links for 2005-12-23
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When they did that in Italy a few years ago, people complained and started adding their own stickers with the regional code to the new-style plates.
Monthly archive: December 2005
Let's not forget Gay Christmas
I have booked myself into a cheap hotel in central Athens from 18 to 22 May 2006, along with some friends. Flights reservations to follow soon.
It is not a coincidence that the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 takes place that weekend in that very same city.
We probably will fail to find tickets for the show and end up watching it in some seedy taverna and spend the following day oozing ouzo and nursing a hangover.
But wow – I'm going to My First Eurovision. How cool is that?
(Oh, don't answer. Please)
links for 2005-12-22
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The little-known and unfortunately-named European Weee (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive will make it mandatory for consumers to responsibly dispose of their old gadgets.
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A collection of twenty-four Christmas-themed games (requires Flash)
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One-of-a-kind custom handmade miniature shoes to fit Barbie. The pairs are signed and numbered and come in a custom made shoe box.
Half of me is supposed to be radiant
While queuing at the supermarket yesterday I spotted this headline on the cover of the latest Elle UK:
Revealed: the £7.50 face cream that's so good we don't wear makeup anymore!
(or something along those lines anyway)
Of course I opened the magazine to find out about this intriguingly-named wonder: Olay's Complete Care Multi-Radiance. Because these days only One Radiance simply does not cut it.
Then later I saw it on offer at £4.49 at Superdrug – and bought it.
I am now wearing it on the right side of my face only. I defy anyone to tell which side I've applied it to.
I suppose one needs to use it regularly to start seeing some results, but if I spend that much on something to slap on my face, I expect to see results. Now.
links for 2005-12-21
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And just yesterday I have set the alarm (and failed to wake up) one hour earlier than usual to fix a freelance project for IE/Mac, the nightmare of all web developers.
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Guess what search term generated a set of twenty pictures in Google. Requires Flash player 8 or higher. Addictive.
links for 2005-12-17
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Useful advice if you want to epilate your chest: 'Go buy a big bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, or White Port wine, drink most of it, stumble into the bathroom, yell "Let the battle begin!" And do what you gotta do!'
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…'men subconsciously [...] look for something anthropologists call "Bilateral Symmetry" which means that your arms and legs are the same length, your torso is straight etc. An asymmetrical dress throws this off.'
The icecream experiment
Having a corner shop just, well, around the corner means that we are never more than five minutes away from any sort of tempting food, from eight in the morning to ten-thirty at night, seven days a week.
As you enter the shop, a stand-up fridge filled with tubs of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry icecream welcomes you, almost always festooned with some sort of offer.
For the last couple of weeks, the offer has been £2.79 per tub (about two pounds cheaper than usual). And we have developed this habit whereby some time after dinner Dr B. sends me subliminal messages (well, he sputters 'icecream!', pretending to disguise the word in a cough) and minutes later I present him with a fresh tub from the shop and two teaspoons. We take turns in passing the tub to each other and before you know it it's gone.
This is a routine I personally decided we could work on (a sulking Dr B. denied there was anything wrong with it), so on Thursday night I bought two tubs for four pounds with my grocery shopping at the supermarket on the way home, and announced we were going to only have 1/4 tub each at every sitting instead of 1/2 tub, and I was therefore expecting them to last until Sunday night.
To make this more intriguing, I bought us a household favourite (Ben & Jerry's' Dublin Mudslide) and a limited-edition novelty (Haagen-Dazs' Chocolate Cherry Brownie).
So far we have stuck with it, having only half of what we used to, and eating out of proper bowls and everything.
The verdict is that it can be done, it still feels like a treat (and why wouldn't it, at 300 calories each?), and I found I eat slowly to make it last longer. And Chocolate Cherry Brownie can safely be dropped without causing us too much heartache.
And best of all, as Marjorie Dawes suggests, because it's only half the calories we can have twice as much!
links for 2005-12-16
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Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' free podcast from the Penguin website, in five daily instalments.
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Visual Studio Express free for a year. SQL Server Express free forever. Total size approximately 400MB.
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Provides information on how to make VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs from a variety of video sources or downloaded movie formats.
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sIFR replaces plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems. It uses a combination of javascript, CSS, and Flash.
Sugar and spice (and 2,194 calories)
I am exceptionally posting from work because Dr B.'s upgrade of the modem/wireless router resulted in no internet access from home.
So Christmas has officially arrived in our household: I bought two oranges to be decorated with cloves. I found out we were out of cloves. I went down to the surprisingly well stocked corner shop, but they had none.
