Month: October 2004

After a week or so of hacking about with my CSS and HTML, the new look for Paste is finally live… phew!

Do hope you like it. Please let me know if you spot anything funny, particularly if you’re using a non-standard browser. (It should all work perfectly in IE 5.5/6, Firefox and Opera). If you’ve got an older browser, then it might not be quite right (and you’ll get a text-only display if you’re still using Netscape 4.x), but if that’s the case, then it’s probably time to upgrade anyway…

Seriously, do let me know if you find any problems, Cheers.

By the way: if things look very odd, then you might need to hit “Refresh”, because your browser has probably cached the old version of the stylesheet.

I’m not sure there’s much that I can add to all that has already been written about the passing of a man who meant so much to so many people. He will be sorely missed.

On Sunday, we decided to avoid the worst of the weather by not venturing much further than our local cinema in Islington. Finding ourselves with a few minutes to kill before the film, we stopped for a quick drink in Islington’s very own suburban townie themed pub, the sub-Weatherspoons establishment at the top of the N1 shopping centre that offers all the fun of Croydon without having to leave central London. On Sunday it offered an interesting cross-section of customers, along with 2-4-1 drinks offers and specials on Archers and WKD, and even came complete with a gang of tracksuited, burberry-clad 13 year olds bothering the bouncer outside.

Charming.

On Saturday, despite the ominous colour of the sky, we foolishly ventured out to the British Museum, and after getting thoroughly soaked in a torrential downpour between Russell Square and the museum itself, we spent a couple of hours wandering around looking at things my ancestors had stolen from various countries around the world (although contrary to what I thought, there is actually some stuff from Britain there, it’s just hidden away in one of the rooms upstairs). Despite being briefly fascinated by the room full of mummies, I don’t think we were really in the mood for looking at old stuff in cases, so we didn’t stay for too long.

Didn’t think much of the Elgin marbles, either. All I could find were some old stone pictures on the walls, and frankly I can’t see how you’d get a game going with those.

Sorry kids, but after another couple of weeks of silence round these parts, I feel compelled to write yet another entry apologising for not writing any entries recently. I’m not sure why, actually. It’s not as if I haven’t had anything to write about, but I just don’t seem to find the time these days. Anywhere, rather than pontificate on where my life has disappeared to, here are some of the things I might have written about, if I could have been bothered.

– Lisbon: Oh, yes, we went to Lisbon a couple of weeks ago for a weekend of general drunkenness, courtesy of my new employer, and it was great. We were driven to the hotel by Lisbon’s craziest taxi driver, who managed to beat the other taxi that set off at the same time by a good five minutes (and subtly rip us off in the process–for future reference, if the driver covers the meter with a duster when you get into the cab, then he’s probably going to charge you at least twice the going rate). Following on from this great start, we completed five bloggable activities before lunchtime, which included checking into the hotel and having the concierge nod at Sally, wink at me, and say “your room, Sir, with a king size bed“. Oh, and on the Tap Air Portugal Flights they show a film about babies learning to swin. Altogether: Aaaaah.

– New Year: Doing anything for new year’s eve this year? We’re off to Estonia. Why not join us?

– Turning 27: The pain of becoming another year older (I had to change the sidebar and everything) was numbed somewhat by the impressive turnout at my birthday celebrations last Friday night (not to mention the impressive quantities of Stella pushed in my direction). Thanks for coming, everyone, and I’m sorry if I was drunk.

– Car Crash TV: Finding myself watching a lot of car crash TV recently–reality shows like How Not To Be A Property Developer (or Sarah Beeney shows how she was Right All Along) in which a young couple try to make a quick buck renovating some rundown terrace somewhere, completely misunderstand their target market, blow 30 grand on a pink kitchen and end up taking a substantial loss. Where do they get these idiots? (and why do I continue to watch?)

– (In)NaNoWriMo: Yes, I know I said I’d do this last year, and never got anywhere, but I think I actually might give it a proper stab this time. Ever since reading an article in The Guardian a couple of months ago, I’ve had an idea brewing in my head, and I think it might actually work. It’s a novel about Art, Deception, Fraud, and Home Shopping. We’ll see how it goes…

– Everton: Still Third. What’s Going On?

Earlier this week, I finally joined the 21st Century by upgrading my mobile phone from that Nokia that everyone had in about 1999, to that Nokia that everyone had about 6 months ago, with the camera, colour screen, java games and polyphonic ringtones. Not, you understand, because I actually need any of that stuff–my requirements in a phone don’t extend much beyond being able to make phone calls, and send text messages–but more because my phone requirements also include having buttons that work, and being able to plug the charger in. Apparently dropping your phone on the floor at semi-regular intervals over a 3 year period doesn’t actually do it any good after all.

It took a while to get used to the fact that they’ve gone and moved all the buttons around, and even added extra ones (not the number buttons obviously, that would be silly–I’m not implying that Nokia have invented some new numbers or anything), but I worked it out eventually. It was slightly more of a challenge getting my phone to use a ringtone that wasn’t utterly awful.

The preset tones that Nokia chose to include with the phone were all appalling. They didn’t even bother to include anything that just sounds like a phone ringing, so for the first couple of days I was forced to use the least worst option–the dreaded Nokia Tune in all its polyphonic glory. I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow the engineering geniuses at Nokia have managed to make Dom Joly’s Trigger Happy ringtone sound even worse by rendering it using four simultaneous notes. It’s just as well nobody ever calls me anyway.

Resolving to do something about this, I went on the Internet looking for something better. Now there’s no way I’m giving my credit card details or phone number to some shabby website in return for some awful ringtone, so instead I downloaded some Nokia software for converting audio and transferring files to and from the phone. Unfortunately, this lead to me spending a pleasant evening tearing my hair out trying to make my phone’s infrared port talk to my laptop, and becomming increasingly frustrated with the inadequate information in the user manual. (Note to Nokia Technical Writers: Look, if the only way to make the infrared work is to change the baud rate on your PC to less than 112,500bps, don’t you think it might be a good idea to say so somewhere in the manual? Am I supposed to work it out for myself? Gah!) At one point, Sal and I resorted to waving the phone around in front of the computer in the vain hope of establishing a connection.

Then when I finally got it working, it merrily started deleting my old text messages and stored phone numbers, as it tried to synchronise itself with some copy it thought it had made on my PC, but I got most of them back in the end, somehow.

[I ended up using Street Spirit, (found via this collection of MIDI sounds). It’s no Itchy and Scratchy, but it’ll do…]