A title this would be, had I the originality.

I tend ot be very conservative about which "social networking" sites I join. If they haven't been around for yonks, I feel I don't need them.

plurk.com, which is a sort of improved more-fun twitter, sucked me in, though. It's nice. Join us. The water's lovely.

I'm interested to know how you spend your day. That, and they give me more smileys if some of my friends join up :P

I just ordered myself a birth certificate, as one of the steps required to get married.
I was a little irked to discover that if I wanted them to avoid holding onto the certificate for 14 days for no reason (paying just the regular amount, they send it out on the 14th day after receipt of the order: not "when it's done", but deliberately waiting 14 days), I had to pay a premium, so they'd send it the next day.

So in the "Customer Reference" field, I put "HighwayRobberyByTheGRO".

With the certificates, I also received a compliment slip, bearing the handwritten message:

"Re: Customer Ref.
Thanks. Yes I agree
But this pays for our X-mas
Party."

Really brightened my day, and gave me a good chuckle! :D I'd scan it and post a link here, but I'd be worried that the handwriting might give them away and get them disciplined.

Regular readers (hahahaha*clunk*) might remember me blathering about SYSTEMced a few weeks ago. Well, after the latest windows update, it's back. I'll be editing this post as I battle with getting the drive back to life.
( Read more... )

I dislike getting greetings like "are you busy?" or "hi", or "are you there?" or in one recent case "x". I try not to leave such messages myself.

Why? ( Read more... )

I recently had a bit of a pain trying to run Oblivion Mod Manager ("OBMM" to those in the know). See, it needs a reasonably working .NET installation, which I don't have. I decided it was time to fix that.

( Read more... )

Americans: when sending a package or gift to the UK, please remember these notes on how to prevent your friends paying through the nose.

Brits: When you are buying a £200 item from Ebay, it may well not be the seller that burns you.

Here's the letter I got through my door today.

( Read more... )

I recently posted about the meaning of life, or at least what it means to be alive.

I read a couple of articles in BoingBoing that built on this very interesting question, so, another post on the questions they raise.
( Read more... )

Laundry aside, few of us have any problem distinguishing most things we see each day into separate "alive" and "not-alive" camps.

This is generally seen as a binary choice, and from a religious point of view, which camp something is in can be critically important.

But, like humanity, Life and death are not absolutes.
( Read more... )

So I'm feeling much happier, thanks to those that asked: I got over my emo quite fast, and am doing my best to become the programmer I want to be.

I can't really blame my tools here: none of the things I'm about to grumble about are related to my badness at programming, they're just annoyances that I felt the need to vent about. Mostly with Microsoft software and languages, but that's to be expected since I have suddenly started working with them all, so they're all new to me. Not so much a reflection on the company as on the fact that my work is focused on their products at the moment.( Read more... )

Feeling low and emo, gonna let it out on LJ because that's what it's there for darn it.

( Read more... )

Been playing DragonWars a little lately. Nice enough game, but...( Read more... )

Had some *really* fun nightmares last night( Read more... )

Bit scary really. Tomorrow morning I go off to my new job. I have only the vaguest idea of what I'll be doing, when I'll be paid, where I'll be living, how it'll all work out.

( Read more... )

http://www.soundcopyright.eu/ Please sign their petition.
( Read more... )

Well, three nongeek posts in a row was quite enough, I think.

Today, Windows 2000 would not boot up. I got the dreaded error message:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \winnt\system32\config\SYSTEMced"
( Read more... )

A friend of mine wanted ideas for a song for "a lovesong to a socially awkward geek who wouldn't know a girl was coming on to him if she stripped off and snogged his face off".

( naughtiness behind the cut! )

I think Kellogg's is trying to convert me to Christianity. My landlady recently gave me a box of Kelloggs Rice Crispies Shapes. Which contain four different shapes, all with a Christian theme: Fish, Christmas trees, Stars, and ( Lepers... )

I rarely get dreams of flying, so it's nice when I do. ( I take them as signs of hopefulness in myself. )

So I wanted to install RealmCrafter, but I found it it would mess up trying to read drives over about E:. I'd installed it to I:, so this was a problem.

( So I decided to sort my drives out... )

I was lying awake a few days back and thinking to myself: there is so much I can't remember about my childhood. It's like I muddled through it in a haze of uncertainty, and never asked any questions.

In particular though, the thing that got to me was that I can't remember the plots of any of ( the games I played... )