Amsterdam irony

We were wandering around Amsterdam looking for a bar to have a drink in (yes a drink) and found one with a pinball machine, which made it an easy decision. As we walked in through the candy-floss-thick plume of smoke and approached the bar, the big shaven head bar tender showed us the herb menu. We instead looked around for what beers were on offer, noticing the shelves fully stocked with Pringles crisps and M&M’s chocolate.

After a minute or so the bar guy asked: “You’re not schmoking?”

Us: “Uhrm, no, just a beer.”

Him: “Schmoke first, beer later. If you’re not schmoking then you must leave.”

Us: “Heh, seriously?”

Him: “Seriously. Leave.”

I see now that he knew we’d only have one beer each and spend a measly 30 euromonopoly dollars in the pinball machine, rather than buy his overpriced marijuana then spend all the money we had on crisps and chocolate to sate our munchies.

Back home in the UK we would have been thrown out of a bar for smoking the illegal weed, whereas in Amsterdam we were thrown out for not. Then again, alcohol does account for 50 times as many deaths as all illicit drugs put together, so the guy was probably just thinking about our health.

11/4/2005 Add Comment

water cooler

I managed finally, after lots of prodding of the site manager, to get a water cooler installed down here in our department. The water supply down here tastes funny (and is usually warm) so I complained. Unfortunately they’ve plumbed it into the same water source as the tap (duh, I did warn them of this) but with it being cooled, I can no longer taste the fun.

Increased efficiency due to being properly watered: 10%.
Loss of efficiency due to many more trips to the toilet: 2%. Bonus!

I wonder if I can get them to install a urinal down here now. Obviously not in the kitchen, that wouldn’t be hygenic, but there is space in the server room.

6/4/2005 1 Comment

Photos from Amsterdam

gorillaA few photos from around and about Amsterdam, but the majority are from the ARTIS zoo. I’ve uploaded them to the usual place. You can see how tiny my hotel room was, Tux advertising ice drinks, and this bear showing the crowd what he thinks of them.

The zoo was rather depressing. Many of the animals had very little space and looked so sad. So many people were tapping on windows and annoying them too (even using flash photography in the aquarium). This guy was a complete dickhead. Clicking his fingers and shouting at animals to take photos of them. His horrible daughter had learned the same behaviour from him. I clicked my fingers and shouted until he turned around and then I took a photo of him myself. He didn’t get it at all.

I’ve got more stories from Amsterdam which I’ll write later.

5/4/2005 Add Comment

Black Hat, Amsterdam

I leave for Amsterdam on Wednesday where I’m attending the Black Hat Briefings. I was at DefCon in Las Vegas a few years ago so I’m interested to see what the BHB are like in comparison. I hope it’s not just a big ugly advertis-a-thon. I’m there for a few days courtesy of work and will have photies to post when I get back I expect.

My new Laptop arrived today too (not got it in my hands though). The ickle IBM Thinkpad X40 is very portable, but I’ve been using it for more of a desktop replacement than a portable troubleshooter, hence the new Viao one. Big 17inch widescreen LCD, crazy CPUness (for Doom3 and Half Life 2 fun), and 1G RAM. I expect it’ll weigh more than two Terri Schiavos* but I’m a big guy.

* – Please note: topical reference.

29/3/2005 Add Comment

Doctor Who Cares

The first episode of the new series of Doctor Who is quite impressive as is actually really good. I can’t say I was entirely happy with it though. Title sequence is excellent, new title music is spot on and I just love the way that they’ve kept certain classic elements. Christopher Eccleston is a very engaging Doctor and even Billie Piper is not as annoying as I expected her to be. The newly scored main theme is abysmal though. It gets a higher rating from me than it would otherwise mostly because I enjoy modern jive and especially the type of dancing that this episode popularised. It really is a great love story that shows how even though someone dies, love for a person never dies. Emilio Estevez carrys his role off very well as a Jock – it gets a little cringe worthy when he’s high at the end – and rushing around like a loony. But the end with Ally Sheedy certainly makes up for it.

