So I’m enrolled to do my English A-level this year – the full English Lit/Lang course, only in one year instead of two. 10 hours a week of course squeezed into 3 hours a week. And those 3 hours in the evening after a hard days work.
Yes, I am a glutton for punishment, but so very very excitied. The tutor was telling me what was on the course and my brain started fizzing with excitment! Yay for the eternal student!
Weight – still magic number + 4. This is mildly annoying, but the wibble is definitely starting to firm up a bit, so I can live with that.
10 min walk to gym.
3km on cycle = 9.19 min.
1km on rowing = 5.22.9 min.
15 min resistance = mainly legs. I tried to do arm stuff but my wrist just wasn’t playing ball. It wasn’t strong enough to either push or pull ๐ I did manage 10 stomach crunches though, so go me!
10 min walk home.
Eat food – so, so hungry! That’s a good sign, right?
Blame technorati for this one. If it hadn’t popped up in the ‘linking to you’ section I would never have known about it. But it did pop up, and I do know about it, and I rarely back down from a challenge…
I tag – whoever wants to do this. And Tammie, Jay and Rich because I’m curious…
Excuses, excuses I know, but if this Roast is shorter and even more poorly typed than usual, forgive me. And blame RSI.
I’ll be talking more about this shortly when I am able to once again type at length, but for now I shall just notify you about the Pink for October event to raise awareness about Breast Cancer. I shall be participating, so will lots of others, and it would be amazing if y’all would get on board too.
This one’s for Moose because she’s been feeding me homemade cookies all weekend. Also, there’s no race this week so she needs her F1 fix – Formula One is considering hybrid engines.
There’s been a bit of buzz this week about chumbys (what is the plural of chumby? Can you get a herd of chumbys? I’m digressing…) Anyway, a chumby is a “compact device that can act like a clock radio, but is way more flexible and fun”. It uses wi-fi to connect to the internet, it’s designed to be hackable, adaptable and just plain cute. I can already see it sitting on my bedside table (in my mind). I want to play! But as I don’t stand a kitten in purgatory’s chance of getting one – by no stretch of the imagination am I either a the serious alpha-geek hacker, clever crafter or accomplished Flash animator you need to be to get a prototype – I guess I am going to have to wait and listen to what those lucky so-and-so’s who have one have to say.
I don’t care if this is true or not. McDonald’s have had to redesign their McFlurry containers in the UK so hedgehogs don’t get stuck.
I’ve been an organ donor a long time (since I was about 13 I think), give blood on a regular basis, and am signed onto the Bone Marrow Register. This last especially because I’ve seen first hand the good bone marrow transplants can do, and the agony families face when there isn’t a match within the close family. Not finding an in-family match can often be a death sentence unless a match can be found with an anonymous donor. Up till now, however, if I had died and the doctors wanted to use my organs to help others (I carry a card making my wishes known) but my family had said ‘no’, the doctors would have had to respect their wishes. The laws have now changed to respect donors wishes over those of the family.
It’s odd, the things that inspire you. These panorama planets that Phu discovered have set of a veritable mindstorm of story ideas. Excellent…
The U.N. debates Open-Source software.
A small bar/cafe near Meadow Towers does the most divine warm chinese duck salad. It is single handedly responsible for making me see that salad can actually be tasty. I’m not saying it’s the healthiest salad in the world, but it sure is tasty. (Short of seducing the chef at said bar/cafe for the recipe, this is the closest I’ve found so far to the holy grail).
Paul has a very thought provoking piece over at Many-to-Many on Social Publishing. It’s hard to summarize in one or two lines, but it is interesting.
And the closing funny. Fortune cookes – perhaps they know more than you think…
Because I got told off for not finding a happier ‘on this day’ story yesterday,
On this day in 1951 designers prepare to dazzle Venice.
I’m still typing one fingered but getting quicker at it, and in a bit less pain than yesterday, so by tomorrow I should be able to do a whole Roast for you ๐
Apologies for the lack of posting in the last couple of days – my right wrist is having a little strop and is causing me ten kinds of pain.
Something to make you think – on this day in history, Germany invaded Poland.
I have to do a lot of my browsing at work now and, when I do, I am forced to use IE. It’s not my choice but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. What has prompted today’s little grump is the increased incidence of the following:
I am starting to see a few sites out there with little pop-ups and javascript doodads that say things like “We see you are using Internet Explorer! You dumb f***! Download Firefox now, it’s so much better!”
I can see where these are coming from. You want to spread the word of Firefox – good for you – but this way just… Bugs me. One person had it set up so that I couldn’t even view his blog using IE – the “switch to FF” message never went away. The reason for this was because there was a javascript call involved in making it go away – and javascript is disabled on my work computer. It’s since been changed to a large header that disfigures the blog in question when viewed using IE but even that, well, disfigures the blog.
I agree that Firefox is a vastly superior browser to IE for a lot of reasons. I aplaud the attempts to spread the word. But I don’t think pissing off your readers is the best way to go about it. If I could switch to FF at work, I would (I made them instal FF on all our lab computers last summer *devil*) but alas I don’t have the luxury of working in a small university lab any more. We’re locked into IE and that’s all there is to say about it. Telling me that I am doing something wrong when there is NOTHING to be done about it bugs me. Simple as that. I’m less likely to read your excellent (and I know it’s excellent because I read it at home – using Safari by the way. I tried Firefox and switched back) content and more likely to spread my disatisfaction in blog posts. Like this one.
On top of that what about the people out there like my poor mum? She wouldn’t know a browser if it got up and introduced itself, let alone be able to make an informed decision as to whether FF is better than IE (we’re talking hypothetically here. My Mum uses Safari). If she comes to a site and is greeted with a “click here” message she’s likely to click here (her browsing is still at the more luck than judgement stage – she hasn’t yet developed the ‘ad blindness’ long-term surfers develop as a survival tactic). As far as she’s concerned if it’s on your webpage, it’s a legitimate link. Which in this case is fine I am sure, because you’re not going to be evil and try to take over my mother’s computer with an evil virus? Are you?
My point – my wonderful Mum doesn’t need to know what a browser is to look at webpages. All she needs for now is to know to click on the blue compass to open up the program she needs. If she ever wants to know the finer details between browsers, well, I will be more than happy to explain but somehow I think that day is a long way off. She’s just going to get confused, baffled, and upset if your site is constantly telling her to change how she does things. That leads to a phone call to me, which in turn leads to a long involved conversation that ends up with me battering my head against the desk and cursing the day you decided to code a webpage.
So there you have it – Cas’ plea to the Firefox Evangelists. Stop telling me the way I do things is wrong. It’s rude, annoys me, and has the potential to make my Mum upset. Trust me, you don’t want to be the one who made my Mum upset.