Tuesday 18 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

Following on from my earlier post, I’ve just got back from a trip to Hobby Craft. (I was going to go to Staples, but I looked on their website and they don’t sell any of the items I need! They don’t sell any paper except A4, they don’t sell any pencils except HB. They can sell me the pencil sharpener though…)

So anyway, we wandered round Hobby Craft (where I’ve never been before) and eventually found a pad of A2 paper (wow that’s big!), the pencils I need (B, 2B, 3B), a rubber, and an utterly rubbish pencil sharpener. So we went to Staples just to see if we could get a better sharpener. It turns out that yes, we could. It also turns out that there is a pad of A2 paper on the shelves. (On the other hand, it’s like tissue paper. Breathe on it and it’ll rip. I’m glad I bought the pad from Hobby Craft. It looks like you could draw stuff on it!)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Real | Print | 2 Comments »

Tuesday 18 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

Remember I was thinking about taking courses? Well, I eventually signed up online a few days ago.

This part is really wonderful actually. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Real | Print | 1 Comment »

Tuesday 18 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

I awoke to find my bedroom at a chilly 21°C. When I stepped outside, I found the air at very cold 5°C. By the time I arrived at work it had reached a feeble 7°C. The temperature at my desk is a very uncomfortable 15.5°C. My fingers are icy cold, and it’s actually quite hard to type. Still, other more important employees have electric heaters, so the general office temperature is slowly climbing. It’s now 16.5°C…

Posted in Real | Print | No Comments »

Monday 17 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

I just went to Tesco to buy some provisions (by which I mean “cheese”). As I stood in line for the check-out, the old hag at the till was replaced by a beautiful young filly — tall, light brown hair, relaxed cheerful smile. When the change over was eventually completed, she served the person in front of me. I waited for him to leave, and then approached the counter.

Cashier: Hi

Me: Hi. Hey, you’re much cuter than the other one!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Social | Print | 2 Comments »

Monday 17 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

I just got a paper cut. From a cardboard pizza box. What the hell?!

Posted in What the hell...?! | Print | 1 Comment »

Monday 17 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

So on Saturday I went to my cousin’s wedding. He’s 32 and I haven’t seen him for about 20 years. It was one of those family gatherings where there’s a whole room full of people who are you, apparently, related to, and yet you have no idea who any of these people are.

I did, however, get to see my sister, which is always great. And my uncle, who is the original mad professor. Great stuff! And two of my cousins who I do remember. (One of them looks extremely similar to my sister.) Both unspeakably beautiful. And very, very friendly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Social | Print | No Comments »

Monday 17 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, yesterday I finally relented and pre-ordered The Orange Box. For those of you who don’t give a damn about first-person shooter games, this is the latest Big Release from Valve software, the makers of the original HalfLife game. (Obviously, anybody who has the slightest interest in this field would already know all about this product! It’s got enough hype doing for it…)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Computer games | Print | 2 Comments »

Monday 17 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, on Friday night we replaced our firewall. This made me… a little nervous about what to expect on Monday morning when everybody shows up for work!

A little background. Previously, we had a hardware Cisco firewall, and behind that we had a software Micro$oft firewall. The Cisco box is our VPN tunnel endpoint, and a huge amount of stuff works over the VPN — which is why I was so nervous!

We replaced all this with a new Cisco hardware firewall. (Quoting the head network guy from HQ: “I believe that routing and security should be done in hardware, not software”. Apparently this guy doesn’t “understand” that a Cisco hardware firewall is a computer running some software. It’s just in a funny shaped box!)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Work | Print | No Comments »