Monday Night Hotel Club
Yes, the title of this blog post is a blatant rip-off of “Tuesday Night Music Club” (the Sheryl Crow album that catapulted her to MTV fame, and bedroom walls...
Posts from 2011
Here We Are Again
The washing machine and dryer are running overtime, and yet another weekend is rolling to a stop. Early tomorrow I will jump into a colleague’s car and head ...
Home For The Weekend
After a marathon three days living in a far flung hotel, wrestling with huge complexity all day, and feverishly working into the early hours each night, I fi...
The Day Before
Tomorrow morning I’ll be out of the house before daylight, destined for several days in far flung faceless offices, endless meetings, gnashing of teeth, drum...
The Nine Stop Sunday Plan
My continued efforts to distort space and time are continuing to failwhich is probably entirely predictable, given that I’m not Dr Emmit Brown, and I haven’t...
What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks
How is it December already? I only realised it was december when I looked at my watch just now, and it’s already saying it’s the 3rd? Have I really been that...
Pondering Professionalism At Days End
It’s 11:30pm at the time of writing, and I’m shutting down the work laptop. It will get fired up again just before 9 in the morning, with the knowledge that ...
Tilting At Windmills
I have been working past midnight, day after day to single handedly wrench the project I am working on from a “conceptual demo” to an “installable product” f...
The One Where I Rescued A Dog And Won A Bottle Of Wine
While cycling along the entrance road to the estate where our offices are this morning, I came upon a golden retriever wandering along on it’s own. For a few...
9 Years Approaches
While reading “ParisLemon” this morning (the tumblog of former tech journalist MG Siegler), it occurred to me that a rather significant milestone is approach...
Surrendering The Ipad
Yesterday evening I removed everything from the iPad directly related to “me”in the process converting it from “mine” to “ours”. When I bought it, I knew thi...
Not Playing The Game
While reading back through the posts of various friends around the internet over the last few days, a creeping realisation has dawned on me. I don’t like pla...
The Start Of A Saturday
The alarm clock went off at exactly 7 this morning, as it always doesexcept for Sundays. I say “exactly” because it has this little badge on it that indicate...
Walking Into An Argument
I’ve been in from work perhaps 20 minutesput my bag down, took my coat off, and immediately started cleared the washing up, tidying the lounge up, and pickin...
Running On Empty
It’s only tuesday evening, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.
Replenishing The Washbag
This is itmy entirewash bag contents, after a trip to the shops to replenish everything this morningToothbrushes I have an electric toothbrush somewhere, but...
Has Anybody Seen The Weekend
Another weekend seems to have whistled past, and I’m struggling to understand where it went. I woke both yesterday (Saturday) and today with the same thought...
Where Did Saturday Go
Between the time I rolled out of bed this morning, and it getting dark this evening, the day has been unrelenting. We’ve somehow packed in;Football Practice ...
The One Where The Work Laptop Calls For Me Like The Crystal In Superman
I can’t believe another week has flown past. Is it really Friday night again? I’m living a treadmill life at the momentalternating between home and work, hou...
Another Thursday
We woke at 7 this morning with the radio alarm clock, and rolled towards each other. My better half surfaced from the bedclothes mole like, and smiled that s...
Truth
There’s this girl who’s blog I’ve been reading for a couple of years now. She writes wonderfully, and has always had something interesting to saybe that a th...
The Morning After The Night Before
Due to a chronic lack of hours in the day, I ended up working all last night on a client project for my day job. Unpaid. W wasn’t too amused about it, and it...
Music And Lyrics
After yet another crazy Saturday, I suggested after we got the children to bed that we just sit and watch a moviesomething that might not require too much ef...
Five Movies
In response to my last post, I was asked if I could come up with a list of films that I likethat inspire me. For the last hour or so I’ve sat here, trying to...
