Well, it's nice to come back to work for a rest... the last 5 days have taken a lot out of me. I know I've not posted any photos since Monday, but I'll do some when I get home this evening.

In a nutshell, we've done the following:

• taken down the front garden wall
• taken down the front porch
• chopped the shrub down
• cleared the side of the house

Caroline's Mum and Dad are likely to be coming down over Easter, so that we can get the back garden sorted before the summer hits us. That's going to be a lot of work... although with the human whirlwind that is my father-in-law, it should be a walk in the park!! :o)

I'm working a bit late tonight, as we're rolling out a new development framework for our primary application... so I won't be home until 19:00.

If there is at least one person in your life whom you consider a close friend, and whom you would not have met without the Internet, post this sentence in your journal.

"I'll be back!" - The Terminator

"I'm back!" - Chucky

"Ooh, me back!" - thelovebug

( Progress after one hour... )

Current Mood: good

Ok, so I forgot to setup the webcam, and I also forgot to take before pictures. However, I've managed to dig out some old house pics to compare against, so here goes! :o)

Click on thumbnails to view larger image.

Front Door - Before Pic This is how the front door used to look... you have to imagine the shrub on the left filling the whole of the area to the left of the door.	Front Garden - Before Pic This is how the front garden used to look. This is an old pic, I've not had that red Astra for nearly two years now!!	Front House - Before Pic This is how the front of the house used to look. This is also an old pic, as this was taken before we got double glazing installed. Caroline has kindly annotated this image for me. :o)
Front Door - After Pic This is how the front door looked this afternoon. Notice the lack of shrub (save for the little stubby in the corner), and the lack of canopy over the door.	Front Garden - After Pic This is how the front garden looked this afternoon. Notice the lack of front wall!! Ignore the crap on the lawn... that's going in the skip! :o)	Front House - After Pic This is how the front of the house looked this afternoon. You can see the difference for yourselves!

Current Mood: tired

We went to see the Reading Phoenix Choir tonight... varno is a tenor in the choir.

Absolutely fantastic performance, really enjoyed it! :o)

Their guests were Kit And The Widow, had me in stitches!! If you like Flanders and Swann, or even Victoria Wood's songs, then you'd love them! :o)

The whole night was almost perfect, with the singing, performance, company (Em, Chris' family, Em's family, and additional friend-type peeps), and half-time ice cream.  The only things that spoilt it were the two kids (I say 'kids', they were probably late teens) in the row in front of us, farting around with their mobile phones... recording songs and taking photos, with the mobile phone displays catching our eyes throughout the whole of the second half, and the lady on the back row who coughed, choked and spluttered throughout most of the first half!

Heh, it's the Pleasure-Pain theory, I suppose.

Current Mood: tired

A journal has been created for Valentine's Day 2005.

If you want to post a comment to your valentine (anonymously or otherwise), go to 140205 and do it. :o)

(Thanks to rhino for pointing this out!)

Since I've been growing my goatee, I've been likened to a number of different people:

• Ricky Gervais
  
  
  
• Phill Jupitus
  
  
  
• Jeremy Spake
  
  
  

And the latest one?

( Click here to find out... )

Current Mood: silly

... and we're going to be busy! :o)

This weekend, Caroline and I are going to be doing a fair amount to our front garden: taking down a wall; lopping a shrub; removing our front porch; putting up a new light; etc. A skip is arriving on Monday morning, so we have a fair amount of stuff to shift before it arrives.

So, it's off to B&Q; or Focus this evening to buy a lopper, heavy-duty gloves and a wheelbarrow.

The weather promises to hold out for us, which is good news.

I'm thinking about setting up the webcam to watch us in the garden. That'd be fun! ;o)

Dear car drivers to whom this is relevant,

Those extra bright lights that are usually underneath your main headlights and blind other drivers are not "driving lamps" or "driving lights". They are "Fog Lights".

It is not big and it's not clever. It's bloody annoying. Particularly those of you who think that side lights and fog lights look cool. No, it's dangerous.

And according to the Highway Code rules 201 and 211, it's illegal and a criminal offence.

So please, switch the sodding things off when it's not foggy.

If you need to have brighter lights than your normal headlamps give you, then either get a car with decent headlamps or get your eyes tested.

kthxbye.

Current Mood: ranting

Highly recommended films...

The Butterfly Effect
Some have said that this was a very slow film, taking a lot of time to actually get started. However, it certainly had me gripped. A psychological thriller, with shades of Groundhog Day.

The Core
A very scary film for me, as someone who suffers from intermittent claustrophobia. To be travelling through the inside of the earth with no escape... *shudder* I wouldn't do submarines either, for the same reason. However, it was a very good film, albeit with a very unbelieveable storyline!

From pictures taken at the weekend! :o)

Happy Me! (new default pic)

M'eh?

Whatchu Talkin' 'bout?

