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寿忽都Freakcity’s daddeh.

Scott’s blog

Musings on a world I am no longer sure about

Birthday weekend

Monday September 28th, 2009 at 7:20am

Back in London at a vaguely sensible time on Friday, got to try out my new Taste London card, meaning a meal for two at Smollenskys in Canary Wharf cost a grand total of £23. This made me happy : D

Spent lots of time on Saturday morning sorting out my expenses as well as making an insurance claim for the bag I cunningly left on the tube the morning of Nikki’s wedding. I’ve been living in this new flat for two months now and have still only been swimming the once. Bah!

Advance preview notice:

I’m having a Windows 7 launch party. It’ll be on Saturday October 24th at 7pm and I expect it to be every bit as good as the video here describes:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ

If you’re interested, let me know. There’ll be a FC and FB event set up soonish.

(Does anyone have a middle aged woman I can borrow?)

Mum and Andy arrived and were parked. Bizarrely, this is the first time I’ve had mum stay at my place, ever as far as we can remember. Toddled off to Borough Market where we bought half of it for brekkie on Sunday. Omnomnom.

Back home via Waga for a late lunch, quick change, then off to the theatre to see An Inspector Calls which was every single bit as good as all the praise heaped upon it has claimed it is. Coal Hole for beer after then sleeps via buses and a posh kebab.

Sunday I was up fairly early, opened cards and a prezzie from Liam (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Heinlein at his best). Ate a huge breakfast comprising most of Borough Market from Saturday’s forage and then headed out to find me a new bag. This happened surprisingly quickly so we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the market in Covent Garden. I bought some graf photos for the study, Mum bought a hand painted picture for Lily and then we headed home.

Mum and Andy left at around 4ish and we watched new Dollhouse before I ran off to the airport to end up back here (eventually).

Dollhouse is mysterious and ace at the moment. Some of the memories that Echo is having are especially worth paying attention to. Plus, Jamie Bamber using his English accent and Alexis Denisof using his American one, which is slightly surreal in an episode : D

Off to work. I believe the S-Bahn is working again, if not then I’ll be late. Bah!

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brighton and greenwich

Tuesday September 22nd, 2009 at 8:59am

Headed back for the weekend — arrived at a sensibleish time on Friday night as I got an earlier flight for a change. Arrived at Luton at 5ish and then headed to Shaun’s hotel for a quick drink and to say hello. Told me about his wish to manage the Cambridge hotel, I swear it’s just because of the golf course, but it’s a very nice place anyway. Chatted a bit about Dad. How can one best help someone who won’t help themselves? I don’t think you can. Goes against my philosophy, but still I’m in two minds as to whether or not to try and do anything.

“New Journal Entry – undefined undefined NaNth NaN NaN:NaNam”

I think that might be a bug ; )

Some lovely people from the current Government are quite happily lining their nest by agreeing deals now that mean they’re sorted for life after they lose the next election. Apparently this is entirely legal and to be encouraged. So if you vote Tory, you’ll be run by a bunch of people who put their self interest first and if you vote Labour you’ll be run by a bunch of people who put their self interest first. This is apparently a choice and is to be encouraged.

Legged it to the police station in Stratford on Saturday morning, made a bored copper actually do some work for a change, much to his chagrin.

“You sound like you’ve not even talked to your insurance company, sir”

“No, no, I have, they definitely want a police reference number”

“They’re usually fine with the TFL lost property one”

Stupid me for losing my bag.

Having eventually managed to report my bag missing, the copper’s face brightening when I gave him a piece of paper detailing exactly what was lost, saving him all the effort of actual writing, managed to head off to Canary Wharf where I naughtily bought a new camera.

I can’t really cope without cameras, I love photography and always carry at least one with me at all times. I can’t find the receipt for my lil Ixus 70, which is my tiny camera I took with me everywhere until recently, so I figure I should replace that one as it’s the one I’ll least likely be able to prove I own to the insurers if I have to claim. Upgraded to a black Ixus 120 IS. It looks sexy, but the pics just aren’t quite as good as the old 70. No idea why, the CCD seems noisier in low light and there’s not as much control over the picture, as opposed to gimmicky rubbish. Also, no timelapse.

Still, it’ll do.

Rushed home for sofa delivery at 10:30. They eventually showed up at 12:30, having gotten horribly lost. On the plus side, I now have a new sofabed for visitors. New sofabed (clicky)
New sofabed

Headed to London Bridge to start our Brighton adventure. Nikki and Baz were visiting, allegedly on the tail end of their honeymoon. Turns out they’d felt so rough after the wedding reception to end all wedding receptions that they’d not gotten out of bed until Thursday and skipped the Isle of Wight totally. Relaxing on the pier (clicky)
Relaxing on the pier
Wandered round Brighton for a bit, had brekkie, bumped into Liam’s cousin Sam and hastily concieved a vague dinner plan and then headed down to the pier to chill out a bit. Chris popped down to say hello to us but was a bit worse for wear from the night before. Had a friend called Chris with him, so we popped to the St James for a drink and a general chat outside.