Saturday Morning In The Coffee Shop
Well this is a surprisefor the first time in at least a couple of years, I’m sat in a coffee shop on a saturday with a cappuccino, a slice of granola, and ha...
Walking In On World War Three
I’m not sure what was going on with the traffic today. I left the house 10 minutes later than normal, and was nearly hit by 4 different cars within 200 yards...
10 Books On My To Read List
A little while earlier this evening I posted a recommendation for the book I’ve been reading to our children on Facebookit’s called “You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum...
The One Where Tom The Cat Used Another Life Up
We have three catsTom, Sam, and George. Between them they have 27 lives. We should put a totaliser on the kitchen wallbecause it’s probably down to 25. I wro...
The Ancient Heavenly Connection To The Starry Dynamo In The Machineryof The Night
Late last night I read a post by a good friend that brought something to mind; I hardly ever tell people how much I value them on the Internet. I have done f...
Tuesday On Mars
You probably started reading this post with half a thought about the titleand might be expecting some kind of Ziggy Stardust reference somewhere. You’re not ...
Running A Mile For Charity
This morning we were up bright and earlyW was helping man the drink stations for the local half marathon along with the Girl Guides, and I took our younger c...
Remember Remember The 5Th Of November
On Friday evening we took our children to a firework display commemorating Guido Fawkes capture in 1605 while attempting to blow up the British government. I...
Theres This Girl I Know Who Writes A Blog Sometimes
There’s this girl I know who writes a blog sometimes. I doubt I will ever meet her because she lives on the other side of the world, but we sort of know each...
Saying Goodbye To Windows
A few evenings ago a mysterious bug reared it’s head in Windows 7 on the desktop machinefiles have started to take ages before they begin writing to the hard...
Home From My Adventures
I arrived home at about 7pm last night after a couple of hours in the car with my co-worker. Quite why he needed to stop at Oxford to buy a bag of shopping w...
Running Out Of Words
I’ve been sat here in the hotel for the last hour in front of the laptop, staring into space, reading junk on the internet, and basically wasting time. When ...
Science And Religion
A few years ago we were staying at my parents in Cornwall, and my nephew was there for the entire summer (don’t get me started on his Mum and Dad repeatedly ...
A Rather Sad And Lonely Halloween
While the children were out having fun this eveningdressed up as various ghouls, caked in face paint, and draped in hilariously camp fancy dress costumes, I ...
Single Handed Saturday
I woke this morning a little after 8, and was surprised to find W already up, washed, dressed, and packing a few final things in her bags. She is away this w...
Winter Is Approaching
En-route to work this morning on the mountain bike, I came stopped, pulled the phone from my pocket, and took the following photo.It looked a lot more impres...
Pulp Fiction
I’ve always been fascinated by “pulp fiction” books, but have never read any.
Tiredness Frustration And Working Away
I’ve written the opening sentence of this blog post five times now, and deleted it each time. This is the sixth try. It’s not that I have nothing to writequi...
Truthful Tuesday
It’s been a while since I’ve participated in the “Truthful Tuesday” meme, and to be honest I can’t remember what I’ve written about in the past. Here goes I ...
Nightmares And One Liners
I woke in the early hours this morning with something on my mind “ something that caused quite possibly the most entertainingly connected nightmare I have ev...
Half Term And Near Misses
The alarm went off at 7 this morning and filled the bedroom with something or other from the 1980s, prompting W to make some incoherent mumble about turning ...
A Month With The Ipad
In the spirit of doing things backwards, I bought myself an iPad last month before I really knew why I might ever need one. I think this is true of most peop...
Lunch Pub Family No Washing Up Fantastic
We used the excuse of W’s parents and brother visiting to have lunch at the local pub - the first time I have been down there in weeks. Memorable moment of t...
The One Where We Got The Ipad Replaced
Little Miss Seven and I set out for the Apple Store in nearby Reading this morning to (hopefully) get the iPad replaced, after it was suddenly struck down wi...
