Rich of March House

Random Items After A Long Time Without An Entry

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:39:02 -0800

Fortuitously I was wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie today but I'm not going to say why it was lucky.

On a completely different subject, on the news yesterday they had some woman on complaining about IP addresses being used to track down naughty file sharers to throw the book at them. She came out with the line "IP addresses are a long series of numbers which means that it's easy to transpose digits when recording them and therefore throw the wrong person in jail". I can't see what's wrong with just Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V myself.

And on a second different subject, I've finally decided to put the hard roof on the car when I came out of work the other day at 5pm and had to scrape thick ice off the inside of the windscreen.

Eleven Mugs

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:21:45 -0700

Yesterday people asked for proof of my new-found skill. It's not easy filming your left hand with your right, particularly when it's full of heavy earthenware, but here is my attempt to do so. Repent all you unbelievers:

Personal Best

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:38:54 -0700

While emptying the dishwasher just now I managed to carry eleven mugs in my left hand from the utility room to kitchen. Can anyone beat that?

Bom tik crrrr tik bom tik crrrr tik

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:34:14 -0700

The school will only let Sam learn one instrument at a time so he's gone for violin, which means he will have to learn to play drums at home. Clearly I need to learn to play them first.

So we took the plunge and bought a fairly cheap electronic kit last week and I've been learning from a book for the last 4 days. I have to say, I'm actually not at all shabby at it. It's a lot easier than learning to play a proper instrument.

Musicness

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:44:00 -0700

The choice has been made - violin and drums.

Are there any other two instruments that could strike more fear into the hearts of the parents of a seven year old who wants to learn how to play something?

Headaches - we face you head on and embrace you.

Itinerary

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:32:33 -0700

Day number	Overnight stay location	Country	Mileage for leg (approx)	Cumulative mileage
0	March House	UK	0	0
1	Bretagne, cabin 6307	La Manche	12	12
2	Mimizan	France	404	416
3	Mimizan	France	0	416
4	Andorra La Vella	Andorra	328	744
5	Barcelona	Spain	123	867
6	Barcelona	Spain	0	867
7	Beziers	France	176	1043
8	Toulon	France	180	1223
9	Menton	France	112	1335
10	Aosta	Italy	240	1575
11	Lichtenstein	Lichtenstein	260	1835
12	Strasbourg	France	204	2039
13	Maastricht	Netherlands	182	2221
14	Den Haag	Netherlands	143	2364
15	Stutton	UK	40	2404
16	March House	UK	172	2576

The car is cleaned. The headlight deflectors, red triangle, spare bulbs, GB sticker and high-viz jacket are armed and ready.

I think I'm the most apprehensive about the numbers in red. The first one is the second longest leg, and goes up through the Pyranees. It could take about 8 hours of concentrated driving. The second is similar, but up the Alps instead, and the third one involves a long journey travelling the length of Switzerland.

Given that we'll also be passing through countries not listed because we aren't having an overnight stay in them (Monaco, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and a quick foray into Austria) that's 13 countries - unlucky for some but hopefully not for us.

The total mileage is also a lower bound of my estimation. It doesn't include the distance the two ferries travel. Also it is based on most direct route from place to place, and therefore avoids all the detours we have planned (e.g. heading North a bit from the South coast of France to drive over the Millau Viaduct, going around the Monaco Grand Prix circuit a few times, or navigating the St Bernard Pass out of The Italian Job).

Watch this space.

Heritage

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:26:21 -0700

I'm sure I've looked for this before now and failed to find it.

Statistics Test

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:21:27 -0700

Today I heard about an organisation that asks potential employees to complete an aptitude test. The test consists of 20 multiple choice questions, each of which has four possible answers which the candidate must pick from. Apparently the test questions are supposed to be pretty difficult, which is why they set the pass mark to 4. Can anyone else see a problem with this? I'm not going to name the organisation.

On another issue, I'd like to publicly state that SimonG isn't as rubbish as people think - he's come up with something brilliant today, which for now must remain secret. Well done mate.

Great Things To Dig Up In The Garden Part 3

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:08:57 -0700

A bumper crop. Anyone got any custard?

Great Things To Dig Up In The Garden Part 2

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:34:34 -0700

Words fail me on this little chap that we dug up in the vegetable patch...

Great Things To Dig Up In The Garden Part 1

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:30:03 -0700

Now that summer is here there's lots to do in the grounds of March House and Claire has been busy planting, transplanting and digging the estate so that we'll end up with a garden that looks rather nice.

In her toils today she dug up this curio. It's a small plane about 6cm long and its made out of lead, which is why it looks all floppy (easily soft enough to bend by hand) and is surprisingly heavy. Anyone have a clue as to what sort of plane it's meant to be?

More interesting things dug up to appear in the future, including a glass bloater paste bottle, part of a television, a vertebra and a golf ball.

Cheque'd Passed

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:31:40 -0700

Claire's been sorting out some stuff from our office and shredding our past. In amongst it all she's found our first ISP correspondence (Easynet, 1995) and also a cheque for £1.16 to me from Orange from the year 2000. I'm going to pay it into the bank tomorrow and by doing so I'll invalidate all of Orange's accounts, and therefore shareholder payments, for the last eight years. Be very afraid if you have shares in Orange.

Promotion

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:08:54 -0700

The negative side:

10 hour work days every day
Operating in firefighting mode all the time
All the staffing issues in the world
Not having enough time to solve puzzles about Venn diagrams for a PuzzleDonkey relaunch
Losing any desire to post a new blog entry

The positive side:

Pseudoscience

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:03:24 -0700

This QVC item was just shown on the television so naturally, as part of being grumpy on a Saturday morning, I had to fire off an email complaining and demanding scientific evidence behind their claims. They are going to think I'm a right grumpy git.

Interestingly the customer service page of QVC where you can send a form email is titled "Customer Service" including the surrounding quotes. It's amazing how damaging quotation marks can be - they give off a lovely sarcastic message.

Oh, and in the last entry several of you were correct. It was the handwriting recognition software on my clipboard. I've now trained it and get much better results.

What does it mean? Answer later.

nospam@example.com (Rich) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:10:25 -0700

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