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Category: Life: Personal

Work: Still working flat out!

November 5, 2008
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Sorry I haven’t been blogging much – the work hours at my new startup are only meant to be 9.30 to 6pm, but once you take into account 30 minute commutes and the fact we never finish at 6pm (7pm tonight) means I haven’t got much time to blog… But it’s certainly an exciting role and we’re still recruiting! So if you are a Flash Game Developer looking for a Permanent role in London (W1W/Great Portland Street area) or you are a Teacher specialising in Maths looking for an exciting and challenging role building an interactive learning system – get in touch via [email address removed] before the end of November!

I must admit to get this role I turned down an interview at MTV for Paramount Pictures and, within the last 48 hours, I have had to say “no” to the BBC three times (twice for a permanent role and once as a contractor!).

Anyway, I’m going to spend 20 minutes just writing some blog posts so I can set them to publish in the future… Keep visiting and live long and prosper!

Another year older and Superhero Movie

June 15, 2008
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Yep, it’s official – I’m now 29 years old and just working through the first few hours of my thirtieth year of this incarnation and no, I won’t tell you which bank I bank with (hello UFies! 🙂 ).

I didn’t do too badly – got a few cards, got some money (which will come in very useful at the moment: with becoming a contractor just at the time the PHP contract market appears to have dried up means I’m pushing my overdraft to it’s limits!) and my other half treated me to see Superhero Movie (reasonably ok – but Leslie “Airplane!/Naked Gun” Nielsen had a smallish part, Brent “Data” Spiner had a smaller one, Robert “Airplane!” Hays had an even smaller one, and Craig “US Red Dwarf Lister” Bierko, Dan “Homer Simpson” Castellaneta and Pamela “Baywatch” Anderson had even smaller parts: if they all had larger parts and said more then two sentences each it might have been a bit better, but it wasn’t a too bad Superman spoof except for the OTT Stephen Hawkin bit which had parts in bad taste and the necrophillia and beasility references which us think made it warrant a higher than 12a rating) and then to a carvery meal at the Toby Carvery at the Foxhunter Roundabout in Enderby (despite her not liking carverys).

Not a too bad day overall then despite the extra aging!

Personal: Bring Bring… Sorry, that person is Engaged

March 1, 2008
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As you all should be aware, today being February 30th March 1st, means that yesterday was Feburary 29th aka Ladies Day: the one day of the year (technically 4 years) where a women can, traditionally, ask her boyfriend/partner to marry her.

I think you know what’s coming.

Yep, the gorgeous Katy got down on one knee (although I had to help her up again) and asked for my hand in marriage. After less than a minute (most of which was trying to choke back the tears), I gave in to her and said yes (given the choice of giving my soul to her or giving her a pair of silk gloves in compensation, well, the soul was cheaper 😀 ).

So, after 1.75 years of knowing each other and 1.5 years of dating, we now have official names for each other instead of just generic “my partner”, “my other half” and “thingy”. I do love her dearly, but we haven’t set a date yet (she wasn’t sure until yesterday whether she was just going to ask me to be her fiancé or do what she did do and ask “Do you want to marry me?”) but contributions are welcome towards the mawwage.

Thank You Tesco for the cheap Lexmark printer

January 3, 2008
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I’d just like to say thank you to Tesco’s Beaumont Leys store for supplying me with a Lexmark Wireless All-In-One X4850 printer for just £69.97 – it should retail for £129.99 according to Lexmark (and, according to Tesco, £129.97).

So how do I get it so cheap? Well, I saw a yellow “Discount” shelf edge label promoting the printer for £99.97 so I thought, since I’ve been looking for a cheapish wireless printer for a while, I’ll buy it. Got to the checkout and it was rang up for the normal full price of £129.97. So I wander over to the Electrics customer services – point out that they’ve overcharged me by £30 and they check and agree. They then remind me (although I hadn’t forgotten and would have reminded them if necessary) that Tesco’s pricing promise means that if they make a pricing mistake – you get refunded double the difference. So my £30 over-payment became a £60 credit in my favour.

I’ve just finished setting it up, and the setup was very simple (hardest part was finding where in the house to situate it) and it works well with our SSID hidden WPA2 protected wireless network (much better than the Nokia N95 Series 1 phone which needed the SSID to be visible). Print quality is as good as you would expect from an inkjet on nearly 10 year old cheap 80gsm white laser copier paper (I brought a whole box full from Office World when I was at college and I’ve still got over a ream left) and scanning seems ok. Only disappointment is that the PictBridge software on the printer won’t talk directly to my Japanese-brought Ricoh Capilo RX camera over USB: I’ve got to eject the SD card and insert it into the printer: but at least it gives the option to manipulate/change the photo a bit (borders/frame, red eye reduction, cropping, rotation etc).

Not too bad for £69.97 IMHO!