Moving, walking, working, sleeping, driving, walking, talking, smiling...

Today is my last day at work this week. Tonight I shall drive to Liz's and tomorrow morning we shall drive to The Summer Sundae for much festival goodness. Air are headlining on Sunday so I shall be a very happy bunny :)

MOT Madness

I forgot to mention the car. The other day I got an email from my Dad saying that my Mum had been driving her car around without a valid MOT since the first of July. Worse still she reckoned that my car was due at the same time. Shit! After work I went straight to Halfords and spent £40 on bits and pieces to try and get the car up to scratch before booking it in for an MOT.

I bought new wipers, some "glass cutter" and rain repellent, some special non-smear wipes for the inside of the windows, and a new bulb. I fitted the various new bits and pieces then applied the "glass cutter" and rain repellent. After all this I went inside to look the paperwork out ready to book an MOT and checked the date the MOT was due on. 26th of November 2004.

10 seconds later I was on the phone to my Mum and I was NOT in a good mood! Ah well, at least the car has had some stuff done to it. The rain repellent is quite cool, all the water just swishes straight off the screen, so it should be good if I should get caught in torrential rain - as I did on Sunday. The wiper blades are silent and don't smear water like the old ones did. It's most noticeable on the rear wiper which used to judder all the way across the screen and then screech all the way back again. After each wipe there would be approximately 0.01% less water on the rear screen, so it was long overdue a new wiper.

"Press"

You may or may not remember that when I moved into my last flat I discovered a switch in the kitchen that just said "Press". No explanation as to what it did or anything, and I made a point of not pressing it as I didn't want to spoil the mystery. In fact I just assumed that it was for the extractor fan and left it at that. I never needed the fan as the windows were permanently wide open anyway.

The flat I am in now also has one of these buttons. Again I assumed it was for the extractor fan. That is until the other day when one of my flatmates had one of his friends round. Said friend was commenting on the button. I said I thought it was for the extractor fan. He said that he'd pressed it and it didn't do anything. To demonstrate he pressed it.

At this point I realised the button itself wasn't even the kind of button I had originally thought it was. I thought it was an on/off style switch, like a light-switch. But no, it is actually built like a light-switch, but you have to hold it down else it will spring back to its original position. Pressing it does nothing. Holding it does nothing. The friend of my flatmate said that his flat downstairs was exactly the same. Odd. Perhaps holding all the buttons in all the kitchens does something? This introduces 2 questions:

1. Just what does the button do?

2. How the hell do we turn on the extractor fan?!

Great Minds...

I had a really cool idea a few weeks ago for a new feature on the blog and LoweyPages. It occurred to me that it'd be really cool if users who stumbled across my blog found that the keywords they searched for were automatically highlighted by my script. This idea, I thought, was so cool that I had to keep it to myself until I got around to implementing it, and then I could show it off to everyone while jumping up and down waving my arms above my head shouting "look at me look at me, geek extraordinaire!"

Today I logged into Bloglines and saw an article in A List Apart titled Enhance Usability by Highlighting Search Terms

THE CUNTS STOLE MY IDEA!

Okay, they didn't steal it. Clearly they also had this rather splendid idea independently and I should be proud that I independently invented the same idea as some of the greatest web designing minds around, but it still smarts somewhat.

So, A List Apart, I applaud you for beating me in the race to implement this idea. Now I'm going to go eat my hat.

Insecure, Downtime, etc

I received an odd email from Liz the other day:

> Apparently your blog site is open to hax0rs

A quick visit to my blog revealed a server misconfiguration ("error 500") page. I had a quick check through the blogs, posts to LoweyPages and the code for both revealed that nothing had been compromised, but I took both down just in case while I had a look through. Besides, it wasn't going to make any vast difference to people visiting as the server was quite clearly b0rked.

Anyway I had a quick look and couldn't find anything that would allow a hacker access to any passwords or anything that might trick the blog into allowing unauthorised posts or anything. When I found out who had originally suggested the site was at risk from being hacked I emailed them to find out what made them think it was insecure.