I don’t understand the big problem so many people seem to have with Facebook. I think people’s main objection is that they started out as a closed system, an...
Idiotically Reconstructing Wordpress
Late last night it occurred to me that since my personal blog was sat on a subdomain of a domain I own, it wouldn’t really matter if I replaced the underlyin...
Random Tuesday Brings Calm And Serenity
The universe finally seems to be tilting back in my favour. Multiple work projects are being delivered in multiple directionsI am a virtual Shiva today (well...
Nightmare Day
Today I was parachuted in to yet another project at work, doing something I haven’t done for a year. It involved a skill set I am qualified in (I got 100% in...
The Big Bang Theory
I’ve never quite understood why my friends and colleagues are not hugefans of “The Big Bang Theory”. It’s the only television show I have made any effort to ...
School Quiz Night In Photos
We took part in the annual junior school quiz night this evening, and were beaten by one point by the teachers. Our specialist subjects seem to have been mus...
Changing Lanes
I’ve been writing a blog on the internet for yearsso many years that if I ever switch platforms (yes, Blogger, Tumblr, and WordPress, I’m looking at you), I ...
Home
I arrived home from working on client site last night at about 5:30pm, and rather than let myself into the house, just knocked on it. After a few moments our...
Sat In The Hotel Bar
This evening I’m sat in the foyer of the hotel with a glass of cider, killing time until my colleague appears a little later for a meal in the restaurant.
Country Hotel
I thought I was going to be online a lot over the next few days (while holed up in a country hotel) but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Packing My Bags
This evening I’m packing my bags to head away for a few days with work. I’ll be back on Thursday night. Although this sounds ridiculous, I can’t say on a pub...
Monkeybars And Pants
We saw the girls for perhaps an hour all dayspread across breakfast, lunch, and dinner time. We seem to have won the battle in terms of encouraging “outside”...
Dinner With Friends And Girls Football Tournaments
For the first time in at least a couple of years, we went out last night as a “grown up” couplewithout the childrenand had dinner with friends.
Look At The Size Of That Thing
We visited the big school in town last night for the first time with our eldest daughterthe school she will be moving up to next September. It’s funny really...
Insanely Great
At some time after midnight last night I was checking twitter, and saw a post from Pete Cashmore at Mashable appear at the top of the stream”Steve Jobs has d...
The Bag Of Holding
I’ve been sorting out the contents of the bag I carry aroundthinning it out a bit. I picked it up at the weekend as I left the house to travel to W’s parents...
Homework Rivalry And Taking Away
After dinner this evening I found myself sat at the dinner table with our eldest daughter (the artist formerly known as Miss 10). I had just finished washing...
Getting Back On The Blogging Horse
For the past several years I have lived a curious online existencefloating between the various social networks and blog platforms. I’ve been searching for an...
Internet Outages Pizza And Dinosaurs
The internet officially broke today. You might think I’m being a little melodramatic, but I clearly saw a triangular yellow sign with an exclamation mark on ...
The Final Sunday Of The Summerautumnwinter
It’s difficult to believe it’s Octoberit’s been bakingly hot all day. We had nothing planned for the day, and following the arrival of a friend’s son at our ...
Walking Into Town
After spending the majority of the day at W’s parents, we finally resolved one of those crazy situations that only ever happens in our houseOur eldest daught...
Never Had One Lesson
If you’re wondering where the total came from, it’s from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”one of the iconic coming of age movies from the mid 80s. I’ve got news for...
Friday Night Melrose Place And Pizza
A couple of days ago I was looking at Amazon (as you do), and a box set of “Melrose Place” appeared in the suggested items list.
Holy Haircuts Batman
After the usual struggle to get the children up and out of the house this morning, and histrionics from Little Miss Seven about her having a cold (you would ...
Rising Like A Phoenix From The Flames
Perhaps a week and a half after being pitched into mayhem I had no part in making, I have emerged today intact, and the project I impacted is spreading green...
