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December 22, 2002
On the train
If you can read this my experiment was successful. This was painstakenly written and posted using my trusty Palm. I'm going on Holiday. There will be no reporting for a few days. Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.Posted by Nicklas at 11:07 AM
December 21, 2002
At the Manger
For a few years now we have erected a crib every Christmas. All the characters are there - Baby Jesus, his Ma and Da, the three wise men, a Donkey and a couple of shepherds.
Our cast have always been as follows:
Jesus - The wee ghost from Casper that glows in the dark
Josef - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Mary - Diana Troy
Three Wise men:
Warf
The snake faced guy from “The Empire Strikes Back”
R2-D2
Shepherds:
an Ewok
a Duplo Man
Donkey:
Spider-Man
This year however, catastrophy struck, and Diana Troy got lost in the attic. Instead we have been forced to re-cast the Duplo man as Jesus’ Mother - as he is displaying no gender-leanings what-so-ever, among the otherwise all-male crew.
A thorough search for the ship counsellor will be carried out before next December, and Duplo man will go back to his sheep. It's a promise.
Posted by Nicklas at 01:26 AM
December 20, 2002
stripping wallpaper
I've spent Friday night strippig wallpaper. I have completed 3/8 of the room. Tomorrow I will wake up and strip some more. Ah - the life!
Posted by Nicklas at 11:55 PM
December 19, 2002
Three Good Things and Three Bad Things
Good Things- I have a nice bottle of Glenmorangie and some half melted ice in front of me
- I can work as long as I want, 'cause, like Maculay I'm home alone
- I've got an open fire what makes me warm
- I've lost my IP addresses so I can't access the web. This will be posted later.
- I'm losing some email it seems, which makes me feel like I'm descending into chaos.
- Mylittlerobot is driving me insane. I need to finish it off, but instead I organise the files on my computer, play around in photoshop, explore hidden preferences in Chimera. It has, in other words become a chore.
Posted by Nicklas at 11:48 PM
December 17, 2002
Mr Chip and Mr Indian
Next to Hello Kitchen - Mr Chip and Mr Indian.
Even if two members of the Village People decided to open a fast food outlet they couldn't have conjured up a better name.
Posted by Nicklas at 11:09 PM
December 16, 2002
Silence, Fools
Recently several people have complained that we never pick up the phone. It just rings and rings, and we're to rude to answer, even though we're home.
I naturally dismissed their claims as a combination of crazy talk and the odd occasion where we would actually be out, or too busy to get to the phone at all.
Tonight I discovered the secret ring signal setting on the base of our phone. It goes from Loud to Soft, and then there the SIGNAL OFF option.
Which was selected.
We can now proudly put "disabling phone signal" to young Mr T's set of skills, which also incidentally include crashing the computer by typing really fast, and inserting jam in videotapes.
Posted by Nicklas at 11:33 PM
December 15, 2002
Hello Kitchen
There is a secret temple somwhere in the East where age-old monks bound by a vow of silence spend their entire existence thinking up names for Chinese Restaurants. Once a year they write down their best effort on a small sheet of paper, not unlike the one you might find in a fortune cookie.
These names are naturally, almost by definition, perfect. They are names that convey the very essence of the establishment and the flavours of the food they serve.
Not many people know the whereabouts of this temple, and even those who do must undertake a long and treacherous journey to get there. Naturally not many people bother, and every year the monks are left with unclaimed notes containing names so glorious in nature that any man, woman or child immediately would feel an immeasurable urge to order a chicken fried rice (no 46) or a noodle chow mein (67)
We don't know wether the management of Hello Kitchen undertook this journey, and wether or not they ever found the temple.
But we have our suspicions .
Posted by Nicklas at 10:17 PM
December 13, 2002
Lucia
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Morten Conroy - Christmas in Shanghai is the only seasonal music you need. Trust me on this.
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Today is Lucia, the Swedish festival of getting drunk and falling asleep in a pile of snow. I will celebrate with a small glass of punsch.
Skål Kosmonauter. (and happy birthday mum)
Posted by Nicklas at 11:48 AM
December 12, 2002
The Chicken House
Two minutes walk from our house, down towards the crossroads were they riot during hot summer days stands a derelict house with weatherbeaten curtains hanging out of broken windowframes.
Strangely the sign above the door is still remarkably intact, relaying to the passerby a piece of history, reminding us of the time when The Chicken House still served Curry Chips, Pasties and Chicken Suppers.