27/3/2005 Add Comment

NCFE exam

It’s my NCFE Asian cookery exam tonight. We’ve got to make a Sindhi Korma, and some other stuff. I’m looking forward to passing. Let’s hope I do.

update: Both myself and Louisa passed the practical and written exam. I won’t belittle my achievement but I will say this: whilst I’m very confident at cooking various Asian curries and breads now, I won’t be winning any positions in the kitchens at Aagrah’s or Akbar’s.

I still plan to write up the missing recipies, and anything new I try.

Follow your dreams. You can meet your goals. I am living proof.

22/3/2005 4 Comments

Cute Little Image Gallery Script (CLIGS)

The Cute Little Image Gallery Script (CLIGS) is a PHP script that autogenerates a nice html index for a directory full of jpeg images. I wrote it to run my photography galleries and have released it to the world under the Gnu Public License (GPL). Download it and give it a bash (needs some setup and Apache trickery to get going).

20/3/2005 Add Comment

punch drunk love

Warning: spoilers herein.

The film is about a nice guy (Adam Sandler), who basically has a mental illness which results in various strange behaviours, one of which is random(ish) violent outbursts. He phones a sex line because he’s lonely and wants to talk to someone but it turns out to be a scam and they try to blackmail him. They threaten him, turn up at his house and beat him up and take money from him. In the meantime he meets a nice girl and falls in love.
(more…)

19/3/2005 Add Comment

New photos, Armley and new lens test

I’ve uploaded some new shots around Armley (plus one errant one in Bradford of my Sister).

I also bought a cheap-ass telephoto/macro lens to try sate my close-up needs. I’ve bunged up a few shots I’ve taken with it. It’s a Sigma 70-300mm APO (f/4 – 5.6). f/5.6 is useless at 300mm in dim light, so this is a strictly bright daytime or flash lens (though the flash is obviously of no use with anything other than close-up at 300mm). The auto-focus drive is slow and noisy too. Compared to the fast and expensive Nikon lenses of equivalent focal length, this doesn’t seem bad for the hilariously low price (though to be honest, I’ve not used the expensive lenses). I’m not experienced enough yet to comment on sharpness or colour saturation or anything. I’ve not noticed any obvious problems yet, and no obvious lense distortion, but I really dont’ know what to look for yet.

Also, me rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.

18/3/2005 Add Comment

Today’s kitchen experience

The box of Tetley’s Tea bags in the work kitchen has the following message on it: “A cup of Tetley’s tea has less caffeine then a cup of ground or instant coffee, and that’s a fact!”. It’s a fact apparently. It’s as if they know that people will expect companies to lie to them, so they wanted to make it clear that this is probably actually true this time. Basically, anything without a “and that’s a fact” suffix is definitely a lie. Everything else just probably is.

Also, Green Tea can help prevent cancer, but it gives me bad breath (well, worse breath). So, I’ll live forever, but I’ll be alone.

17/3/2005 Add Comment

postfix obscureness

Quick technical note. This obscure message from Postfix:

postfix/local[3580]: fatal: gethostbyname: No such file or directory

can be fixed by ensuring your the local machine’s hostname is defined properly in /etc/hosts.

I see hundreds of people asking about this and nobody with a clear answer. Go postfix.

11/3/2005 6 Comments

BAM!

I’ve noticed something about mothers. They seem morbidly obsessed with sudden and sad deaths. Not a week goes by without me hearing of somebody’s mother telling stories of shockingly sudden bouts of cancer or heart attacks. They don’t seem to notice the hundreds of people around them who, every single day, don’t get cancer and don’t have heart attacks.

“Paul Brown. Sure you remember little Paulie Brown, you used to play together as kids. He’s married now; a wife to support. Three young children of his own too. Twenty six years old he is. Twenty six. Last week, he was walking across the road to the supermarket, and BAM! breathing normally. how sudden! how fine and dandy!”

9/3/2005 Add Comment