About this Journal
Current Month
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031
Jul. 21st, 2008 @ 12:43 pm Guided busway
Tags: ,
The guided busway has reached the King's Hedge's Road entrance to the science park. You can see the concrete tracks stretching away on the west, and slowly creeping east along the abandoned railway behind the houses on King's Hedges Road.

The foot/cycle path entrance closed "WARNING: GIANT DIGGERS", but is open again, diverted to come out on the College road, and thence cut through the building site to the pavement on King's Hedges Road. But I normally just cycle along the road.

If you think waiting at a pseuo-level crossing for a guided bus to go past takes amusingly long, just try waiting for a guided busway to go past :)

On the other hand, approaching my building from the non-cul-de-sac end of the cul-de-sac is a revelation: the two carpark entrances being designated "entrance" and "exit" make complete sense when the entrance is the first one you reach, and the exit the second (since the carpark is at the far end and people instinctively like turning through the first turning available). It only seems arbitrary if you're used to cycling from the cycleway into the cul-de-sac end of the cul-de-sac, when the idea that you should go up to the second entrance and back again is risible :)
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jul. 20th, 2008 @ 11:09 pm Weekend films
Tags: , , ,
I successfully went swimming, even though it looked a bit overcast beforehand, and it turned out nice when i was there.

I took Mobbsy, Sonic and Mds to see Forbidden Kingdom. It was very pretty, with lovely characters. Although I think Mobbsy was right that to say it had very little plot -- I though tthe mythology was lovely, but nothing much happened during the film. Basically, if you liked the trailer, you should see it -- it was like you'd expect, but better, very well done (and not as silly as you might fear, seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li wrangling). I don't know enough Chinese mythology -- a variety of things come from there, and I don't know if that would make it interesting or painful if you do know, but to me it was a very pleasing blend of Western-style and Chinese-style things.

I've been cleaning up and packing, with mixed success, but a lot more productive that I normally manage :)

Fishpi, his Rachel, and I went to see Wall-E. I didn't like it as much as everyone else did (not as much as the Incredibles), but I thought it was very good (one of the best other Pixar films). It's marvellously animated, Wall-E and Eve are tremendously expressive. It's sweet. And never annoying. And generally enjoyable. But it never made me laugh much, and there wasn't that much to the plot. I guess time will tell.
About this Entry
1 comment
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jul. 16th, 2008 @ 02:18 am Recently this week:
Tags:
My bike returned safe from university cycles, tuned up and raring to go.

Work continuing interesting and productive.

Failed to go to Magic prerelease event, but played magic at Alex's, which was fun: most credit goes to Alex for building the decks played.

Played bridge at Ralph's, and failed to bid two consecutive heart slams, but I think correctly.

Watched QI again, twice, which really is very funny, and educational in spirit, so I apologise for the criticisms when I first saw it being over-harsh.

Have downloaded most of Reboot ever from youtube, at low resolution, but enough to catch up and find out what happens after it fell from the air in UK terrestrial TV.

Watched Hitch Hancock, where Will Smith plays, rather well, someone failing to be a superhero. It wasn't one of my favourites, but it was good. The trailer sets it up as a "Hancock is a superhero, but rather than being a larger-than-life American Hero, is a drunken screw-up jerk" joke, which it is, but it doesn't just stop there. It's funny, but I was pleasantly surprised that it actually has interesting story. Many superhero stories oscillate randomly between "all-American hero" and "tortured angst"; Hancock actually shows someone kind of screwed up you can really believe.

In other news, "mare", "nightmare" and "mare (as in sea)" are all unrelated, (and so fair game for puns). "Phallus" and "fellatio" aren't either. Well, my friendslist probably knows all that, but spread the knowledge little by little.
About this Entry
4 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 09:30 pm Stockholm
Tags:
Bike appointment ✔
Bank talked to ✔
Work guardedly successful ✔
Flights to Stockholm Thu Jul 24th - Fri Aug 1st for an unprecedented two weeks with [info]livredor ✔✔✔✔✔

:)
About this Entry
happy/hannukah
5 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jun. 15th, 2008 @ 12:32 am May week day 1
Tags:
May week days #-1 and #0

I only had two days between returning from Croatia and may week, as I took friday and next week off work. But they were pretty positive, which is good!