Monday From Hell
I don’t make a habit of writing about my day job in the blog for pretty obvious professional and ethical reasons, although I have been seriously tempted on o...
The Infant School Barbecue
Our Saturday began with the explosion of an alarm clock from our eldest’s bedroom at 6:30am. She has been learning to tell the time properly, so had borrowed...
Bringing The Game Of Musical Chairs To An End
Over the past few months my blogging antics would probably have qualified me for a padded cell in an asylum. I’ve written here, at Tumblr, at Posterous, at B...
Madness Surrounds Me
Working through lunch seems to have become something of a habit recently. It’s not something I ever set out to do, but it keeps happening. This entire week h...
Truthful Tuesday
I have been reading a number of blogs around the internet for years, and yet somehow or other I’ve let it slide now for months.
Fuji Jz500
I picked my other half’s new camera up from the postoffice this morning (after Amazon completely disregarded my delivery instructions). AnywayThis thing is a...
Finding Time To Write
While attempting to hide from the world for a few minutes at lunchtime today, I found myself reading a few of the blogs I have followed for years. While read...
Excuse Me Do I Know You
It feels like such a long time since I have written anything of substance in the blog. I’m also aware that I’ve not “been around” either; not read many of my...
The Ipad Arrives
Finally picked up the iPad on Saturday morning. I’ve only had a couple of hours to play with it so far, but so far, so good. Everything seems to work.iOS has...
Ipad Saturday
It’s approaching 8:30am on Saturday morning. I’ve been up for an hour alreadyhad a wash, brushed teeth, got dressed, washed up, tidied kitchen, tidied lounge...
The Apple Lifestyle Choice
I am slowly being pulled back into the Apple universe, and way of life. Recent readers of my online navel gazage are probably unaware that I used to have a M...
Returning To Itunes And The Ipod
After a year or so using other solutions, I’ve re-installed iTunes on the desktop machine at home, and have been re-acquainting myself with it. If you’re one...
Let This Be A Lesson To All Those Who Reblog
I posted some photos of Darth Vader and several Storm Troopers walking around London a couple of days ago. They have been liked nearly 2000 times, and reblog...
Nearly 1Am
Any sensible person would have been in bed hours ago. I, however, am not sensible at all. Among other things, today I did/achieved the following;Got upMade l...
10 Years Together
Somebody asked me earlier if we were doing anything special.”I haven’t seen W since breakfast time, and I doubt I will see her until 9 this eveningin the mea...
Hello Lunchtime Goodbye Lunchtime
That breeze I can feel is lunchtime whizzing past. In the past 24 hours, I have completed the following (in no particular order)Created an online portal to h...
Meet The Teacher
Late this afternoon at work the phone on my desk rang. I picked it up”Hi” (it was W)”Yeeeees”“Umm I completely forgot it’s Meet the Teacher at school this ev...
Sunday 905Am
Story of the morning so far;Woke up to a little blonde person sliding into bed between myself and W, and two cats curled up at my feetFinally got up, had sho...
Im Staying Away From The News Today
Don’t get me wrong - what happened ten years ago wasawful, but to go on and onabout it for ten years, like you are the only country something like that has h...
And Another Thing
Perhaps I’m just old and unbearably cycnical, but reading the various news outlets today, it’s almost a competition to see who can cook up the best mixture o...
Anarchic Thoughts On Sunday Night
The clock is racing towards midnight once again, and I find myself hidden in the study, half working on freelance projects, and half distracted by the contin...
Retro Saturday
In between tidying up after the kids, feeding pets, and putting things away, I’m tryingto have a relaxed Saturday.
Where Did It All Go Wrong
The picture above is of a cartridge for the Atari VCS 2600 video game that everybodyhad in the early 1980s. It was the first successful home video game machi...
10Th Wedding Anniversary
I’ve started thinking about what to get my better half for our wedding anniversary (it’s in a few days). Normally we don’t bother doing anything too specialb...
