Oooooh - one of the first sites I worked on upon joining this company just went live. Developed in Vignette, and darn cool. Check it out!

On Sunday night I set up this petition and registered it with No. 10 Downing Street (home to the Prime Minister).

Today I read this article on the BBC news site about a possible policy move towards vaccination. If you read this brilliant site it explains about the current virus and vaccination issues.

Since I know that there are not enought signatures on my petition to worry anyone right now, I am not claiming any victories. But I am extremely pleased that the man has seen some sense...

"The new year starts with a release (version 1.1 - our first official "version1" release) of the line mode browser".

From small acorns do large oaks grow. That quote was from one of the first "web pages" ever written, at CERN where the WWW was 'born'. Worth reading if just to gawp at how far the internet has come since 1992.

I had a beautifully computer-free weekend. OK, so I feel a bit guilty as I really do need to upload some more local gig info to fameIS.com, but having spent the week in frustrated attempts to a) fix the network and b) get the video finished (and accomplished neither), I was in digital overload.

Solution?

Well, I spent saturday waking up very late, going to watch the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race with Rodney, shopping for some VERY CUTE baby stuff for my little sister's impending arrival (due tomorrow!), and skulking around @ home - ostensibly tidying the mess the house has got into - but more skulking went on than tidying. In fact - no tidying got done. But I did cook my mum a delicious Mother's Day dinner (baked salmon, lemon couscous, red cabbage, salad, and tirimisu for desert). All that in a barely-usable kitchen - yeah, be impressed !

Sunday - well, having battled with one pile of papers (throwing my hands up in abject boredom), I read a book, read the papers, and lastly I baked a cake. Something I haven't done in 2 years and very therapeutic, enjoyable and JUST what I needed - not a microchip or gigaflop or keyboard or dosprompt or ICQ message in sight. It was a lovely lemon and yoghurt cake with clear lemon glaze.... so much for my diet but THE most delicious thing with a cup of chamomile tea. *DROOL*. I'll send the recipe if you mail me.

And I didn't finish tidying my room (it is still a paper-and-CD-piled-10ft-high-warzone). I have several meetings tomorrow, and the constant tension of hatching the phone - waiting for the summons to York (300ish miles away) by my sister "I'm in the taxi en route to the hospital, jump on the train NOW" ! They're moving house on Thursday (good planning!).. so it's a tense week ahead. Oh, and a huge work deadline. Lovely.

Have definitely enjoyed the break :) Nice to step back and live life in "hard copy" once in a while....

So this is my one concession to a computer-free weekend. A couple of emails that had to be answered (or there was a good chance people wouldn't speak to me again), a news update, and this. Honour indeed.

Oh, and my computer barks. Seriously.

I can recommend an amazing wine... Noble Road, Australian Shiraz.

{hic}

Things ain't cooking in my kitchen....

Walk around your home
And pour yourself a drink
Fire one more torpedo baby
Watch the kitchen sink
[walking on the spot:::neil finn]

Our kitchen is still being "redone". Trans: 'put fridge in hallway for 3 weeks and remove sink and all useful equipment and cover with plastic sheets and wet paint'.

I am starving right now - okay, so there is plenty of food in the fridge (once you have wrestled past the coats to open the door) - but the oven and the microwave etc etc are in the kitchen. As are the knives and forks. And plates. Oh, and saucepans and stuff.

And there is wet paint on the floor.

And the surfaces and sink don't arrive til late next week. The steel has then to be cut to size and fitted. Then the tiles have to go on. And then the final coat of paint (which will no-doubt drip onto the newly painted floor and that will have to be redone).

Joy oh joy.

What's lovely is that we have the MOST BRILLIANT builder and painter, we've used them for the last - ooooh, 16 years - and if you're gonna have someone ripping your house apart for 3 weeks, they're the best ones for the job.

Oh and did I mention they're building a garden shed and putting a new roof on the house after they finish the kitchen?

It's already been 2 weeks living in the land of chinese takeaway, pizza and gourmet meals of dried toast (all spreads are in kitchen cupboard) and digestive biscuits (filched from the office cupboard upstairs). This evening's gastronomic delight was cold chinese takeaway from wednesday.

I am now running out of takeaway nationalities to order in - the kebab shop up the road (brilliant and tasty) was shut down after the workmen next door disturbed a rat's nest (Safeways was closed down too, so not such a bad thing!). Any suggestions ?

What's really amusing is that the only food we did manage to rescue from the kitchen before the work started....... was the catfood.

:::::[don't go there]:::::

Too tired to write this week - if you want a really good read, this interview with Neil Finn is brilliant - interesting, intelligent and entertaining. Why can't all interviewers do such a good job? They never seem to get past the ephemeral "you're a star and my editor told me to do this" and into the nitty gritty bits of life, the universe, and everything.