The “No Name” restaurant has changed its name to “Here”. Oddly. Decided to eat there. As Liam later remarked, for our first couply meal. Myself, Liam, Nikki, Baz, Sam and Routa (although this might not actually bear any resemblance to how you spell her name). Cauliflour, gouda cheese and truffle oil soup and then sea trout fillet on new potatoes for me. Much better than the last time we were there, rather lovely.

Popped down to the Marlborough for beer after. Sat outside and chatted about everything. Got around to the usual position on politics that if you don’t

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Talking like pirates

Saturday September 19th, 2009 at 12:29am

Today it is International talk like a Pirate day, if you were wondering why the website is full of Arrs! and Avasts!

Back in London. Police done, new baby camera bought, expenses not paid (grr!), flights not booked (grr!), sofa bed due at 10:30am still not here (grr!). If all goes to plan I’ll be in Brighton later, but currently all is not going to plan and everything might well go TitsUp™ instead. Bah!

Tomorrow, off to The Urban Green Fair in Brockwell Park if anyone fancies tagging along?

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So very tired

Thursday September 17th, 2009 at 22:25pm

Sleepy. Work’s chilled out a bit though, which is good. Slowly getting back into some freakcity as well, which is also good. Work on the new blog section is coming along nicely, a sneak preview can be seen here:

www.freakcity.net/scott/2009/09/

Still got to sort out the comments and stuff. Noticed today they’d stopped working, which was a bit of a big oopsie.

Back to London via Luton tomorrow, hoping to get police and stuff sorted out for my missing bag. It still hasn’t been handed in, I’m skeptical but the woman at the lost property place said “it’s a bit early to have been handed in yet” so I guess I can still keep my fingers crossed...

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When I am king

Thursday September 17th, 2009 at 7:36am

I’m going to authorise a cull of blood sucking insects.

I am also going to authorise a cull of politicians.

Some of you might not notice the difference...

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weddings, lost property and bit of politics

Wednesday September 16th, 2009 at 9:08am

Flew back into London on Friday evening, nice meal at a random Mediterranean restaurant thing then home for lots of sleep. Last week I worked 71 hours, so needed it.

Up at 6, groaning, to get the tube to Stratford for the NXEA train to Norwich. Packed camera/video camera/ipod and bits in my bag and promptly left it on a Jubilee line train at around 7am. Got to the ticket window for National Express, picked up my tickets and then remembered the bag. Ran to the platform, managed to look in two carriages before the train left. Sometimes I’m a bit of a retard.

On the train, feeling a bit sulky and very tired and a little angry, tried my best to put it out of mind. Arrived in Norwich and met Mum and Andy in Olive’s for breakfast. Discovered that I had the wrong number for my brother and so he’d been grumbling that I’d not mentioned anything about Lily, when I had, but to his old number by text. D’oh.

Wandered up to the Registry office where I managed to confuse Nikki’s brother Chris by waving at him. I haven’t seen him in around 10 years, possibly more, he couldn’t work out who I was.

The ceremony was great, packed registry office and I found out later that the Philip Glass-esque piece of music that was played whilst they swapped rings was actually written and recorded by Nikki.

Dashed off to meet up with Shaun afterwards, had a quick drink and met my niece Lily for the first time. She’s purty and lovely and stuff. I is unka Scott : )

After being soppy it was back through Norwich to the Alex for the wedding reception and various speeches which were all entirely spur of the moment and because of it entirely emotional and heartfelt. I don’t particularly agree with weddings and marriage and all that god bollocks, but if it has to be done, this is how it should be.

Left the reception at around 6ish, feeling all fluffy. Vague plans to meet up with them at the end of their honeymoon in Brighton on Saturday or Sunday, which should be nice. Walked round some of the old bits of Norwich with Liam, a trip down memory lane. Very odd seeing all the old places again, wandered past mine and Mark’s old place and meandered round the Cathedral and then up onto Mousehold Heath to watch the sun going down.

Back on the 8pm train — slightly delayed, but home eventually. Played Liam “Echo”, he wasn’t too sure about the speed of it, I think having the story unfold was better, but overall we’re both of the opinion that it was a better pilot than the original.

And Yay! Dollhouse season 2 starts next Friday.