This Could End In Tears
I’m following an online tutorial to change the low level configuration of my HTC Desire phone. If it works, I can fill it up with more applications than you ...
Stop The World I Want To Get Off
This is getting a bit silly. I’ve been working on a big sort-of-secret project at work for weeks now. It hasn’t just eaten up hoursit’s bitten off entire wee...
Reflections On Life With Three Children
Not many people know that our children are adopted. We went from being two lonely souls bouncing around a big empty house to “the five of us” overnight a few...
Half Successful Mobile Phone Hackery
The great idea about monkeying with my phone to try and free some memory up was half successful. It worked, but it didn’t do what I hoped it would.
The One Where I Bought Coffee For A Machine We Do Not Own
This must be some kind of prize winning effort on my part. While travelling home from work this evening I called in at the supermarket to buy cat food. Given...
So Heres The Thing
Ever since I started using Tumblr more, I deluded myself that I could quite happily write two blogsthe big tome that nobody reads in WordPress, and this one ...
Oh And In Case You Were Wondering
I pulled the trigger on the WordPress blog. While it was a good idea in theoryto seperate the long meandering journal style posts from the brain fart tumblar...
Time To Empty My Head
I go back to work tomorrowI’ve been away for eleven days. I’m not looking forward to returning. Given the hours ticking down, I thought it might be a good op...
So It Appears The Dance Teacher Reads My Blog
While working on the website design for the local dance teacher this morning, we were sipping coffee and chatting about this and that, and she mentioned that...
Monday Morning
I was on orders to take the kids into town today to buy various bits and bobsor at least I would have been if somebody had washed any of their underwear.
Annoyed With The World
I’ve had enough with the world today. I’m not quite sure if it’s because my holiday is coming to an end, or because I’ve only had a few minutes to myself sin...
The Time I Attempted Nanowrimo
Once upon a time I attempted the annual lunacy known as “NaNoWriMo” (National Novel Writing Month)where an intrepid band of idiots try to write a 50,000 word...
Raining On A Sunday
The rain is steadily falling outside, our eldest is playing on the Gamecube with a friend, and the younger children have gone shopping with my better half. I...
Night Fever In The Kitchen
Our youngest daughter erupted in floods of tears this morning after her older sister refused to play Mario Kart with her. I heard the silent stomping through...
Re Appearing On Radar
We arrived home late on Thursday night, it’s now mid-morning on Saturday, and this is the first time I have really had some time to myselfsome time to hit th...
Originality Is The Rule Not The Exception
You will rarely find reblogs in my Tumblogthis is entirely by design. I am here to share my life, mythoughts, myexperiences, myideasthat which interests me.I...
Everything Has A Place
While talking to a great friend online this morning, she asked if I used more than one blog, and why you might do so. While describing what I use, what goes ...
Blackout Stupidity
Here’s where I take issue with the “community” here, and call them out for their stupidity in this entire “blackout” idiocy.(for those that are not aware, lo...
An Unexpected Encounter
There is this little girl that the kids play with outsidethe prettiest girl in the neighbourhood by a mile. She is slim, leggy, has long dark hair, tanned sk...
Random
I have grass in my clothes everywhere.
Home At Last
We left Cornwall at about 6pm. Arrived home about 11pm. Just finished unpacking the car, opening windows (the entire house smells of cat litter tray), and pu...
Final Day Away
Some random stuff first;It’s Thursday morning9:20am at the time of writingI just had the first shave in two daysThe kids are outside in the sunshine playingB...
Cornwall 2011 Comes To An End
This post strangely bookends the previous one. I wrote about our journey to my parents house when we arrived, and only posted short updates to microblogs whi...
Through Tired Eyes
While sat here attempting to wake up at my parents house, I’ve been reading the Tumblr dashboard, and realised something.
