I walked past David Jones tonight and they had Christmas trees in their front window. Channel 10 played a Simpson’s episode that involved Christmas. It’s even on the blogs!
Now I won’t feel so silly at work for keeping a Christmas tree on my monitor. It’s only been there 3½yrs now. It’s not because I’m too lazy to put it away, I just wish it could be Christmas all year long 🙂
My high school awarded me a trophy in 1993 for um, I don’t remember exactly, but something like oustanding achievement in the field of excellence. Which was nice at the time. I got a certificate and a silvery goblet.
Tonight, I kinda wish they hadn’t bothered.
The much tarnished trophy is now sitting in this room, allowing me to cast dark glances at it and mutter. It was located on a kind of mantle above a sliding door outside our bathroom. Daniel was shutting the door—he enjoys opening and shutting things—not even slamming it really. And that’s when the aforementioned goblet fell and clocked him a good one.
I was on the other side of the door. In the bathroom. I think this qualifies as one of those situations where you don’t want to be caught naked—but are. Well, that pales into insignificance really…
One horrible accident. Two hours at the GP. Three stitches. Four stressed family members—it must be quite an ordeal for a two year old. It’s not too easy on a big brother, nor a mother or father.
I’m just glad we’re all OK. Good onya Daniel, what a little trooper you were! And thanks to the doctor, what a nightmare it must be to stitch up a kid’s scalp. Now to find a suitably dark closet to put that darn goblet in.
Every now and then I get to do something with the search at work. Sometimes it’s planning, sometimes reorganising the data, sometimes it’s interface design. And once it was help.
If you look at that page and scroll down, you’ll find some tips on how that search works. My favourite tip is that you can turn on “Sounds Like” matching and search for “eddycation week”. But just who is Eddy Cation, and why does he get a whole week?
Hehe 😉
Are we all agreed Lush Bath Ballistics is da bomb? Well, I’m not so sure about Fairy Jasmine. Perhaps because we grow our own jasmine—which has only just finished its ebulliently floral announcement of Spring—we failed to detect any aroma of jasmine in this bath. More to the point, for the second time in my life I have had glitter on my person. Hmmm.
Somehow I knew when I went shopping in that place I was a bit out of my depth. Perhaps I should have looked harder for some Mr Sparkle, lucky best wash, 100%!
That’s the advice I was given in order to write a novel in one year. Yes, I’ll admit I’m making the attempt and with 36,000 words down feel I have made a little progress. Towards a very rough early draft mind—I’ve no time to waste editing at this stage and the consensus is complete the work first as there’s a real risk of being sucked into the vortex of forever editing, never finishing.
Why am I posting this? Oh yes. Today I wrote my 500 words! It’s good advice, even a noob like me can see the benefit. I actually managed my quota every day in June and it was great. Then I slacked off. Fool! Then I lost the plot. Fool! I’ve only just managed to salvage it back to coherent prose (with stacks of notes waiting to be slipped back in place once the time is right) which means I fell prey, for a time, to the editing-when-you-should-be-writing bug. Fool, thrice the fool!
So hopefully now I’m back on track. Coz it’s good advice, that 500 words a day. I was worried it would be too regimental, but if one is to really make a go of it a bit of self discipline is surely called for. It reminds me of my days studying animation—another industry requiring some very real dedication to the cause. Funny how I ended up in web development, a place very much driven by quick returns, dirty hacks and achieving a lot with a little. Perfect for a lazy minimalist like me.
But I’m going to get this novel written. Even if ultimately it’s never published anywhere except on a website, just to prove I can do it. 500 words a day. It’s not difficult. I write more than that a dozen times over and more just in email each day, posting comments on blogs, occasionally blogging here—there’s close to 500 words in this post alone. And never let one ever forget the reams and reams of code and configuration at work, as if one ever would. Surely I can channel a measly 500 words in the right direction.
500 words a day is the key—an achievable goal to ensure progress is sustainable, and the constant immersion means it gets easier as you go. It’s very good advice—thanks to Fiona, a mighty impressive lady who can produce a complete trilogy within a year. This time I need to stick to it.
No, I am not promoting arson. Arson is wrong. I am however, promoting Firefox: a web browser based on Mozilla. An alternative to Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer hasn’t changed much in the last few years so if you’ve been wondering what’s changed in the world of web browsing, have a go of firefox. You’ll like it, or I’ll refund your comments—that’s my guarantee to you.
This website may help you (but probably not).
but I just might buy some tomorrow because I could win! That link will probably break one day sooner or later so I better say the prize up for grabs is an Apple iPod.
It’s hard not to want an iPod. It’s the kind of thing I would usually convince myself I must have, but I have mixed feelings. They look great. They sound great (I’m talking about the advertising, not the audio quality—I haven’t had the pleasure to be able to judge). But… they only play songs. Oh I know you can store files and it has a calendar and contacts. But I keep contacts on my phone and PC where I can use them! And my phone can play mp3s already—when the headset works!—and it has a camera, and email, and web, and handwriting recognition. I have a cool phone. Well, it’s a bit dated. The P900 and soon to be released P910 (c’mon, look at that cute keyboard) look a bit spunkier.
Ok, it’s not so much a phone as a PDA. And it’s the kind of PDA I want—not spreadsheets and financial software—cool multimedia stuff. I only wish it had a radio, TV and video camera. And more memory. Memory sticks are too expensive too buy.
So I guess an iPod might be nice after all. After all, I really like iTunes. (It’s like media player, only better. Much better. Go get it now!) Even though it doesn’t have a camera, phone, TV or radio either. I guess if I buy all those things individually I would have a utility belt. Be the man. Batman.
All I need to do now is decide what candy to buy. Oh, and what movie to see…
Today I came to the startling revelation that the Simpsons has been on TV for half my life. That’s in years, not actual airtime. I mean, fourteen years (yes, I’m 28, which anybody could find out from my blogger profile). That’s a lot of simpsons.
What’s more, it’s now on channel 10 seven nights a week at 6pm plus again Mon–Fri at 7pm. That is a whole lotta simpsons. Oh, and new episodes on Wednesday night. I’m not sure of tha time. Is that the 7pm ones? Or is that even more lots of simspsons?
Actually I quite like the show. Many of the episodes anyway. They still make me laugh. And have given many unforgettable quotes. And for those occassions when you need a good simpsons quote, you should go to SNPP.com. They also have insanely detailed reviews of each and every episode. It will scare you.
Half a lifetime though. Whoah.
Ben Boyle lives here! 