It turned out the site had been providing directory listings access to the public_html directory, the cgi-bin directory and so all the files were readable. Luckily no-one could read the source files for the scripts, as the site had actually been relying on security through obscurity until today. This was just because it was easier, but I've made it much safer now (just in case the source should ever see the light of day).

Anyway the only real problem I could see was that the logs for the blog and LoweyPages were accessible via the web. This was just for ease of access, but as pointed out by Shiny they were grep-able to find out where I generally logged in from so they could packet-sniff. Not that I see anyone going to that much trouble, but it does make sense to move them somewhere a little safer.

Anyway, the server is now back online again after I emailed the admin and the blog is now online and a little bit more secure. The only question is whether my password works with the new system ...

Ugh, it's too hot. Would someone please turn the sun down a setting or two? Thanks.

Music and Films

Been playing around with a new machine in Buzz which allows you to "scratch" a sample like you might scratch with a record. Good fun, hopefully I'll have something to show from it soon. Currently I'm struggling with percussion. I want to make some acidic/chemical or even break- beats, but it's just not happening. Everything I make sounds flat and lifeless. It's quite rare now that I listen to music and have no idea how they have achieved a sound, but the drum sounds in the kind of music I love just keeps on defying me. I'll have to do some research on the web.

Suddenly I got bored of sitting at the computer last night and decided I'd get a video out. Then I remembered that I have a huge fine on my record. Then I remembered that they let you pay fines off bit by bit, so I went anyway. When I got there the fine was only £4 - I'd been expecting it to be in the region of £10-£15 minimum. I paid the whole thing off then wandered around the shop to see what jumped out at me. I picked up some arty looking film and wandered around a bit more. Saw Kill Bill and thought "Kill Bill it is, then".

My impressions were that it was a good film overall, but it has a few flaws that are typical of action films: The hero can be punched in the face 20 times in a single scene, yet they do not sustain any bruising or cuts. They will remain blood splattered throughout the film, but they don't sustain any injuries. We see them get hurt, and then when they next turn around they have miraculously healed. For example, at one point she gets hit in the chest by a metal ball on a chain. She is catapaulted across the room and crashes through a table where blood seaps from her mouth. She's having trouble breathing. That suggests a pretty serious injury. But then she gets a burst of energy as she is about to be finished, she leaps up and the blood is gone and she's fine. Later she gets cut in the back, she collapses and is having trouble breathing. She clambers to her feet and struggles on for a short while. Then she gets a burst of energy and she's fine again.

Maybe I'm just a pedant.

Free Digital Prints

Jessops are offering free prints of digital photos. 10 free 7x5" prints. I thought it couldn't be true, but we just tried it and it came up as "10 7x5" prints @ 0p each. Total for this order = £0.00 including delivery". It didn't even bother asking for credit card details. We're now going to get 10 free pictures from my colleague's wedding and Hen night.

Close

Another busy weekend at Liz's. Saturday morning was spent shifting stuff out of storage in the blistering heat, then getting it all home and trying to find enough space to dump it in. Then we went to B&Q to get some stuff. The cold tap in the kitchen and the one in the bathroom both leaked so we went out to get some special bits of plastic that fit into the tap and stop them leaking. Whoever designed them clearly didn't have Liz's taps in mind though and so they wouldn't go in despite my best efforts. Instead we decided to fit new taps (the old ones looked a bit manky anyway).

So there I was, head under the kitchen sink, water dripping all over my face, sink wrench in one hand and monkey wrench in the other... Considering I've never done any plumbing before I think I did a good job. The new taps look good and there's not been a single leak since. Next will be the bathroom taps as they are knackered: The previous occupant managed to fit a washer that's bigger than the entrance to the tap, so I couldn't get it back out again. God knows how they got it in there. On inspecting the inside of the tap it was also damaged anyway so new taps are on the cards. It should be easier this time though as access isn't quite such an issue.

