Oink!

Yeah. Not so cool...turns out it is H1N1...

It's like having human flu but the gubmint say I shouldn't leave the house. So Rosie (and Flo) very kindly picked up some drugs for me, viz:

Typhoid Mary

Despite a head full of snot and a throat full of barbed wire I had a considerable amount of fun today.

Once Flo had it in her head that I wasn't speaking all that often, she pretty much entertained herself for the morning...doing jigsaws, pretending to be a cake seller to "The Silent Prince" (my crowning role), and taking turns using the laser pointer to annoy Moshi. We almost didn't notice the rain.

After lunch we headed off for Esmae's party where I adopted the role of Science Professor and the assorted kids made various machines, models and other contrivances....I should have taken photographs (I will next time I do it), but here's a small highlight of what was constructed with apologies where I've forgotten names:

• A bird like structure complete with eyes, beak, teeth, arms, hat and antenna [Felix? Small, sweet boy. Maybe his name began with R]

• A brainwave detection device which could tell what someone was thinking (yay for a microphone glued to a wire then to some headphones!)...which doubled as a Karaoke machine [DeeDee...not the Ramone...but she was punk, that's for sure. Awesome!]

• A Hamster Run (2 flashing RGB LEDs glued to some circuit boards attached by wire, and a plastic box) [Also DeeDee]

• A rocket [Flo]

• A robot brain. This was a truly awesome mini construction, with a big switch a flashing flight and a weird arrangement of magnets and wires... [Isaac]
  

• "A real computer" (broken graphics card with a button and a light attached [Gracie & Flo]

• An MP3 player (a mobile glued to a headset, and an RGB LED) [Mathew]

• A robot in a jacuzzi (various resistors, caps, etc wired together into a doll, in a plastic bowl) [Scarlet]

There were a few other things, but my nose is running on the keyboard now....hang on a sec...

Anyway, it was great! I always forget how creative kids can be when you say "here's a load of stuff, let's make something"....some of them have a problem not being told what to make, but eventually they all get really into it.

If only I had 4 pairs of hands, and 3 glue guns (thanks for the loan Rosie!)...Not sure Esmae was impressed with the book of greek & roman myths I got her this year as she was with the netbook last year ;-)

Was too fucked to carry the 6 boxes of bits back, so am now horizontal on the sofa in front of the fire hoping I this isn't manbirdpig flu and that whatever it is it fucks off soon...before Wednesday anyway.

Redux

I appear to have a small, very annoying, ulcer just on the inside of my top lip...On the other hand The Annoybours (tm) took in a parcel that turned out to be the NatGeo Dinosaur Encyclomapedia thing I ordered for an as yet undesignated recipient, and announced they are moving!!

They said they're having problems with "the toilet".

We all know the real reason...Moshi loves metal!

Neighbours!

Everybody needs good neighbours....with a little understanding, you can find the perfect plaaannn!!!!

I found the perfect fucking plan!

Some of you may know that my neighbour can be seriously annoying. I think the clincher is the fact that one of them screams like a girl when he's arguing, and they argue a lot....anyway:

Over the weekend and on Monday night there appeared to be some kind of screaming/swearing match going on every couple of hours. I think it was something to do with a game on the PS3 because intermittently there were the screams, cries and stuttering gunfire of war (and no cops turned up outside)...all at stupid hours....mostly during the night.

This really harshed my work day out, so I decided to have some fun while I was out of the house and they were presumably sleeping off their slanging match.

Before I left for work in the morning, with very bleary eyes, I accidentally turned the amp on and slipped while turning the volume...Apparently I mistakenly set the volume to 8*.

I spent the day occasionally connecting to the media machine and making it play music I thought they might appreciate: Nirvana, Living Colour, Rage Against The Machine, Aphex Twin, Goto80, (1 song on repeat for 2 hours :)....AC/DC...Sabbat!

They left me an awesome note.

I blamed the cat.



* I never put it to 8. 7 makes the windows rattle upstairs....4 is for rockin' it up...3 more usual

Today

I spent the day cycling in the rain, sorting computers out, eating chicken, drinking guiness and lazing on sofas...you?

A blog you say?

Novel idea...been ages since I posted. Soz.

I've been busy, and to be honest nothing of any major importance has happened...except I've found a new improved method of annoying/entertaining Moshi, viz:

The other reason I've not been posting is that I've been on a bit of a mission sorting out free recycled computers for a few people, planning my FOSS assault on "Buy Nothing Day" and upgrading the home network, about which I'll have a geek-out post soon (promise).