I'm doing all sorts of things this week, and do not foresee much time for lj in the next few days, and I'll never get round to writing things up later, so I think the diary will be whatever I manage to write as I go along.

CULES

I went to see the light entertainment society shows. It's always obligatory that they have some forced, obvious jokes, but they're normally a really good laugh as well, and I know a wide scattering of people involved in CULES somehow or other.

I particularly liked the characters of the Jack of Hearts, Insy-Winsy Spider, Cat Burglar extraordinaire, and the chirpy sun and machiavellian moon.

Pipnic

Rochvelleth's lovely picnic at King's, with Weebleflip, Edith, Uisgabeatha, Pjc and Ptc, and a number of classicists I didn't know. There was nice chat, interesting food, lots of laughing, and a gigantic bubble device.

Veizla

The veizla (science fiction society dinner) was fun. My favourite memory is entering the pre-dinner reception, and atreic sprinting up, and swinging her round and round. (She is very lovely in that she values people.) But there were lots of people I know, stretching from a scattering of the young geeky society collective people I know from poohsoc and sheila, to old Jomsborg regulars.

So it was quite large, with a fairly good showing of active CUSFS members, and the gentleman, who in fresher's fair '63, first started the society! So it has a known, specific birthday, which is pretty cool.

The challenge to the guests was to recount a pointless act of heroism; notable was "charge of the light-brigade, being hit with cushions", "join-the-dots proof of stoke's theorem", and "shaggy dog story with gloriously atrocious puns on every college name". The food was quite nice. A new Reeve is successfully elected. We went back to the Three Doctor's (aka new relativity) for a veizla aftermath, which was also fun.
About this Entry
3 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 30th, 2008 @ 02:06 pm Random comments from amsterdam
Tags:
* Livredor has a more narrative description of the trip

* Amsterdam is beautifully cyclic. Although I hear annoying to actually try and walk through regularly. There are cycle paths everywhere. They're wider than a cycle. Indeed, they're as wide as two cycles, and often have two in opposite directions. Coming from Cambridge, this idea is exciting.

* However, many of the streets seem to be a gloriously muddled mix between pedestrian, tram, vehicular and cycle (including motor scooter) areas. There are generally two to three different intertwining lanes, where one combined pedestrian and tram, or vehicle and tram, or pedestrian and cycle, etc. Crossing a big street is an exercise in scary, as it's nearly always almost completely safe to cross each bit separately, but like frogger, if there's an actual tram there, then you die.

( Read more... )
About this Entry
happy/hannukah
2 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 28th, 2008 @ 02:24 pm Amsterdam
Tags: ,
Amsterdam was fantastic. It's a really lovely place to visit.

(Although I may be biased, because I'm firmly convinced Amsterdam is full of Livredor, like Stockholm, and full of sunshine and spontaneously helpful passers-by, like Glasgow, and I'm reliably assured all six assertions were my good fortune rather than a reliable characterisation :))

* On Friday, I flew out from Stansted to Amsterdam Schiphol, and the journey was all fine and easy, the plane pleasant (as much as you could hope for a <1 hour journey), and the weather sunny.

* Amsterdam trams are nice and convenient for tourists, if you find a map and buy a 48-hour ticket. (It should be stamped the first time you enter a tram and ignored thereafter, iirc.)

* We headed back to the hotel to snuggle up and recover from the flight, and then wandered out through Amsterdam to find one of the vegetarian restaurants. I really, really love being in a city where quite literally every other road in both directions is along a canal. It's every so pretty to see.

( Read more... )
About this Entry
5 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 22nd, 2008 @ 05:49 pm Netherlands
Tags:
1. I probably won't make it out tonight, I'll have a sleepy evening in and save excitement for the weekend.

2. I was reading some of my oldest lj entries (and a couple of others). It does seem like all those years ago, it was more intimate, more unconvoluted, spontaneous chatty "Hey, I had a good time tonight" and "this is cool" posts, but has come to include more thoughtful and interesting posts over time. That's perhaps to be expected, but I thought it was interesting. And wondered if I should make an effort to be more chatty, despite the sprawling of my lj to more and more people I don't really know.

