fin

This blog is now closed. It has been singing the last verse for a while. In the early days, back when it was cobbled together with make and m4 macroes, and published to the web as static html files, I tried to write something every day or at least every week, no matter how trivial. Those where the days! Now I feel stifled by a mountain of drivel^W^W^Wlong history, and since I’ve just become a married man I’ve decided it’s time to move on.

The implications for this blog are:

There won’t be any new entries. But I won’t remove any either. I have not yet decided whether to close commenting. I don’t get a lot of comments (mostly spam) but occasionally useful stuff appears.

The http://blog.brautaset.org alias may break. I won’t pay wordpress to extend it and when it eventually expires the address of this blog will change to become http://skugg.wordpress.com. I may implement http redirects to mitigate broken links, but I make no promises about that.

I won’t be disappearing completely off the net. I’ll still post (occasionally) to my dev blog, and I have created a new personal blog. I haven’t decided if I’m actually going to write anything there yet, but, you know, it’s there in case I need it. I also share a blog with my wife. I suggest you read that; she posts more and is much funnier than me.

Ha det bra!

A catering manager…

… the BBC reports, is accusing his employer, the Metropolitan Police, of religious discrimination as he was told he may have to handle sausages and bacon.

The mind boggles. I hope he’s happy with his 15 minutes of fame.

This one goes to 11!

I just noticed that the volume control on BBC iPlayer goes to eleven. A cliché, probably, but it made me smile nonetheless.

Saw 25% faster!

Today I bought a new saw at the local hardware store. It’s an Irwin Universal 880 Triple Ground handsaw. It, as the name suggests, features a new triple ground tooth design that makes it 25% faster than the double ground version. It was pretty cheap too, at £7.99.

I was quite excited about it, but felt a bit sheepish—like I was exploring an entirely new ballpark of sadness—until I actually tried the thing. It’s a delight to use compared to my old saw. It cut through my chip-wood shelf like a knife through hot butter.

Ok, still feeling a little bit bad about being so excited about a saw. I’m sure I’ll get over it.

Genious recommendations gone wrong

To test iTunes Genius I highlighted one of my favourite albums, Paradise Lost by the band of the same name. And what did iTunes Genious recommend?
The Paradise Vendors. Not a good start, Apple!

Gin

All these years I thought I could not stand Gin. Not so any more. It turns out it’s actually the Tonic water that so violently disagree with me. Gin, a twist of lime, and lemonade or coke is really quite enjoyable. Who would’ve thunk it?

Avenue Que?

Dean and I went to see Avenue Q last night, having heard rave reviews about it. Plus, he found some cheap tickets, which turned out to be really good. There was only one problem: we both hated the show. So much, in fact, that we left at the intermission and didn’t bother going back for the second part. It was just too dull to waste another hour of our lives on.

It wasn’t the fault of the actors. (Not all of them, at least.) In particular, Mark Goldthorp animated his characters with great skill. And Rebecca Lock, the leading monster, did a hell of a job on the singing front. But skilful actors is not enough; it has to be entertaining too, and this one was not. It was just full of platitudes.

This came as a bit of a surprise. We seemed to be the only ones in the audience not enjoying the show. And it came with recommendations from people that we thought of as friends that have (allegedly) been to see it several times. Now we need to re-assess these friendships: real friends wouldn’t trick friends into viewing Avenue Q.

The pulled-pork sandwich I had afterwards lifted the evening somewhat.

That new car smell

Today is the first day, since I started in a new job at the beginning of January, that I’ve forgotten to shave before going to work in the morning. I remembered as I was walking to the bus, but didn’t have time to go back and do it. When I got in there was no fanfare. Nor any telling off. (Nobody even seemed to notice. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Oh no.) Nevertheless it somehow seems important. As if the honeymoon is over. The new car smell is gone.

Mole fantastic!

I’m sure it wasn’t so fun for his neighbours, whose houses allegedly were at risk from his excavations, but I found this story of a man who spent 40 years digging a labyrinth under his house to be incredibly amusing. You’ve just got to applaud it.

Beauty & depth

People who appreciate beautiful art are said to have depth. People who put a lot of weight on beauty in a partner are regarded shallow. Discuss.