Dead laptop

The laptop died on Sunday, fatal errors to the hard drive :-o. It has been hell. I can't look up actors or plot details on imdb whenever I want to. We can't play wow together which removes half the fun for me. I have got so used to having the internet as my constant, uncomplaining companion that when it's not instantly there, because I have to share the iMac with Simon, it's really annoying. So this evening I have painted my toenails that I have something to do with my hands and watched far more telly than I usually do. I haven't worked out how to blog from my phone without a picture so enjoy.

edited 24/6/08 for sense and grammar

Fuel

In order to save money I've been strictly sticking to the speed limits, no drifting a little bit over any more for me. And it has made a difference, my mileage has increased by about 5%. I've also noticed that the roads are a bit quieter than they were last year and there seems to be an increase in the number of people pottling along at 50 miles a hour, I don't know if this is really so or just a bit of observation basis by me. 5% improvement in the miles I get isn't really going to cut it though I just paid for my first £50 full tank of petrol today, (our car takes about 42 litres) this time last year I was paying about £37 each time I filled up. The car is pretty good for mpg it can do about 425 on a full tank, unfortunately I drive 460 miles a week to get to work and back. It's not good, not good at all.

Slowly Slowly

I'm waiting for FireFox 3.0 to down load before going to bed, I had my first annual check of my eyesight since discovering that I had glaucoma, the good news and it is very good news is that the medicine is working and there is no detiration in my vision either eye and the pressure in my eyes is good. A classic case of early detection and preventative medicine I guess.

I am "too young" to have glaucoma as it is normally seen in the over 40s I am very grateful to the staff at Boots the Optician for doing the checks when I went in for an eye test. The waiting area in the hospital backs that up as well, apart from the staff I must have been the youngest person in the waiting area by a good 25 years at least. I also have to be grateful that I don't have perfect vision because if I did I doubt that I would ever go to the opticians and it would not have been discovered until I noticed the damage, especially as there is no history of glaucoma in my family. Overall I'm lucky really.

Cheese

Testing the moblog facility that comes with my new mobile. I <3 my new phone

Week

I find composing blog entries directly in the Blogger create post form, saps the inspiration from me. I've had a few blog ideas this week but once I've not been able to get much further than opening up the web page before the ideas desert me. To avoid this happening again I am trying to write this blog while watching the telly not the laptop. Fortunately I can touch type, unfortunately I'm not the best typist out there so I've had to go back to correct the errors.

So this week, On Wednesday I took advantage of the new flexi scheme at work and left at 2:30 pm to go into town to see the solicitors about the information they needed from me for the HIP and other stuff, then my bank to tell them that I've changed my name and that I had moved (no need to rush these things) and then finally on to the estate agents to correct all the information that they had put in the particulars - phantom doors and missing radiators were the most glaring.

Friday saw another colleague of mine leaving for pastures new, she won't be replaced here because all our posts are relocated to the South West at some point in the future and no one wants a job with that level of insecurity. The office I work in used to have 16 people in it now there will only be 7 and most times it's emptier than that. We went to the pub to see her off there were plenty there but this is where my ears hinder me, they started to hurt and I couldn't hear people clearly enough to carry on a conversation so I ducked out early as there is no fun in not hearing peoples drunken conversations when you are sober.

Today we went into town, Simon got a new wallet and we looked at the small continental market. These markets are getting to be much of a muchness and they bear no resemblance to markets on the continent that I've seen.



We had my version of Jambalaya, no sausages or prawns, mushrooms and saffron instead and and emergency substitution of basmati rice for american long grain but it was very nice with white wine and watching Giles Coren and Sue Perkins dice with heart disease as they eat their way through the seventies some of it was very wrong but other seventies favourites are probably still favourites today, like prawn cocktail, steak diane and black forest gateaux.

Mmmmm black forest gateaux.

Blue

Haven't done one of these in ages

But when the result says that I'm cool how can I resist proving that really I'm not by blogging about it.

Finally

Hillary Clinton has conceded defeat in the Democratic Primaries and put her support behind Barack Obama. In this race she's gone from presumptive Democratic candidate back in 2006 and early 2007 to the one who came second today. During which she's gone through about 11 million dollars of her own money and she and Bill seemed to have managed to piss away all her dignity, reputation for being fair and even handed and a hell of a lot of good will that was felt towards the couple since their days in the White House. When the Republicans went after Obama for being elitist Clinton suddenly reinvented herself as being blue collar - Pah her father may have been at the start but he was a successful business man by the time of her of her birth, she herself has had a career that is very far away from blue collar unless I missed something and lawyers are now considered as horny handed toilers.

I first heard of Obama when I was on holiday in Milan in 04, as my Italian is almost as bad as their telly I spent a bit of time watching CNN on the TV in the hotel room, it was the democratic convention, he stood out as someone who was going to go places quickly, he had charisma, looks, dignity and could give a great speech. I don't know whether he will win the presidency but he's the best candidate to run in a long long while.

Birdstrike

A poor unfortunate pigeon almost certainly bought it when he collided with the passenger side window/rear view mirror of my car as I drove home this evening. I saw it out of the side of my eye and was already half tensed up when it hit the car, fortunately it seems to have done no permanent damage to the car but when I looked in the rear view mirror all I could see was a sad swirling cloud of feathers.

It was my 3rd Bloggiversary yesterday which I totally forgot about in the fun and excitement of bimbling about at home. I always need a couple of days to recover from a holiday, I've only really just got round to starting to upload photos to my flickr stream. This one is my favourite so far.



Barcelona was great, I wish I had brought my walking boots with me though because it demands to be walked through as the buildings are spectacular. I will blog about it more as I upload more photos.