Theferrett said something similar. Many of his early posts were written when he was excessively depressed and wanton :) And were very interesting and uninhibited, but as many more people started reading his lj, he found himself stopping making such controvertial posts (Which given a recent furore is saying something :)).

3. Amsterdam trains are nice. They even have an online simulator of a ticket machine just so you can check you can use them in advance :)
About this Entry
8 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 21st, 2008 @ 11:47 pm Beer festival
Tags: ,
I made it along to the beer festival tonight. I wish I'd been able to go a little earlier and have a proper gossip with rochvelleth, but I was checking details for Amsterdam. But I saw Rochvelleth and Edith and had a great giggle; and recovered my rucksack; and said hi to a lot of other people I know; and ran into fiona_kitty; and discovered ed-from-poohsoc and Mark W. knew each other via the magic or real ale.

I'll probably go tomorrow too, although if I'm sensible enough to seek an early night I may go home or to the carlton for food instead.
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 20th, 2008 @ 01:46 am Bike minutiae:
Tags: ,
Bike minutiae:

* The back light sometimes goes off when cycling. I infer the batteries jar momentarily loose when going over a bump, and the "on" state is lost. They feel a bit loose. Is there an obvious fix? I tried taping the batteries in place and it made no difference.

(I sort of want some electrically conducting putty to go between the battery and the contact :))

* Last month, the front gear cable snapped off from the handlebars. The bike man from university cycles fixed everything (thank you!). This week, the rear gear cable snapped. I'll take it back and get it fixed too, but any suggestions as to why?

Is anything likely to cause both to fail? Did something snag the chain? I might have changed gear up from the highest gear on one of them, but I don't think I did on both of them. Did someone sabotage my bike, but sabotage the gears instead of the breaks? Do the cables just last a very specific number of months??
About this Entry
8 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 20th, 2008 @ 12:55 am Bridge
Tags: ,
Psyching is hilarious. My hand is: CAKQxxxxxx D7 HKx SAx.

(For those non-bridge players reading along at home, I'll add explanations in italics.

A, K, Q, J and T represent Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten; numerals represent numbers, and 'x' represents a small card where it's unlikely to matter which. C=Clubs, etc.

( Read more... )

The question is, is there anything else this hand could do in the bidding? It sounds like if there's no spade bid, it should try to find out if there's 6-8 honour card points opposite, and if not give up, and if so assume five clubs is ok, and then try to ask about aces, and bid 5C with none, 6C with one, and 7C with two. But I'm not at all sure, almost anything could be the right answer.

ETA: Oh, hey. Apparently you can lj-cut a close-italic tag. Hm.
About this Entry
7 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 16th, 2008 @ 01:33 am Who should have led Angel investigations?
Tags: , ,
( Spoilers for Angel series 1-3 )
About this Entry
2 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 13th, 2008 @ 02:12 am (no subject)
Tags: ,
re: Angel Series 3; also Secret Country book 1.

You can't just leave it there! :)

(Don't tell me what happens. Just augh :))
About this Entry
2 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 12th, 2008 @ 05:49 pm Apple Juice
Tags:
So I had a lovely and lazy weekend. On Saturday I successfully meandered about along the river, and over the Coton where I got my apple juice and a couple of other things from the Coton Orchard farm shop/garden centre. And then back, via sitting on Trinity backs. The apple juice is indeed expensive-ish, but also very nice.

On Sunday, I also dragged myself out, mainly to just read The Secret Country by the river. I met a group of teenagers throwing each other in the river; one girl asked if I enjoyed reading "because I don't read, it's hard" (but not in a criticising way, in an almost embarrassed way).

I met a boy asking for the time, who stood in puzzling awe of my white phone. I met Gaute, and exchanged brief suggestions of films and books. And Nick L from work. And saw some rowing races. And met an old-ish gentleman campaigning the council to get some better bins on Jesus green. (I suggested some more basic dustbins chained to lamp-posts. Real bins would be better, but any bins would be an awful lot better than rubbish falling out and blowing about.)