I like them! :o)

We here at the Sound Institute have invented a reliable Audio Weapons System.

Hell, yeah!

Current Music: Linkin Park - Kyur4 Th Ich (Chairman Hahn)

A very happy birthday to lestat75. We'll see you later! :o)

We went to see White Noise yesterday. Excellent film, I'd highly recommend it.

More later...

Current Mood: good

According to some people here at work, I look like a member of the Cassini Navigation Team? :oP

Current Mood: silly

Happy birthday to princesswannabe and nita_01nita :o)

Hope you both have a great day!!

On Monday, I posted a poll asking you to tell me what the first thing was that struck you about me.

( Here are the results... )

An interesting poll...

I have a colleague at work who is a very talented artist, and he often draws pictures and caricatures of people for no apparent reason. In almost every picture he's drawn with me in, he's always included a specific object that I regularly wear. I asked him why he always included this specific object, and he said that was something that always stood out about me.

So, my question is... what's the first thing that stands out to you about me. It doesn't necessarily have to be visual, as I know that not all of you have seen/met me.

Poll #415826 Visualise me...
Open to: All, results viewable to: None

What's the first thing you see?

I've submitted this poll so that no-one can see the answers, but I will be publishing the results in a later post! :o)

Current Mood: intrigued

( I'm quite happy with this... )

Edit: Actually scrap that, I'm not happy about it at all. I'm a geek, not a nerd!! :oP

Samantha Morton in Minority Report.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

There's something about women with shaved heads.  I used to find Sinead O'Connor astoundingly attractive.

Oh yes.

I wonder if Caroline wou... oh, never mind.

I am seriously not impressed by this show.  I don't like musicals at the best of time, but this is just obscene.

I don't offend easily... and I'm not offended by the content, as such.  I'm more offended by the fact that people actually believe that this was a good show?!

Ok, I'll admit that the comic timing was pretty good, and the characters are very well played - especially Steve - but do we really need to know about a gay man f'ing someone up the arse?  Or about a man who likes s'ing in his nappy?

Please... where the hell is the entertainment value in that?  You wouldn't even see that kinda stuff on the TV show!!

Gah.

I'm off to watch Minority Report on Sky Movies 1.  Anyone wanna join me?

Am I being unreasonable?

Warning: The link on the first comment on that thread reveals a pornographic image

I'm already an ecstatically happy Mozilla Firefox convert, so I thought I'd have a look at Mozilla Thunderbird too.

Thunderbird is an extremely well-designed and feature-packed mail and news client, with much better functionality than Microsoft Outlook.  Having installed and tested it, I feel confident to recommend Thunderbird to anyone looking for a better mail client.

However, as I am a slave to Microsoft culture by owning a PocketPC, I find myself unable to make the switch.  It seems pointless to switch to Thunderbird, if I'm still going to need Outlook for all my PIM requirements.  Those of you who know me well, will know how much I rely on my PocketPC to run my life for me!

Gratuitous Links...

 

Yeah, so this is probably a waste of time, but I really hope that it isn't.

For the record, here are my New Years Resolutions for 2005, in no particular order.

• I will re-establish and maintain contact with certain members of my family whom I have neglected over the last few years.
  
  
• I will get back into my weight loss, and stop farting about.
  
  
• I will get back to the gym and get fit(ter).
  
  
• I will update my journal more.
  
  
• I will re-establish and maintain contact with certain friends whom I have neglected over the last few years.
  
  
• I will improve my organisational and time-management skills. I've entered this one as a personal objective in my Annual Appraisal.
  
  
• I will get off my arse and sort out my websites and other projects that I've started and subsequently abandoned. Along with this, I will not start any new projects until I've sorted out the ones I already have.
  
  
• I will commence a kind of self-therapy by brain-dumping my gripes and annoyances, in the hope of improving my temper over things that shouldn't really bother me. For this, I have already created an Opinion Blog*... which is also available at thelovebugopine.
  
  
• I will improve our home and quality of life. This resolution has a big list of its own... I might post about that at a later date.

I think that's enough to be going on with.

* Yeah, I know... I can't stand the word "Blog" either... but as it uses Blogger, I'm kinda stuck with it.

Six Apart has bought LiveJournal

This could go one of two ways...

Current Mood: surprised

Caroline and I first got into Linkin Park when we saw the video for "Faint" on Kerrang... Caroline then bought me "Reanimation" on CD for my birthday, and I went out and bought "Meteora" and "Hybrid Theory" shortly after. Whilst I appreciate that LP is not to everyone's taste, as the combination of Rap and Metal doesn't appeal to most, I have to say that the talent between them is just phenomenal.

I wanted to post the lyrics to "Easier To Run" as I think they are just brilliant. Have a look at amazon.com's Meteora page for a sample of this (and all other tracks) from the Meteora CD.

( Linkin Park - Easier To Run )

Current Music: Linkin Park - Easier To Run