vitalizer' perhaps it's trying to tell me something?
...
Then again, it also wants to change 'Crieff' to 'Crap' so perhaps whatever it's trying to tell me should be ignored.
(I'm cataloguing Maps today)
...
Then again, it also wants to change 'Crieff' to 'Crap' so perhaps whatever it's trying to tell me should be ignored.
(I'm cataloguing Maps today)
Monday, April 26, 2004
"Happiness...
...is a tickle of joy on the blue belly of the Universe, yet it must be scratched. Right Max?"
actually I approve, (so long as it's done well) I just wanted an excuse to do a quote. For the benefit of anyone who didn't already know this, it's worth mentioning that I can recite the entire film from memory: mispent childhood infront of a Betamax.
Said Betamax recently gave up its treasure of the lost original edit of the Yellow Submarine (the version available to buy is patched together from the American release and some cutting room bits because by the time the folks at Apple Corps. realised what was happening, most of the original film had decayed beyond salvage) to a DV recorder and was partially mastered into a DVD for me by a good friend. He'd never seen it before however and (understandably) was unable to make sense of what went where so the copy I have at the moment is a bit disjointed.
Hopefully I'll be able to give him a hand soon getting it done the right way up - one of the problems with having the film stored in my brain you see is that the remastered version feels wrong when I see it.
... anyway "I must complete my bust, two novels finish my blueprints and begin my beguine" ;)
actually I approve, (so long as it's done well) I just wanted an excuse to do a quote. For the benefit of anyone who didn't already know this, it's worth mentioning that I can recite the entire film from memory: mispent childhood infront of a Betamax.
Said Betamax recently gave up its treasure of the lost original edit of the Yellow Submarine (the version available to buy is patched together from the American release and some cutting room bits because by the time the folks at Apple Corps. realised what was happening, most of the original film had decayed beyond salvage) to a DV recorder and was partially mastered into a DVD for me by a good friend. He'd never seen it before however and (understandably) was unable to make sense of what went where so the copy I have at the moment is a bit disjointed.
Hopefully I'll be able to give him a hand soon getting it done the right way up - one of the problems with having the film stored in my brain you see is that the remastered version feels wrong when I see it.
... anyway "I must complete my bust, two novels finish my blueprints and begin my beguine" ;)
ROTFLMAO*
I got into work today to find a note on my desk from a couple of the sixth years asking if I'd be prepared to play in an annual charity Rugby match the school holds (this year's being on Thursday.)
For anyone who didn't just fall off their chair laughing at that image, let me elaborate - I work in a public school in Scotland, one which takes its Rugby even more seriously than most institutions of its ilk. This school's fields get used as an alternate venue for minor national (and occasionally international) fixtures when Murrayfield is busy. Also this particular annual event usually involves a visiting professional Rugby player. Add to all that my tiny physical stature (certainly 'tiny' in comparison to most Rugby players anyway!) and the fact that it's well over a decade since I last played anything even remotely like Rugby (I ducked out of the games in PE at school when it became clear that simply being fast wasn't enough to prevent me from getting squashed in contact sports anymore) and you begin to see why I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face!
Mum, if you're reading this I need a note to get out of PE on the 29th ;)
* for those of you scratching your head the title is an extended version of the net abbreviation LOL - Laughing Out Loud. ROTFLMAO is Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off - and I am, or at least I would be if I didn't have to maintain a veneer of grown-up-ed-ness.
For anyone who didn't just fall off their chair laughing at that image, let me elaborate - I work in a public school in Scotland, one which takes its Rugby even more seriously than most institutions of its ilk. This school's fields get used as an alternate venue for minor national (and occasionally international) fixtures when Murrayfield is busy. Also this particular annual event usually involves a visiting professional Rugby player. Add to all that my tiny physical stature (certainly 'tiny' in comparison to most Rugby players anyway!) and the fact that it's well over a decade since I last played anything even remotely like Rugby (I ducked out of the games in PE at school when it became clear that simply being fast wasn't enough to prevent me from getting squashed in contact sports anymore) and you begin to see why I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face!
Mum, if you're reading this I need a note to get out of PE on the 29th ;)
* for those of you scratching your head the title is an extended version of the net abbreviation LOL - Laughing Out Loud. ROTFLMAO is Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off - and I am, or at least I would be if I didn't have to maintain a veneer of grown-up-ed-ness.
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