After all the tap-fitting, carrying stuff, driving places, painting and collecting of carpet we decided it was essential we had a beer. Off we went to Liz's new local. It was grim. We left the local straight away and went to the Lock Stock in town. Far nicer. Had a few pints of good old London Pride and then returned home. Drank some wine (bad idea after beer) and then went to bed.

Sunday morning I woke up with a slightly wooly head. Liz was in a much worse state though, and so the planned carpet-laying didn't happen as Liz clearly wasn't going to be up to it. Instead we had a lazy afternoon in town.

The journey back was better than I had expected. It seems that every time I take the new route back I always take a wrong turn on the A417. Last week I revised my poorly written instructions to try and prevent this from happening, but I couldn't find them while I was in the car so I simply did it from memory and - what do you know - I only went wrong once and that was in Ledbury just after I'd finally overtaken two slow moving caravans and was so relieved that I wasn't paying attention to the sign for the roundabout. Realised my mistake straight away, turned around and got stuck behind the same two caravans. GAH!

On the A44 I was doing a good speed (60-70 Mph) as I rounded a slight bend in the road and there was a stream of traffic on the other side of the road that wasn't moving very fast with someone overtaking. They were cutting it a bit fine, but nothing too drastic. The real problem lay with the complete twat behind them who really shouldn't have been overtaking. The slow moving car that they were overtaking obviously had common sense - they had their hand on the horn trying to tell the pillock to get onto the right side of the road. At 60-70 Mph the chances of surviving a head-on collision are very close to 0. Obviously I slammed the brakes on; it was my only choice in the situation. There wasn't even anywhere to swerve to.

In life or death situations we all react a little strangely. Many people claim their lives "flash before their eyes". Mine didn't. In fact nothing went through my head at all. There was just me and a pair of rapidly approaching headlights. At the last moment they swerved in front of the car at the front of the queue of traffic very narrowly missing me. Then the front car passed, their hand still very firmly on the horn, and then the rest of the traffic.

For a while I just free-wheeled, my mind still completely blank. And then I got scared. Some complete twat just came within inches of possibly killing me, at the very least severly injuring me, possibly injuring one or two of the drivers of the other cars. They'd have definitely written off my car. I was miles from anywhere, it would have taken a while to get me to a hospital. If they'd hit me then my parents would have been receiving an unpleasant phone call from the hospital with either bad news or very bad news. They wouldn't have even had Liz's number to ring her, my parents number they could only have worked out from my driving license. My parents don't even have her number. In fact I am now planning on putting a card in my wallet with my details just in case the worst should happen.

But the strangest thing was the whole detatchment from it that I felt.

Fancy a Laugh?

http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/

Splendid. Utterly splendid.

Email

Not sure what's happened but I seem to have lost one or two messages from my inbox. They've vanished. I know there were one or two items in there last night when I went home, and now they're not there. I've checked all my folders in case I'd accidently moved them without thinking but they really have well and truly disappeared. I'm not sure whether to ring I.S. and yell at them or blame Thunderbird. It has done some strange stuff recently, like moving an email into the "Trash" folder without asking me, but this is a little bit too strange. The emails in question have completely gone.

TV Licensing

This morning a very angry letter from the TV-L arrived demanding £121 or I will be reported to the local TV License Enforcement Officer. Considering that I emailed them and asked them to cancel my license, and then rang them when they didn't reply to my email and cancelled my license over the phone I think it is safe to say that they should have on their records that I am not using my TV to receive broadcasts. What sort of a company are these people running?

Now I shall have to spend my money ringing them to tell them that they are a bunch of fuck-nut wankers.

The Moon Landings: A Hoax?

I for one am sick of all the claims that the moon landings were a hoax. Personally I can see no benefit to NASA for them to go to all that trouble to hoax the entire world, and I think the Russians may have had a few words to say on the matter seeing as they tracked the mission the entire distance to the moon and back. This website offers a very nice write-up that debunks the common claims made by hoax-theory advocates.

I'm glad to see someone out there who believes in something more than lies. Given the choice of believing that the human race achieved something utterly incredible such as landing on the moon, or believing that the American Government spent billions of dollars in fooling us all I would personally rather choose the first.