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Rob's Ego Trip!

Just for me to admire...
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Weekend

This weekend we're back to the busy social calendar with a party for Jon yesterday and a Baptism for a friend's children today. It's a Catholic baptism, which will be a new experience for me as I've never been to one before.

Jon really enjoyed his party yesterday though was a bit clingy when dropped him off at Laura's house. It was the first party he's been to where we've left him there on his own. However, once I had left, he promptly forgot about me as usual :) I took the opportunity to pop into town and get some shopping done and only just made it back in time to collect him!
Posted on Sun 31 Oct 2004 at 10:21 AM by Rob | | Link

SWG

Played SWG again last night for the first time in ages. Was a blast as I didnt' feel like I was on the treadmill to advance my character and just spent the night firing my blaster :)
Posted on Thu 28 Oct 2004 at 09:27 AM by Rob | | Link

ID Cards

Chris Witter says it much better than me! Go read this piece now!
Posted on Tue 26 Oct 2004 at 08:05 PM by Rob | | Link

A Real Writer

Georgina has got a job doing some copy writing for websites on a part time basis. Of course it's the sort of job she'll be good at and has the added benefit of being a home-based job. Most importantly, I won't need to fund here expensive Sims habit :)
Posted on Tue 26 Oct 2004 at 08:58 AM by Rob | | Link

150 Years Ago Today


Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1864

Posted on Mon 25 Oct 2004 at 12:00 PM by Rob | | Link

Lunch

Janet and Harry are over from the US, and as we don't get to see them often, we went to my mum's today for lunch. Of course, so did the rest of the family so we got to catch up with Lesley & Row, Linda & Bill, Anna, Lucy, Jenni and my niece and nephew (Leah and Jack). We really enjoyed it and Georgina picked up some thoughts from Bill about her photography course. Bill's a very good photographer and I really like his work, especially the black and white shots. We currently have two of his works now and I'm sure we'll be increasing our collection over the next few years :)

Jon had a really good time with Leah & Jack and was devastated that he had to leave to come home. Ben just seemed bemused at getting handed around all these people!
Posted on Sun 24 Oct 2004 at 10:12 PM by Rob | | Link

EEEAAAGGGLLLLEEESSSS!

About time the Eagles won by a decent amount!
Posted on Sat 23 Oct 2004 at 07:17 PM by Rob | | Link

I Wish

Another one for the Amazon wishlist.
Posted on Fri 22 Oct 2004 at 09:10 AM by Rob | | Link

Do They Know It's Christmas?

There's talk about another rerecording of Do They Know It's Christmas for charity.

Is the music industry in such a bad state at the moment that noone can write a new song?
Posted on Thu 21 Oct 2004 at 01:32 PM by Rob | | Link

Firefox!

Business2 has a great article about Firefox. It's a good read.
Posted on Wed 20 Oct 2004 at 11:09 PM by Rob | | Link

Lost In Space

Just watched the movie Lost in Space via LoveFilm.com. I really enjoyed the film, but it's not a re-watch. The special effects were good - especially the helmets of the space suits.
Posted on Wed 20 Oct 2004 at 11:04 PM by Rob | | Link

Dead Car, Dead Rabbit

We got back from Georgina's mother's to discover that the battery in the Micra had died. Really died. Died to the point where the central locking doesn't work. I've put the battery on charge and hopefully that'll be all that required.

Whilst there though, I noticed a dead rabbit in the drain right by our garage door. Very odd. I don't think they are related, but I disposed of the rabbit before sorting out the battery!
Posted on Sun 17 Oct 2004 at 06:48 PM by Rob | 2 comments | Link

Naming Ceremony

We moved another step closer to getting Ben's naming ceremony organised yesterday when we met the celebrant. He's a nice chap called Allan. We talked about what we were looking for and came up with the general format of the ceremony, so I'm feeling quite confident that it'll all work out nicely now.
Posted on Fri 15 Oct 2004 at 07:13 PM by Rob | | Link

Professional Football

Am I the only one that thinks that David Beckham did the right thing in choosing to foul during the Wales game? He chose to get a second yellow card whilst knowing he was injured and likely to be out of the next game anyway. It's a blindingly obvious tactic and and I would be amazed if it didn't happen week in week out up and down the country and all over the world. These people play football for a living, they would be doing a disservice to their employers if they didn't ensure that they were available to play as many games as possible.

Obviously in an ideal world, none would get any yellow or red cards. That's like saying that no office workers would play Solitaire during work time. The real world doesn't work like that. So, if I was a professional sports player and I was in Beckham's position, I'd have done the same.

The only thing that amazes me is that I didn't realise he was bright enough to consider such things... he doesn't come across as the brightest button in media interviews.
Posted on Wed 13 Oct 2004 at 08:12 AM by Rob | | Link

Server Down (Again)

One of our live servers down again :( clearly something wrong with it, so we are pulling it off line and putting a new one up. Trouble is that it takes so long to sort out :(
Posted on Tue 12 Oct 2004 at 09:02 PM by Rob | | Link

Blair's 3rd Term Vision

Looking at this report on the BBC website, I see:
Tony Blair has signalled that he would use a third term in power to radically alter the welfare state and further reform the public services.


Um... wasn't that the promise for this term? This Government has been talking about reform for ages, our tax bills have gone up, there's been record spending on the NHS and now he's saying that the reform will happen in his third term?

Colour me unimpressed.
Posted on Tue 12 Oct 2004 at 08:08 AM by Rob | | Link

Really Tired

Really tired today. Last night we watched all of the new disc of Alias series 2 that we had received from Lovefilm. It was quite good, but not worth the time we ended up stay up to. Ben of course, woke up during the night, so it's now morning again and I'm really tired again. Not fun. The main trouble is the headaches that I am now getting. They are actually quite painful at the front of my head until the paracetemol kicks in.

Better get an early night tonight.
Posted on Sun 10 Oct 2004 at 07:22 AM by Rob | | Link

More M3 Productivity

Today was a good day as our M3 skeleton started to be fleshed out (*groan*). We can now add content to the database which is correctly version controlled and get it out again with correct permission checks. Go us!
Posted on Fri 8 Oct 2004 at 11:22 PM by Rob | | Link

Fotothing

If you are into photos then Fotothing is worth a look. I know the guy who's started it and it's nice and fast at the moment too!
Posted on Thu 7 Oct 2004 at 08:25 PM by Rob | | Link

Server Problems

The server running the-allens.net has become unreliable since we upgraded the spam filtering software. I'm not sure if there's a bug in the software itself or just in our use of it, but hopefully it'll get sorted out it soon.
Posted on Thu 7 Oct 2004 at 08:19 PM by Rob | | Link

Everyone Else Figured It Out...

...and now it seems that Donald has too:
Mr Rumsfeld was asked by a New York audience about connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said.
Posted on Tue 5 Oct 2004 at 10:19 AM by Rob | 3 comments | Link

Eagles!

Posted on Mon 4 Oct 2004 at 09:54 PM by Rob | | Link

X-Prize

Well done to SpaceShipOne!
Posted on Mon 4 Oct 2004 at 07:31 PM by Rob | | Link

Ubuntu

I've installed Ubuntu Linux and am very impressed. Ubuntu is to Debian, as Firefox is to Mozilla.
Posted on Sun 3 Oct 2004 at 07:39 PM by Rob | | Link

Another one bites the dust

I bet all the camera manufacturers are glad that this patent was rejected on appeal.
Posted on Fri 1 Oct 2004 at 09:10 PM by Rob | 1 comment | Link