A much used line in Omid Djalili's stand up show.
I went to see him tonight with Novelist Supermum and impworks, who has posted a mini review
An hour and a half of laughter. He gets away with a lot that other comedians can't.
He's also the world's greatest "Dad Dancer".
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Another Place (Again)
Brother, his family and Sister paid us a visit yesterday - prior to Samwise' Birthday. We went for a trip to Crosby beach for another viewing of Antony Gormley's Another Place (we've seen it before, but they hadn't".
Despite the day starting with a couple of showers of hail, the sun came out by the time we got to the beach in the afternoon.
Took a couple of snaps of Brother, Sister and an Iron Man (plus an artistically placed branch, that someone else had planted earlier). Brother and Sister are the one's who look like they're dressed for an expedition to the Gobi Desert.
They insisted on posing for the second snap, but I think I prefer the first one.
The kids enjoyed the beach - despite the big windmills in the sea that were making the wind blow - at least that's what I told them ;-)
Samwise' cousins gave him a remote controlled crane for his Birthday present.
It has a working winch which can be moved back and forth along the gantry, it also rotates. You also need to add counterweight ballast, as with a real crane, to stop it from toppling over with a heavy load.
Samwise, Frodo and his cousins quickly got the hang of it, but they must have been giving it some abuse because today the winch stopped moving back and forth along the gantry. Frodo initially got the blame for this, since he'd tried to move the winch along the gantry - had to apologise to him later as although he'd done the wrong thing, it wasn't his fault.
I spent about 3.5 hours this afternoon dismantling various pieces, and tracing the fault. I discovered that a weak solder joint on a connector in the rotating base had caused a wire to snap off from the connector.
I took my trusty soldering iron to the rescue, and now it's fully functional again.
I can now add crane repair man to my skill set :)
Despite the day starting with a couple of showers of hail, the sun came out by the time we got to the beach in the afternoon.
Took a couple of snaps of Brother, Sister and an Iron Man (plus an artistically placed branch, that someone else had planted earlier). Brother and Sister are the one's who look like they're dressed for an expedition to the Gobi Desert.
They insisted on posing for the second snap, but I think I prefer the first one.
The kids enjoyed the beach - despite the big windmills in the sea that were making the wind blow - at least that's what I told them ;-)
Samwise' cousins gave him a remote controlled crane for his Birthday present.
It has a working winch which can be moved back and forth along the gantry, it also rotates. You also need to add counterweight ballast, as with a real crane, to stop it from toppling over with a heavy load.
Samwise, Frodo and his cousins quickly got the hang of it, but they must have been giving it some abuse because today the winch stopped moving back and forth along the gantry. Frodo initially got the blame for this, since he'd tried to move the winch along the gantry - had to apologise to him later as although he'd done the wrong thing, it wasn't his fault.
I spent about 3.5 hours this afternoon dismantling various pieces, and tracing the fault. I discovered that a weak solder joint on a connector in the rotating base had caused a wire to snap off from the connector.
I took my trusty soldering iron to the rescue, and now it's fully functional again.
I can now add crane repair man to my skill set :)
Sunday, 6 April 2008
King Size Homer
What a night at work! I was asked to implement some software patches last night on the live system.
This usually involves starting around 16:00 and finishing about 21:30 (backups have to be taken, the system stopped, brought up for patching, patches applied, system brought down and restarted, tests and checks carried out).
I was told that I couldn't start the patching until an email arrived that contains files to be processed by the software that was being patched.
The email is automated and was expected to arrive around 17:15 - but not guaranteed.
Apparently it was not possible to arrange to have a person at the other end send the email through.
I spent 5.5 hours waiting for the email arrived, before the release manager asked me to abandon the work and restart the system.
I had to check the mailbox every 5 minutes or so - I could have really done with King Size Homer's drinking bird to press a 'check mail' button. I ended up devising a shell script loop to do the job for me, which whiled away about 10 minutes or so.
Net result - missed the first episode of the latest Dr Who series for 8 hours of tediom. At least I get paid "ovies" for it - and I caught up with "The Doctor" tonight on BBC3
This usually involves starting around 16:00 and finishing about 21:30 (backups have to be taken, the system stopped, brought up for patching, patches applied, system brought down and restarted, tests and checks carried out).
I was told that I couldn't start the patching until an email arrived that contains files to be processed by the software that was being patched.
The email is automated and was expected to arrive around 17:15 - but not guaranteed.
Apparently it was not possible to arrange to have a person at the other end send the email through.
I spent 5.5 hours waiting for the email arrived, before the release manager asked me to abandon the work and restart the system.
I had to check the mailbox every 5 minutes or so - I could have really done with King Size Homer's drinking bird to press a 'check mail' button. I ended up devising a shell script loop to do the job for me, which whiled away about 10 minutes or so.
Net result - missed the first episode of the latest Dr Who series for 8 hours of tediom. At least I get paid "ovies" for it - and I caught up with "The Doctor" tonight on BBC3
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Poisson D'Avril
"We are talking jape of the century..."
A day early perhaps, but a good one all the same.
Yesterday one of the chaps at work used AT&T Labs Text to Speech tool to create some sound files containing various wind up voice messages. He loaded these into a mobile phone and used them to make some calls.
We have a support call logging desk that is based in Mumbai (yes to ask the person who sits on the next desk to do something for us, we have to call Bombay!), so the "Anjali" voice was used.
e.g.
"Please close you're call now".
"Why have you not closed your call yet?".
"Please stop disrespecting me and close your call".
etc gradually getting more abusive (and more obviously a wind up).
Three of us were in on the wheeze, and had difficulty keeping a straight face whilst the two chosen victims took the bait, hook line and sinker. On the final call they were demanding to know the name of the person who was calling them, and who their manager was.
Then they looked up and noticed the sniggering....I'm half expecting some form of retribution today - nothing so far...
A day early perhaps, but a good one all the same.
Yesterday one of the chaps at work used AT&T Labs Text to Speech tool to create some sound files containing various wind up voice messages. He loaded these into a mobile phone and used them to make some calls.
We have a support call logging desk that is based in Mumbai (yes to ask the person who sits on the next desk to do something for us, we have to call Bombay!), so the "Anjali" voice was used.
e.g.
"Please close you're call now".
"Why have you not closed your call yet?".
"Please stop disrespecting me and close your call".
etc gradually getting more abusive (and more obviously a wind up).
Three of us were in on the wheeze, and had difficulty keeping a straight face whilst the two chosen victims took the bait, hook line and sinker. On the final call they were demanding to know the name of the person who was calling them, and who their manager was.
Then they looked up and noticed the sniggering....I'm half expecting some form of retribution today - nothing so far...
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