Posted by Nicklas at 11:35 PM
December 11, 2002
My Girl, The Princess
RUGAR has just released his latest offering. Get it while it's hot
Posted by Nicklas at 11:59 PM
December 10, 2002
Los Simpsons
Mr T loves the Simpsons.
His words are starting to come out fast and furiously now, he's at that age where learning seems to happen at a tremendous rate, every day there's new words, emerging sentences, and the lyrics of well known songs are starting to take a shape that would be recognisable even to someone outside the immidiate family circle.
Yesterdays sentence was "Bart, Bart, where are you?"
Unfortunately practising the chant went on throughout the night, and only seized when Mr T managed to convince his dad to go downstairs and put the video on.
Mr T wouldn't sleep without the Simpsons. We watched the Simpsons tape three times that night. Thats six hours worth.
Today when coming back to the house Mr T was greeted by his mother. Hello Tiernan, she said. Hello Bart, said Mr T, running over to the television.
He knows that the Simpsons is on BBC2 at 6 pm.
We were worried, as parents, that to much exposure to the newer episodes would skew his opinion of the the cartoon, as it's almost impossible to find a decent episode after series 9 or so, but it seems like our worries were unfounded, as the more recent episodes totally fail to catch his attention in the way a classic episode would. He would sit silently through "Simpson and Delilah" or "Mayored to the Mob" where a more recent offering like "Bart Vs. Lisa Vs. The Third Grade" gets no attention whatsoever, and immideately gets voted off with cries of "Barnie, Barnie"
Posted by Nicklas at 05:40 PM
December 08, 2002
more strictness
This afternoon I finally got the eljestwhere layout out of photoshop where it's been sitting maturing like a good vintage port, and translated it into code.
There will most likely be a sort of launch tomorrow, as long as the css and html passes the aforementioned validation.
Posted by Nicklas at 10:52 PM
December 07, 2002
strict is good
I spent my lunch hour on Friday converting the front page of takete to strict xhtml.
When I finally got the approval from the W3C validator I felt like jumping up and down and doing a silly little dance, which in fact I did, to the bemusement of my co-workers who for some reason didn't share my enthusiasm.
It is hard to explain to the uninitiated why creating validating code would constitute a stepping stone to nirvana, damn, I don't even understand it myself.
Next step is getting eljestwhere as strict as a calvinist headmistress. Stay tuned.
Posted by Nicklas at 10:57 PM | Comments (1)
December 05, 2002
mylittle delayed robot
Today I renewed the mylittlerobot.com domain for another year.
The implications of this particular perennial event is that I have been working - on and off - on the project for 12 months now and it's still not finished. I've missed half a dozen self-imposed deadlines, and there's still no sign of a launch date. The funny thing is that it's close - so close, to completion. There is only about twenty pages of coding and layout left to do.
All I need is a day without any distractions and a copious amount of coffee.
Posted by Nicklas at 05:12 PM
December 04, 2002
No more Parties
One of the great advantages of parenthood is that you have a marvelous excuse for not attending any social gathering or imbibing session that otherwise would leave you hung over and / or with a big hole in your wallet the day after.
Who needs a social life anyhow?
Posted by Nicklas at 02:34 PM
December 03, 2002
Corduroy Fetishists Unite
over at takete Uncle Tweed has been writing anecdotes and essays about the lesser spotted areas of the web. A couple of months ago he published an homage to Corduroy, the King of fabrics.
As I read all Uncle Tweeds mail, I was privy to this email, recieved the other day:
To: uncletweed @ takete.comHi!
I am "frenchbaldman" and was absolutely enthousiast at seeing that you made a link to my personal profile where I write that i am very into corduroy fascination.
Who are you? where are you?
How to share our common passion for corduroy?
Take care of you.
FreD.
The question is - what should I advice Uncle Tweed to do, and what should his reply be? The seedy underbelly of the world of the Corduroy fetishist is a dangerous place to dive into. Please Advice.
Posted by Nicklas at 10:42 PM
December 02, 2002
soma fm back on air
rejoice, rejoice! somaFM is back on the air with the radio stream of choice, Groove Salad again facilitating headphone bliss provided a healthy internet connection is at hand.
Internet radio is one of the main reasons I would consider upgrading my retro 56k connection to something a bit faster.
Posted by Nicklas at 05:17 PM