Two oranges sit in the fridge now.
Then I made a half-batch of thirty-six piparkökur (pepper cookies, Icelandic recipe, English language version).
This morning Dr B. noticed that only three were left and said: 'Oh, the Cookie Fairy has come', then made my buttocks wobble and added '…and you have eaten her!'
I rushed out to work without even showering.
The devil makes work for idle thumbs
And if the devil is equipped with a Braun Silk-épil, you can go from being moderately hairy-chested to the whole plucked chicken look, including life-like bumpy rash, all in the space of half a Madonna album.
Not a good look. I was so ashamed I slept with a t-shirt on.
Ouch.
And all I can look forward now is the itching.
We will not be homeless after all
The sale of Dr B.'s flat fell through just as he had obtained an additional mortgage to purchase a bigger property. The buyer does not have access to the moneys until July.
We had visited a lovely top-floor loft-style warehouse conversion only a five minute walk from Vauxhall tube, and Dr B. was about to put in an offer just as he heard that his buyer had pulled out.
We are of course gutted. What makes it worse is that now we have to go back to cleaning and tidying up the flat every morning before going to work, in case the estate agents bring people around.
When the flat first went on the market I was enjoying the feeling of living in a perpetually spotless environment.
Now I just want a maid.
links for 2005-12-12
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Meet Joe Ortega, FDNY Firefighter/NYC Go-Go Boy. Only in New York.
What is morning wood?
Morning erections have nothing to do with dreams of sexy ladies – or sexy men, for that matter.
I had a hard time pointing at the toilet bowl after waking up today, and all I was dreaming of was that I was in a new job and we'd just been hacked. Hardly stiffy material, I know.
Although now that I think of it, the head developer was played by Jake Gyllenhaal.
Now, Jake Gyllenhaal is absolutely not my type, and I appreciate the effort he made in my dream, sporting the shaved head and combats he donned for his role in Gulf war drama 'Jarhead', but he just does not do it for me. Too young I think.
So I'll just go with the 'specific neuroreflexes that are stimulated during REM sleep' explanation, then.
links for 2005-12-06
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'The official line is that the newest IE vulnerability was the proverbial straw, and now NASA's standard browser is Firefox'
We are soon to be homeless
Dr B. has received an offer on his flat. This is the flat we share and that he put on the market two months ago in order to move to a larger place with a second bedroom (which is already being called 'the snoring room' in honour of my night-time concertos).
The buyer is willing to reach the asking price if the exchange happens very quickly.
We had not been looking for a new flat yet, so on Saturday morning we visited a handful of new developments Dr B. had his eyes upon. They are all due for completion sometime next Summer. They also have stupid mock-Scandinavian names.
It is probably not worth renting until next July in order to end up living in an apartment block called Dümpå.
links for 2005-12-02
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'RocketFM uses any available FM frequency to transmit audio through your home, car or office stereo system.' Only 40USD, but I have a feeling this is unfortunately illegal in the UK.
Last night I favoured Little Britain over Madonna
If the latest documentary on Madonna had been aired five years ago, I would very likely have set two VCRs – and watched the broadcast itself – just to make sure I did not miss it.
Last night I ignored it (alright, I forgot about it) and watched Little Britain instead. I'm Going To Tell You A Secret is probably going to be repeated over the next few days on E4, E4 + 1, More 4 (and More 4 + 1 when Channel 4 launches it on the additional Freeview channel they successfully bid for the other day).
I also bet it's already freely available from any BitTorrent client worth of its name.
What was Madonna's big secret that she wanted to tell us anyway? If she really wanted to shock us, I suppose she could confess:
'All this business of being out of breath and not hitting half the notes, it's all pretense really. In reality am a trained opera singer with a vocal range of seventeen octaves, but I'd hate to come across as a pretentious virtuoso.'
Yeah, right.
Congestion charge
Working as a temp provides many perks. Leaving on a whim, for example. Taking long breaks between assignments is another one. Switching employers if relationships are less than ideal, or putting up with bad conditions knowing that you're out of there in two paychecks' time.
However, if like me you have been temping in the same job for over one and a half years, it's bye bye to perks, and hello to all the disadvantages, among which no sick pay. If you are careless enough to let a bug bite you, you must deal with the consequence of money stopping trickling into your bank account until you're back on your feet.
This is why I am off to work on enough Sudafed to put a horse to sleep, and will probably spend the rest of the day knocking down Red Bull to fight the drowsiness.
High-flying ad executives twitch at their desks on coke. Me, I shall sneak into the toilets for a quick snog with my Night Nurse every now and then.