Up early on Sunday. Had to take back the food processor I got last time I was back, then off to Baker Street to discover the lost property office wasn’t open at all. Fortunately I was planning on and had budgeted for a new iPod touch 64gb this weekend, so I’m not without music even if I don’t find my old stuff.

Lunch at some awful chain restaurant and then home.

Flight miraculously only slightly delayed. TXL bus vanishing meant I had to meander back via the U-Bahn, but then again that was probably the safest option as the S-Bahn is pretty broken right now.

So they’re “trimming the fat” off of Deutsche Bahn with an eye to privatising it. This trimming of fat has so far led to trains being taken out of service for being faulty and then being put back in, falsified safety check records, incorrect safety checks performed on wheels (which led to the whole S-Bahn fleet being taken out of service and individually checked after a derailment) and now incorrect safety checks being performed on brake cylinders which has led to, once again, the whole of the DB S-Bahn fleet being taken out of service.

So to get to work there’s a train every half an hour. Or I could walk. How retro?

Three of DBs board members have been ousted after this latest outrage, but, call me a cynic, you always follow the money. The board are likely to become very rich if their company is privatised and they aren’t r

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Hm. Perhaps I should get more sleep?

Tuesday September 8th, 2009 at 7:02am

Debugging with IE8 is actually a worthwhile thing to do. It appears to have a half decent debugging tool. However, according to law, it failed at about 11pm last night so I gave up and came home. Release in about a week, so very much to do before then. Currently, I’m wishing IE6 wasn’t still alive.


It’s decided to switch from cold to warm here again. 26º and sunny today. I can’t keep up 


Norwich on Saturday for Nikki and Baz’s wedding. Tickets booked. Will try and drag mum out for breakfast when I arrive. I am very much looking forward to a swim when I get home...


Apparently my inability to check my voicemail on time led to their inability to deliver my new sofabed. Hah! Maybe they should’ve replied to my email. Hoping it’ll be here in time for my birthday or Mum can sleep on the balcony...


Cyanogen is making me happy at the moment! There’s an updater and everything in the Android marketplace. It’s like having proper OTA updates with no fiddling from T-Mobile and ALL of the Android functionality.


Now, I should probably write something for the pesky thing!


So, girls and girls, what would you want from a freakcity Android/iPhone app? And yes I’m aware no-one’d use it apart from me, but I wants to see if I can write one! Comment on this blog entry.


Weekend of chill

Monday September 7th, 2009 at 7:50am

After the excitement of the N900 on Friday, this weekend was mostly about chilling out, relaxing, some might even say “chillaxing”. A couple of beers with the guys after work on Friday, then up on Saturday for a bit of shopping. Got some shorts to replace the ones that I broke when moving and some lightweight walking shoes I’ll be experimenting with today.

Failed to fix the bike as Evil Germans have mandated its wheels be too big. Not sure if, going on the state of the tyres, it’s worth wasting an inner tube in the back wheel to see if it stays up, but I might try it.

N900 absolutely rocks as a browser btw, full size web pages rendering perfectly. And the UI is a strange hybrid of WebOS, iPhoneOS and Symbian with a bit of Android thrown in for good measure. The screen’s amazing.

Failed to play with my helicopter at all. So I can pretend to be a grownup for another week or so until I get another chance.

Nikki and Baz’s wedding this weekend, must remember to buy train tickets.

Didn’t do much yesterday except eat crappy food and arse about online. German autumn appears to have quite efficiently hit...it’s cold and overcast and keeps raining. Probably shoulda gone out and done something fun but didn’t.

Dollhouse on 25th of this month. Yay!

DH Ad (Poor Quality Copy)

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Sun then rain

Friday September 4th, 2009 at 7:56am

Sun! Then rain! Then Sun! What’s a girl to do?

Forgot to take my washing out of the machine last night so it’s gorgeously sunny and I don’t have any shorts. Though I’m feeling more normal again after having felt crappy on Tuesday, which is nice.

Roomba tried to eat Rabbitbert’s wires last night, am suspecting they’ve had a tiff. Worried about leaving them alone together in case Rabbitbert pushes the ironing board over again on top of her.

Last night was a rather yummy (but terribly fattening) meal of kartoffelnudeln, käise, champignons und bacon. Sorta like the one I had with Liam in Eins the last time he was over, but probably fattier as my bacon was cheap.

Hopefully I won’t end up working the weekend, but it depends on our bug count by the end of the day. It’s all go, we launch in a couple of weeks and everything’s getting a bit hectic.

Company meeting this afternoon to discuss feedback from Nokia World.

Got to fondle an N900 a bit on Wednesday. The new OS is really quite lovely.

Have demanded a Nokia Booklet 3G for ‘testing purposes’. Suspect I won’t quite manage this ; )

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