I Love My Mum!

This post is for my mum what I luff...All photos and videos were taken today after we had been to the clinic for a jab...for about a nanosecond I thought "Hah! Something else I can do best (other than feeding solids)...no crying!"....another nanosecond later.....OMFG it was like I'd cut her arm off!

Loving fatherhood....and gradually begining to understand why I exasperated *my* parents...though surely a bit of apple also stopped me crying no matter what?!










She hates it if I am not on her side of the "chair partition"!

Chile is off to Wales with Mumma and Es (I witnessed a minor fight between Flo & Es today...) for a week so I am absolved of fatherly duties until weekend after this....might post, might not.

So...."Teh Video Media ob Teh Chile"....heretounder...

Teh Chile zan Artzt!

This composition is called: "Daddy Let Me Free With Paint And Look What I Did!....on the paper!"


....the subtitle is "Gaggy? Tak!"

...Several baths were required to remove the paint from her body...One entire leg was blue!!!

And how did she get purple? In her ears?

Tak Tak!

Birthday!

Had the most lovely day with Lil involving painting, serious baths, presents, singing and standing, laughing at baby goats (Kids Baby Kids!), and also they had some piglets.

No Pix! Next time, sorry........

Except this one from Baboo last weekend at the seaside (for the 1st time)

Heh...Child Support Agency facing axe

From the BBC:

The Child Support Agency (CSA) is being axed, while absent parents face being electronically tagged, under plans to be announced by the governmen

Parents will be encouraged to make their own arrangements over child maintenance, with a new agency focusing on parents who refuse to co-operate.

GOOD!

FINALLY!

Read more...

Calmer Kharma Karl Mar...x

OK. Rapid update: Not as angry as I was last night...I think some of it might have been down to the fact that a couple of months ago I started planning a trip to Lebanon and now the bloody Zionists have shat on my plans.

Anyway. Couldn't sleep last night, and had this weird sort of waking-dream experience...the upshot of which is I finally understood (in one of those acid-flashback style moments of clarity) what was wrong with Daptop, Linux and the Wireless Chipset Drivers....you don't want to hear about the complete re-install, Automatix update for codecs and cool stuff, the 3 LINES I HAD TO TYPE IN A TERMINAL!!!!

3 Lines and one small package install (about 150kb!).

Finally!

I am now confident to wave Daptop at Windoze zealots and prove that it is better....it's definitely faster than my (twice as powerful) work HP laptop that runs XP (and yes, I had to get rid of the Mac skinning thing because it BSOD'd me every time a WLAN became available!!)

So. 360 of her maj's pounds, a 650Mb download for the free OS, 48 hours on a crash-course learning Linux kernel and drivers, a few more downloads, some headaches and heartaches and you too can have a groovy cheap mobile workstation.

Tell you what, send me £400 and I'll send you a brand new Lenovo C100 (1.5Mhz Celeron, 256 Mb, 40 Gb, CD-RW/DVD) with a great custom Ubuntu install..... :-)

Now what's the stupidest f*cking name I can think to call it?

You may not agree, but....

...I think the recent Israeli aggression is very wrong!

I don't really want to go into this now and get some kind of flamewar going (I already had an argument this evening with a neo-con who called *me* a Nazi!!!).

- I do not like extremism.
- I do not like violence.
- However, if an extremist personally attacks me (as a peaceful, non-violent but actively anti-extreme:....liberal? person) then I will fight back with all the knowledge I have....I am still fuming from this argument...
- Might is Right is no answer...!
- Israel should have serious sanctions imposed, certainly regarding military hardware.

Flame on...I'm gone!

Tak!

Is the latest proto-word. It seems to mean anything from "I want/like that" through "Show me this", Yummmmmm, and "No more food please".

Ladeeeez & Gennelmn see the ssstaaaaanding chiiiiilllllddd....errr Kazzooo!



Realising I hadn't posted for a while (sorry, busy) I thought I'd update with some of the things going on, but due to the heat I really can't be bothered...i'm daptopping from the roof right now. Finally a bit of a breeze in Briz today.

36 Degrees C near Gatwick today apparently! Certainly in the 32-33s again here.

OK. So, it's been hot, that's established. I had a phone (so-called) without a camera and there just seems no point posting without some pics these days (she grows so fast)...not done much on the allotment...plans, plans, plans!

Too hot!

So to summarise:

• I am angry with bicyclists on pavements and those that ignore pedestrian crossings!
• I am angry with the new "Recycling" scheme the council have....not working...no worse!
• Public Transport without adequate Climate Control (not Air Conditioning....don't need that)...pisses me off
• I didn't get up the allotment (other than to dump compost)
• I have next week off work which seems to mean this week is like 2 weeks work!
• Did a website
• Fondled another website
• Ate
• Slept a bit
• Hated (and still do) UK trains!

The child is wonderful....standing more often than not and confident, my camera missed the actual moments of standing....oh.

Egh-Egh-Eeeghgh?



"It's hotter than Africa, you are Red-Head and in Africa....hahhahahah!", according to the Namibian bus-driver this afternoon...

OMFG!

I am so getting one of these!

Daptop!

Hello from the Daptop!

Fully operational soon....might need some more RAM!

Children, Allotments, Jam, Hair, Festivals, Beards, Work, Pictures....

...not today. I went a bit mental today and ordered a few things (not much!) to finally (this must be the end....there is such a thing as overkill!)...complete "Teh System" as I like to think of it....so by the end of the week (thus giving me a brilliant excuse to skive a dig up the allotment), I'll need to sort out the whole power/cabling/desk/childproofing again....

So here's a bit of a geekfest!

