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August 30, 2005
Reading Festival
I knew that I wouldn't have time to create a new entry here on Monday. Anyway, at least I have started on my photo gallery which now has 33 edited photos taken on my phone and using Lydia's digital camera (both have their problems).
This photo shows me trying to sell my extra tickets. Unfortunately, I didn't sell them for much more than I brought them for and it kept me out at the festival for a good hour. In the meantime, the heat got to Lydia and she became more miserable just as we arrived in the festival area.
I'll write some more here shortly, but are now I have to start work on this month's Kehillat Kernow newsletter.
Posted by Nahoo at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Reading tomorrow
Lydia and I are off to the final day at Reading Festival tomorrow. Everything is set, the water bottles for vodka, the seven tickets, plenty of batteries for Lydia's camera...
There will be lots of photos, so stick around!
Posted by Nahoo at 06:45 PM | Comments (0)
Super Sudoku launch
After many Lydia-hours of programming the new Sudoku generators, new features and hours of testing - the new Sudoku websites are ready to go!
Some of the features include: "Email to a friend", or to yourself with the solution attached, a much improved Super Sudoku generator that is around 7 times faster than before (mainly due to a much faster server), member's control panel and statistics. There are a large number of other subtle improvements such as new Sudoku generator algorithms that should spice up some people's boring afternoon somewhere.
We have also put inplace more facilities to allow people to subscribe to Sudoku on their own websites or collect Sudoku for publication in newspapers and magazines.
Posted by Nahoo at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2005
Leah's visit
Leah come to visit for a few days at the start of the week. She seems to like it here as there are lots of shops, everyone seems relaxed and it seems more continental than other places.
On Wednesday we walked along the Palace Pier without going on any of the rides. I don't often go to the pier as it is really tacky and there's always bad music playing on the loud speakers and, above all, there are loads of tourists around.
Leah suggested that I become a Maths teacher because I like showing people what to do (in a good way). I mulled it over and couldn't find too much wrong with the idea, so I may pursue the idea further this year.
Later in the afternoon we had a look around the inside of the Pavilion. Leah successfully attracted the attention of a Spanish member of staff who knew of the Pavilion's history and details about the people who lived there, namely King George IV (Prince Regent for most of his reign). He also pointed out a few Freemason's logos dotted around the walls of the banquet hall, saying that the royalty used mostly Freemason architects and labourers to build the Pavilion.
By the end of our walk through the Pavilion we had found out much about the decadence of the Prince Regent and about life at the time in Brighton as it was becoming popular with visitors from London.
After a spot of shopping for Will, Leah and I went to see "Fantastic Four" for £4.50 at the Odeon. It wasn't a great film, it had too many annoying "scientific" explanations to explain a rediculous series of events.
That evening Lydia joined us for a meal at a cheap Italian restaurant in Ship Street. I can't remember the name, as there are so many that start with the letter "p".
Posted by Nahoo at 03:38 PM | Comments (2)
August 15, 2005
Blackberry jelly
I've just finished making some blackberry jelly. I thought I would share the recipe as it worked for well for me.
- Boil one chopped sour apple (crab apple or cooking apple) with a dessertspoon of water in a saucepan until it goes into a mush
- Add some blackberries and continue to cook until the blackberries are also mushy
- Now place the contents of the saucepan into a muslin bag overnight to drain the blackberry juice from the pulp
- When the drips have stopped, pour the contents into a measuring jug and add the same amount of preserving sugar to the liquid.
- Put a plate in the refrigerator to cool
- Bring the mixture to boil in a saucepan and stir for 5 minutes
- Test to see if the blackberry jelly will set by smearing a little onto the cold plate with a teaspoon - if it doesn't set, then boil for another minute and repeat
- Once you know that the blackberry jelly will set, pour the liquid into a sterilised jar.
- Leave the blackberry jelly to set.
You can sterilise a jar by washing it in a dishwasher or you can pour boiling water in and out, then heat in a hot over for 10 minutes. If you don't sterilise the jar, the jelly is likely to go off quickly.
Posted by Nahoo at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
My desktop
I really dislike anything on my desktop (including the "My computer" set of icons). I located this image from Caedes.net, a large and free wallpaper website.
What does your desktop look like?
Posted by Nahoo at 03:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Virus scanner double act
Before I start, this is not related to my previous entry in any way. While trying to sort out a broken hard drive, I downloaded a dodgy program that installed a virus (W32.Pinfi) that attached itself to the first few hundred .EXE files on the main drive.
The Mcafee online free scan picked up the virus first. I tried the trial version of AVG 7, but it failed to fix any of the infected files. To my surprise, Norton Antivirus did not detect any problem when I ran a full system scan. However, it did decide to act when I ran a scan from the trial version of AVG 7.
It took one virus scanner to "look" at the files and the other to fix it. What a strange way to sort the problem?
Back to my first problem, does anyone know how to sort out my NTFS hard drive? Even though I have not formatted it, everything from start to end seems to be completely void of files. I cannot find any drive or partition tools that can fix the drive. Suggestions very welcome (a bottle of wine/book/dvd to anyone with something that works).
Posted by Nahoo at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
Virus messages
In response to a client forwarding me an email with the subject: Virus alert!!...
“It is bad form to send people notices about viruses. However bad the virus may be to someone else - it ain't causing a problem for me or you.
These emails simply have a counter-productive role in combating antivirus. Some of these emails even contain the virus itself.
So, in the future delete such stupid emails (usually sent by idiots). They really don't serve any purpose and may actually be harmful.”
Posted by Nahoo at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2005
Tori's BBQ
Yesterday, Lydia and I went up to Tori's place for a birthday BBQ. Darien flew over from The Hague with his new girl friend and quite a few of Tori's work colleagues were there already.
Some of Tori's guests were surprised on how nice the food was (they hadn't been before). I had a vodka with lemonade and then a Pimms, but it seemed to go to my head pretty quickly even though I already had quite a bit to eat.
Leah and Will arrived a little later on, they travelled all the way from Cornwall to be there! They were just in time for some of the famous white chocolate cheesecake. It was very good!
We all talked in the garden as the weather got colder. Darien took some photos (which I will add here shortly) and showed us some political cartoons about Busy and Kerry from jibjab.com. Unfortunately, Lydia didn't bring enough warm clothing with her and she was starting to get a little chilled.
Our return journey by train was a bit of a mess. Two people were already at the first platform saw, but they made a mistake as no train would arrive there. So, thanks to this, we missed the first train from Bushey because we were at the wrong side of the station. On the platform at Harrow station we waited inside, but there was a man playing some awful Indian music on his phone in speaker mode. What's wrong with a head phone?
Almost three hours later we arrived in Brighton. In St. James's Street there was a full on Gay Pride party taking place. Lydia was pissed off because she only had sandals and there was broken glass everywhere. When someone decided to throw their beer around (and some landed on Lydia's jumper) she was more angry. Anyway, we both made it back at half-past midnight.
Posted by Nahoo at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)