I watched to the end of season three of Angel, and saw Ratatouille, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And played Chronotron (Seriously, play it! Ingenious. So cute :) Did I mention that it's a platform game where you play a robot with a time-machine?).

However, I totally failed to respond to any of the interesting and controversial emails and lj comments in my inbox to give philosophical opinions or arrange meetings or reply to chat. A number of those basically consumed my today. So, um, new exciting work from tomorrow.
About this Entry
4 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 1st, 2008 @ 01:27 am Logistics
Tags: , , ,
Logistics ✓
Stansted Airport ✓
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol ✓
Flying to tulip capital of the world to meet beautiful girlfriend ✓
Mid-afternoon ✓
Not Ryanair ✓
Not Easyjet ✗ FAIL EE_SYJET
About this Entry
happy/hannukah
3 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 30th, 2008 @ 02:12 am (no subject)
Tags: , ,
Yay, rain (when it's outside and you're not)! Yay, logistics!
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 11:03 am (no subject)
Tags: , ,
Portal ✓
About this Entry
3 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 24th, 2008 @ 02:07 pm Dream
Tags:
OK, that was weird: I often have dreams about weird things, but it was weird that I remembered so much of this for no particular reason. Normally if I remember a dream it's one clear image, that often has some reasonable interpretation, or cries out to be made into a story.

As I wrote this, I realised many things did hark back to things I heard or saw recently, strung together by a random narrative. I don't know if it's just random, or that I so rarely remember dreams my subconscious seized the chance to pack in as many references as possible :)

* There were too adjacent colleges, like the grammar school I went to and adjacent girl's school (it had the same name as that, Alice Ottley)
* I sent out some notification that some administrative infractions would have some severe consequences
* I was in the girl predominated college, going to a bathroom with many stalls
* I was confused about the gender of the bathroom. There was a "baby changing" next to a "woman" sign on a wall inside, but when I went back to the entrance, which had complicated double doors, one stood ajar and clearly had a "male" sign. (Although I had to concentrate to tell the signs apart.)
( Read more... )[1] God, even my dreams have footnotes!
About this Entry
Life on mars
3 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 16th, 2008 @ 07:28 pm Carlton?
Tags: , ,
Should I stay in, have dinner, watch angel, tidy up for guest tomorrow, and spod about surreal numbers, their use in defining fixed rules to let "pick a number" include infinity in magc: the gathering and other board games, and whether there is or is not any subtle sexism in Knuth's dialogues about them?

Or go to the Carlton, have ravioli, and wave at people pre-quiz, including Pippa who I rarely see? (I probably won't have the tuits to stay and quiz.)

PS. R. will hopefully meet me in the Carlton tomorrow, if anyone is curious to meet.
About this Entry
6 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 15th, 2008 @ 09:13 pm Win
Tags: ,
I recently brought my household bin in from the garden (don't ask, not the big "black bin", the human sized one), and left it by the front door, as it was a bit muddy. Then I got a flyer. Hey, those jokes about two in trays really have a point, don't they? Win.

Rcv1 recently lent me "Three seasons of angel videos, with a video player". (I decided I wanted to see Angel enough, but probably not to see it again, hence borrowing.) Video cassettes are really cumbersome, but they look lovely lined up on the shelf, and now I have a video plugged into a cable receiver plugged into a DVD player plugged into a TV. I'm sure that's not quite right, but win.

The bike fairy (university cycles) collected my bike and fixed it. Thank you. Win.

Other recent little victories include:

* Shower curtain rail. It fell down ages ago, I taped it together, and never got round to fixing it properly. However, it's quite clever inside: one rod fits inside the other, and the end of the inner is an off-centre rotating wood bit, so you simply extend them fully and twist, locking them in place.
* Mud guard. I can't remember what I fixed about it, but it must have been satisfying :)
* I made a firefox quick search to turn "lj username" into a full URL. It's amazing how often saving that little bit of typing helps your mood.
* Tesco started selling a marvellous innovation! A pesto jar wider than a spoon! :)
About this Entry
happy/hannukah
16 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link