Mac Mini : Intel Core Solo 2.16 GHz, 512 MB, 80 GB, EyeTV/DAB Mini, CDRW/DVD, Bluetooth, Wireless 802.11b/g

Ubuntu [Workstation] : P4 3.2GHz, 512 MB, 400 GB, 1 x CD/DVD, 1 x CDRW/DVDRW, Card-Reader, Wireless 802.11b/g

Slax [Firewall / Admin] : P2 800 MHz (Overclocked), 128 MB, 40 GB, 1 x CD

Ubuntu [Laptop] : Celeron 1.5 GHz, 256 MB, 40 GB, CDRW/DVD Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g, 15" TFT

Work [Laptop] : HP Thing running (not very well) FlyAKiteOSX on an Orange Windows XP Build (that's right it was not bad enough as it was!)...with some hardware in it (apparently).

Gumstix Waysmall : Running some brand of linux (not doing much other than look like a packet of fags on my desk at the moment) ;-)

Linksys WRT54G : Running Linux Firmware!

External Storage : 250 GB USB Drive, Various memory-sticks from 16 MB to 512 MB

Volume : 80 Watt Sherwood Amp, Monitor speakers

Other : 1.5 Mbps Cable Modem, Wireless switchable Keyboard and Mouse, a half-built homemade PMP made from a SonyEricsson P800, webcam wired up to photo thefty people, half a dozen 3/4 assembled "Stealth Cams" and various components thereof, the head portion of a homemade robot (webcam casing, christmas lights, the innards of a talking bear....some polystyrene), docking station for Work laptop, a UPS, 2 or 3 x 6 way plug-splitters...a small solar panel.....loads of other basically unidentifiable components (including a small LCD from one of the 1st mac laptops), 3-in-1 Scanner/Copier/Printer...

I dread to think what would happen if all was turned on at once....which obviously makes me think: Why, Guri? Why?

And my only answer is weak: Because it appears I can....because they all do things slightly differently.......because I have basically self-taught myself to build, maintain and run the machines and the network they run (on).

So. Anyway I have now cut up that credit card and scheduled massive payments for the rest of the year....just as well I'll have all this kit to play with and thank Babbage for Wireless LAN or there'd be tons of cabling to figure out.

Cremorne

;-)

Anyway, had Lil from 11-4 today and was a strange kinda day as we had rain, sunshine, gale-like winds at times....and no nap! Well, she was just dropping off just before I'd arranged to meet Jarn for a coffee ,but seconds after I sat down she woke up....No trouble all day though (some grumbling, but not much).

Spent a few hours playing around at home too....

In other news, I harvested about a kilo of redcurrants yesterday after helping out at the Werburghs Farm Fair....and making Redcurrant Jam tonight.





That is all.

im got a bal' face

My god....I look like the woman who did the voice of Yoda....if not Yoda himself!

In other news...teh byootifarl chile stands unaided....and this is giving me RSI

Flars

Did a bit of the old research on the 2 little red flowerd plants I have...before I either accidentally kill them or I become too obsessed.

Anyway, turns out they are (relatively) rare but have been made the County Flower of Bristol according to the BBC. Not only that, but all the photos I have seen of them so far have been very poor compared to the specimens I have raised on the allotment :-)

Yeah! And I raised a massive crop of Gooseberries, Blackcurrants and Redcurrants too, not to mention enough Spearmint and Lemon Balm to keep me in tea for life...all without raising a finger...let nature take Her course I say!

And what looks like enough hay to justify getting a horse.

Anyway I digress....the point of this was to say that I have identified the offending flower via a combination of local dialect, google, some research on wikispecies, and someone going "Oh thats Licknis wossname"....

So:

Maltese-cross (Lychnis chalcedonica)

Introduced to Britain as early as the 16th century the plant is now naturalized on waste ground, roadside, and rubbish tips*. Also known as Flower of Bristol.

Habitat: waste ground, roadsides. Flowers: May - August

Image © Bob Gibbons/Natural Image

*Yes, they are saying my allotment is a rubbish tip....

The Allotment : Part Deux

This one's for Marshie :-)

Lots of pics again...clicky clicky for the large size....the E50 Camera is a bit better with lots of natural light.

I have a lot of work to do!

But I have wonderful things like this...."Bristol's Pride". [Update: This is actually Maltese-Cross]

Too much spearmint....way too much.

Redcurrants (and 2 type of Gooseberry, not shown here).

Tons! Of blackcurrants on one bush (hidden from the birds in tall grass....a tip I will be remembering).

Also learnt today that bran is a good organic/natural anti-slug thing....spread around plants, they eat it, swell up and die and then the birds and toads eat them (and don't get poisoned themselves) :-)

Oooh. Lemon Balm

It was boiling hot but I still mananged a couple of hours clearing up a little and especially around the berry bushes....picked a couple of handfuls of the sweet gooseberry and some redcurrants to take to Baboos house (I am helping out with some web stuff).

The view from the top of my plot.

And my neighbour Rhiannon's plot which I covet somewhat.

That is all for now. Killer day tomorrow and then one of those 4:30am 10:30pm (if lucky) jaunts to Paris (apparently it was lik an oven in the metro today)...hope to be working from home on Thursday night (Flos's bath night!)....

Lazy!

Buckoid and Teh Knife came down for a bit (fair play for realising how far I usually walk each day!)....We sat around through some thunder, then it rained for a bit.....anyway.

JP is very lazy

A Picture Speaks 1000 Words

Apparently!

So here's a bit of an essay!

She'll just have to appreciate later on in life that it was very hot today and clothes really were optional much of the time!

As usual click for the big ones (sorry about the quality....this E50 really does have a poopy camera).










Here's a Video

And here's a comedy sleeping whippet called Dylan who I met yesterday...and he had some of the stinkiest dog farts ever! Really chewy!