So Heres What I Think About The Hurricane
I’ve been thinking about the hurricane, because I have a couple of friends who live along the coast that’s being hit. While watching the initial reports of l...
Greetings From Cornwall
We finally left home at about 7:30 last night, and after driving through torrential rain for something in the region of 5 hours (powered by numerous bars of ...
Lunchtimes
I wish I could come up with a more constructive way of spending lunchtimes than messing around with stuff on the internet.
Breakfast And Frasier
While running back and forth making breakfasts and packed lunches on a morning, I switch the television on in the corner of the kitchen and half-listen to th...
The Days Run Into One Another
It’s heading towards 2am. I should have been asleep hours ago, and yet here I amsat in the dark, listening to a Tim McGraw album, avoiding the internethaemor...
Steve Jobs
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever esca...
Steve Jobs Resigns
The following resignation letter from Steve Jobs just crossed the wires.
Coming Home And Building A Wall Of Words
That’s what it feels likebeing back on my own domain name, on my own hosted installation of WordPress.
The One Where The Day Didnt Stop
Ok, I know the title of this post doesn’t make the greatest amount of senseof course days don’t stop.
Watching The Weekend Vanish
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything of substance in the blog. Perhaps it’s time to change that. I seem to have been hanging out at all manner of so...
The Smurfs In 3D
I took our children to see the Smurf movie on Saturday. I was dreading it. I’m not entirely sure why I guess I saw this as yet another Hollywood rape of a pe...
Not Going Anywhere
Somebody asked earlier if the resurrection of jonbeckett.com means I’m going to be blogging elsewhere. I love it when I have easy questions to answer.
Thinking About Freelancing Again
I’m thinking about doing a few freelance web design projects over the next few monthspurely to earn enough money for the following;Apple iPadSamsung ChromeBo...
Read Write And Engage
While playing with Tumblr over the last few days, I have been reminded how great the community is, how much creativity is going on, and how much more people ...
Good Morning He Says At 1205Pm
I started writing this post half an hour ago, and only just got around to posting it.It’s been one of those mornings so farIn the spirit of “life streaming”,...
An Analogy On Day Suckage
Nobody I work with sucks. Nothing I am working on sucks (well maybe it does sometimes, but I would most likely be marched straight in for a quiet talking to ...
Truth And Fiction
Jesus and his brother start a political movement opposing the government. Eventually the government have him killed.
One Thing After Another
I woke at 7 this morning when the radio alarm crackled into life and started pumping our local radio station into the air for whoever wanted to listen to it....
Wiped Out
Not many words seem to be conjuring themselves this evening to depart my fingers, and fly through the ether to the interwebs. I’m not sure why.
On A Long Journey
Me:I’m so hungry I could eat five sandwichesMiss 7:I’m so hungry I could eat a ten sandwichesMrs B:I’m so hungry I could eat a horseMiss 10:I’m so hungry I c...
Instant Messaging
After talking to a friend on Tumblr earlier about the inadequacy of the messaging system, it occurred to both of us that instant messaging is probably a bett...
The Grown Up Meme
Apparently the idea of this meme is to write about what you wanted to be when you were growing upor what you want to be when you grow up (I might count mysel...
The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious...
Random Recollections Of Sunday
I cooked chips, fried eggs, and bacon for the kids for dinner this evening. They ate all of it. I know it’s not “real” cooking, but they ate it all. I can’t ...
Minimalist Text Editors
A little while ago I discovered a collection of word processing applications for various operating systems that dispense with just about every feature beside...
I Have Something In Common With All Of These People
Douglas Adams, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Woody Allen, Lance Armstrong, Darren Aronofsky, Isaac Asimov, Dan Barker, Dave Barry, Ingmar Bergman, Richard Branson, James ...
George Macavity
Our car crash surviving cat is getting better at a rate of knots. This morning, while making breakfasts, washing up, letting the chickens out, and emptying h...