You say hello

I wave bye bye...

It has been an odd week. I felt a bit "not guri" on Wednesday (which I put down to poor blood sugar) but having rushed back to pick up Flo, cook dinner &c, I eventually spent the evening throwing up and attempting to go to bed at 8pm...[draws veil]

Thursday was much the same, though I spent a very strange ~10 hours lucid dreaming/hallucinating while twitching and sweating in bed....Friday I felt like someone had driven through me with a truck, but managed to hold it together enough to look after Flo eventually.

We spent Saturday doing our usual thing (alien tree hunt, cafe for cake, playground, park, trampoline) and observed an afternoon-long kinda fight thing between Moshi and "Tabby" (a decidedly un-tabby cat recently arrived, that believes it has rights on Moshi's yard, food & bed....Flo named him...though he is sometimes called "Sparkles", depending on her mood). Seriously, we came back from the park and he was asleep in Flo's bed while Moshi sat on the window sill and watched him! He'd already eaten her leftover breakfast....stupid cat!

Dancin' to the dub while we await CAKE!

"Look dad, I am a picture!"

Communing with the cats

I lunched-out my Saturday night (thanks, illness) and slept another 10 hours...Flo, Es, Ian and I did the "standard Sunday" today: Boston Tea Party for breakfast (number 2), Ashton Court (as opposed to Blaise Castle), Ice-Cream, more Ashton Court, my house...wherein I made coffee for adults, frozen banana pancakes for children and hilarity, newspapers, ipods, chumby & some shouting ensued.

Esmae is rowing the "boat" to America....

Now. If you will excuse me, I'll go back to my two current books: one apparently about unicorns and ninjas & the other about the fuckin fuck word you fucks!

Legacy

Just did that Freeskilling thing about FOSS/Linux. It went very well...

...but...

...the 1st thing (apart from "Hello") said to me was "I saw you in purple spandex and green y-fronts the other week...dancing like a loon".

This may be my legacy.

Show n Tell

I'm doing one of these here Freeskilling things tomorrow evening.

I'm really looking forward to it, but hoping it doesn't just turn into me ranting about closed/pay software (OK, I'll say it....MICROSOFT & APPLE), where Linux/FOSS lets us down (because it does in places)...I have some (hopefully) cool shit to show off and for people to use though:

• Chumby (FOSS/OSH, not got wifi in locale so showing "local" widgets + Quake)
• BeagleBoard (FOSS/OSH, just to show as no HDMI output)
• Neo1973 (FOSS/OSH, boots to screen of doom thanks to me)
• Sony Vaio found through "justfortheloveofit", booting FOSS 'live'
• Acer Aspire 1 booting Moblin2 (lame, i reckon) + my own Ubuntu + Kuki
• Lenovo C100, the laptop that will not go away. Is now running Jaunty with all the requisite plugins for browsers & music, etc ready to donate to someone.

A very welcome email from Tom G has prompted some extra software checkin'...I'd forgotten Gloobus for you Gnome peeps...

And FYI I have ~3 desktop PCs (no monitors) if anyone wants them....what is it about monitors?

Careers Day

Flo was off on one of her verbal diarrhea diatribes on Saturday evening...I couldn't get the video recorded fast enough to catch the beginning, but it began along the lines of "When I am bigger I am going to be a..."

Mr Oughton, this one's for you!



Just sayin' ;-)

Some of you deserve this!

It's not all autofellatio you know!

Levels

oh shit...fuck this post!

I just remembered I can apparently run Doom on Chumby! Need to look into various FLV transcoders and I would LOVE to get BBC iplayer chumby widget!

Focus!

EDIT: Got Quake running on the Chumby last night :D

Savages

Friday night's Microrave at Carnyville was mind-blowing, as soon as Jen manages to get me some of her photos I'll post 'em.

It rocked!

Savagely!!

"Look at my chocolate beard dad!"

Speaking of savages, I spent Sunday with both kids (and Ian) and then they both stayed Sunday night...I was on the verge of collapse by the end of the day, but luckily I had yesterday as holiday....so I surprised Flo by picking her up after nursery and we spent a lovely afternoon messing around with my new chumby and the ipod while we listened to TMBG (again!).

I managed to convince Flo to at least put some trousers on for dinner.

But it didn't last long...

Oh, and here's my entry for "You've Been Framed".....

Tasting Death

I had sushi and/or sashimi for breakfast, lunch and dinner today.

My stomach is currently making hilarious gurgling noises...