It does help that the man is a superstar...

Speaking of which, Neil's new single "Wherever You Are" is out in the UK on Monday. My sister's baby is due on Monday too. I wonder which one will arrive first?! :) Ready to jump on a train at a moment's notice - ear tuned to hear my mobile announce the arrival (to the tune of Split Enz' "Six Months In A Leaky Boat" - hehehe!)

Oh, that creative project - on hold, as my network has been giving me gyp and there were too many distractions. A real shame.. I put a load of work into that.

Arrgh. Another really frustrating day - creative thoughts and ideas running like a steam-train through my head, but I have to sit there doing mundane coding. A bit like when you're in primary school, and all you can do is think about racing in to the playground to finish a conversation with your new best friend, but the teacher has you sitting there with your hands on your head, your legs crossed and in absolute silence. The feeling never really goes away.....

I like this. Good work, people.

Low flying spacecraft

God, is it Monday already?!

Been tied up with this creative project, work, life, sick grandparents :(, our kitchen being redone (dust EVERYWHERE and the fridge in the hall) the shed being built, the roof being replaced, pizza, good wine, friends, St Patricks Day, etc etc etc.

One thing I DO want to write about; I really liked this article in the Guardian last wednesday, about the Mir veterans and their feelings about their "home" being scrapped. One French astronaut had a saxophone on board; another had a folding electric guitar!! Celestial music indeed!

Back on earth, the fishermen and pilots in New Zealand are watching their heads as Mir crashes into the sea in or near NZ waters this week.

Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Through coloured glass....

I hate it when i have a creative moment, and i am stuck at work with something tediously non-creative like documentation or hardcord programming to do. It is so frustrating having to scribble down the ideas on a bit of paper rather than start working right away to make the visualisation a reality. The images in my head are so vivid, they impose themselves on my vision and on my computer screen, obliterating whatever i _should_ be doing. 7 hours until I have free rein on my computer again; it's going to be hard. And I SO dont want to lose the vibe...

Remember a while back I said that the frogs were getting a bit frisky? Well, just went outside about 5 minutes ago and the sound of croaking frogs is almost deafening! First frogspawn of the year, and the pond is a boiling mass of movement. There are at least 50 frogs in one pond alone! Click here for a very short "frogspawn" video shot this morning..... (you might get a username/password box up - press cancel).

This explains a few things...

There are changes afoot. More good news. More things to consider.

Who could ever say that life is boring?!

No, I haven't written much lately. Things going on - in life and in my head (no, not the voices again LOL!) that kinda take precedence. And stuff I can't really write about in a public forum (sorry!). It has been a "good news week" though, which has made a nice change. I haven't had it all my own way this week, though - life is tough, eh!!

Decided there was *some* element of truth in the "When Harry Met Sally" theorem, but with a mature outlook, it needn't get in the way of a damn good friendship. Phew!

Have some nice things to look forward to this year - Neil's concerts (check out EMI Australia for the new video), a new nephew/neice (don't know yet!), travel, and some other cool stuff !

So all is cool and groovy, there still aren't enough hours in the day, but I intend to pack all I can into the days that I have.

I do love new toys. The latest, Groove is going to revolutionise internet communication. Invented by the same person who brought us Lotus Notes, it is a peer-to-peer (P2P) system which allows shared file spaces, conversations, scratchpads, and many more toys. Also, as the code is open-source (to an extent), the possibilities for development are endless.

I am convinced. Are you ? Try it out.

Where has the time gone? I really should be more disciplined about remembering to blog, but the time seems to slip away quietly...

A good weekend, catching up with old friends, watching the footie (the ref was CLEARLY biased towards Bolton) and just chilling out. Nice.

I want to be in Australia. Right NOW.

As Neil Finn announces another date in his UK tour (May 18th, Hammersmith Apollo, London), my credit card is stretched to breaking point. All in a good cause, though ;)

My friend John from Crowdies House moves to Spain today. The world is getting smaller; when people move nowadays it's as likely to be to a new country, rather than 3 streets across (like my mum). Ironically, I am more likely to see John in Barcelona than I am my friends in Edinburgh - it's a darn sight easier and cheaper to get to Spain than Scotland!

Speaking of travelling, I am really looking forward to visiting Germany (Koln), Belgium (Brussels) and Holland (Amsterdam) on Neil's tour, and meeting all my friends over the Channel. I haven't been out of the UK since last June (Chicago), and am starting to get claustrophobic....

The BBC website is great; I keep finding items on it that are just excellent. New today are items such as an e-cylopedia (explaining e-words that everyone uses and fewer people understand), and the claim that Shakespeare was on drugs.

We knew that.

The best BBC report today came to me via Daniel; a video clip of the Microsoft conference in Seattle during the quake yesterday. Strangely enough, the quake started just as Mr Gates took to the stage.

Coincidence?