Ports Thoughts

My mate Matt sent me this cartoon which has been doing the rounds on the Interweb. If you have a cat you will know how accurate it is. Specifically it is Boo.

A few months ago I was down at the Doctors getting an MOT . I was obviously feeling quite smug having given up smoking cigarettes over two years ago and figured that I would pass with flying colours. I was not unaware that I weighed slightly more than was ideal and that I occasionally slipped over the recommended alcohol limit. Neither had my fondness for cheese and roast dinners escaped me. But I was rocked to the very foundations when the Quack explained that I suffered from "being fat". What's more, the medical profession has devised a new and hideous treatment for this ailment. Apparently it is called "exercise". I asked for a second opinion but he would not be shifted. I was sentenced to a regime of "Gym" attendance and "dieting". I can't say I have much enjoyed hauling myself to the gym twice a week, but I had my three month assessment yesterday and it appears to have done some good. I have lost about a stone in weight, my resting ...

So a very symbolic but also slightly sad day today. Ali is returned to work and that means that Lucy will be spending her week days with a child minder. I've been working for the last six months so this isn't a great change for me - but it is quite a wrench for Ali who has spent just about every waking hour with the little fella since she was born. Our child minder is lovely and clearly adores children. We know that Lucy will have a great time with her and fortunately she just lives round the corner. We have checked her impeccable ofsted report and talked to her awesome references. But the fact is that she could be Father Christmas and we would still feel a bit guilty about not being able to look after Lucy forever. But wages need to be earned because the mortgage needs to be paid (the banks seem very insistant on this). I'm sure that this is just the first of the many difficult things that we have to do, for instance I'm not looking forward to explaining why she can...

I have a fantastic computer (as you might imaging given what I do for a living) and I have ripped all my CDs onto it giving me a reasonably impressive music library (if you are impressed by Marillion and The Sisters of Mercy). However, I have been struggling to find an easy way of listening to this fine library of sound anywhere else, for example in the garden. In the past I have put a guitar amp in the garden and draped a long lead out of the living room window to connect it to the computer, but the sound is not great and the aesthetics are worse. Of course I could just feed CDs into a ghetto blaster but that is soooo 90s! I knew there must be a better way but I couldn't find it. There are systems like the Sonos which will enable you to play music in every room in the house but an "introductory" pack to get two rooms going romps in at nearly £1200. That is a bit steep for listening to "The Temple of Love" while munching a burger at a BBQ. You could vi...

At the weekend my frolleague Darren helped me out big time. He had heard me bemoaning the lack of Nintendo Wii's around my neck of the woods (despite being in the market for 9 months). So when he spotted one available in Camberley he bought it for me. Good man. I have never been a great one for computer games. In my line of work sitting in front of a computer for fun seems like a busman's holiday. But the Wii really is better fun that all that other tosh. The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 may have all the power (although actually all three devices use IBM processors) but their games are so realistic now that you might as well watch a movie. In fact these machines are more like HD Media Centres rather than games boxes. On the other hand the Wii is just a games machine. The innovative Wii Remote (wiimote?) controller really does manage the magic of sensing movement so you can stand up and flail around the room like a mad thing and make your custom avatar (Wii Mii) do the same. Of...

Most TV adverts drive me nuts. They tend to be very irritating and painfully unsubtle. Like most people I would imagine, I just mentally tune them out (if not fast forward/Tivo them). The agencies that are commissioned to create them appear to be idea vacuums as they constantly plagiarise each other or steal the latest idea from innovative movies. The fact that these people are called creatives rather than pretentious thieves is beyond irony. And oblong glasses don't make you look clever, they make you look like a cliche. Anyway - it is always the exception that proves the rule - and this is superb. The folks at Cadbury (sorry, don't know who their agency is) have created this piece of genius (clicky). If you don't have broadband or are not inclined to play the video clip then here is part of the transcript: "We realize that the Gorilla is sitting in front of a massive drum kit. One of those Eighties big kits with loads of things to hit. Loads of tom-toms, hi-hats, dou...

My home computer is about as stable Britney Spears riding a unicycle. On a bouncy castle. In fact it is back at the manufacturers at the moment being repaired because, they tell me, it is "broken". So me and the wife are having to remember how to make our own entertainment. Ali is reverting to reading "books". I'm just staring at the cats in the hope that they will bring in a mouse. Unfortunately they just stare back. It is nice to see the cats back on the web log though. Since having a baby they seem to be getting slightly less attention.