Contents Of The Bag Of Holding
I have this green bag that accompanies me most places (apparently it’s a Rothco bag, the same as that used by Jack Bauer, but having never seen an episode of...
Watching The Carnage Unfold
I’ve been struggling recently. Struggling to watch a friend on the other side of the world go through a hard time, and know I can’t do much to help, and if I...
Podcasts Saved My Life
Throughout the best part of 2 years beginning in 2007, I was subcontracted into a big company in central London. This meant joining the millions who commute ...
Plato The Republic
Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and ...
Its All About Me
“Turning the Pedals” is all about me. Just me. It’s not about the family guy, the father, the husband, the professional software developer, and the thousand ...
Dr Sheldon Cooper The Big Bang Theory
You went out into the hallway, stumbled into an inter-dimensional portal which brought you 5,000 years into the future, which you took advantage of the advan...
10 Media Tumblogs
While digging around the Tumblrverse earlier this evening, I happened upon a number of Tumblogs published by news and media organisations. If you’re looking ...
Going Against The Flow
Somebody I’ve followed for years, but never struck up conversation with collided with me mid-wander this evening as we quietly passed through each other’s cr...
Blowing My Own Trumpet
Apparently the point of this meme is to think of things you like about yourself. This is going to be difficult, but I’ll tryI’ve been told I’m a good listene...
8 Great Tumblrs
In the spirit of sharing the discoveries I make along the way, here are 8 tumblogs discovered recently that are notwithin the endless circles of memes, tangl...
Watching From The Sidelines
I’m having a day offsat in the dining room of the house my inlaws are renting for the week in Cumbria, while everybody else gets ready to trudge off through ...
The Riots
Although I have been almost out of the loop for the last few days, I have caught the late night news once or twice, and seen reporting of the riots in London...
I Wish I Could Be More
During my mad catch-up of the tumblrsphere this morning, I read that one of the people I have come to knowif we ever really know each other onlineis leaving;...
Breaking The Chain
Have you ever heard of the term “six degrees of seperation”? It postulates that everybody on earth is connected somehow or other through no more than six “co...
The Incarceration Continues
For some reason I woke up this morning imagining today was tomorrowthis is what happens when you take me away from the normal world, and hole me up in some g...
Disconnected
While I’m sat several floors up in a rented house, high in the mountains of Cumbria in the north of England, and have been marching up hill and down dale thr...
Maybe Dad Dead
I arrived home from work to an empty house this evening, and while untangling myself from my backpack, bike helmet and MP3 player in the study, an ambulance ...
I Will Mow The Next One Down
Two days ago I was cycling home from work, and an old man walked to the edge of the road ahead of me, looked both ways, and then stepped out directly in fron...
Burning Out
I arrived at work some time before 9 this morning. I left some time just after 6 this evening. The hours inbetween were a blur. The last few days have been.
The World Through My Eyes
While watching breakfast television a little while ago, a stand up comedian was talking about his routine, and his reputation of being “grumpy”relating every...
The Quest For Originality
Tumblr is different than most blogging platforms in that it encourages sharing of content through the “reblog” featureI’m guessing the designers never envisa...
The Big Lebowski
After years of reading movie critics fawned essays piling ever more platitudes over “The Big Lebowski”, I finally sat down and watched it last night. I’m not...
On Being Discovered
I swapped war stories recently with a great friend online who had their blog “discovered” by their family. I have been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
Headhunted
A Google recruiter just emailed me. I wrote a terse reply back, relating the last time this happened to meessentially telling him that unless Google want me,...
Having A Case Of The Wednesdays
I’m not really sure if this should be called a case of the “Mondays”, “Wednesdays”, or “Can’t be bothereds”. Needless to say, I’m totally up for some distrac...
Five French Movies To See Before You Die
I’ve always had something of a love affair with French cinemathey seem to take far more risks than other countriesresulting in original and enthralling movie...
Bravery
Mrs. Darling: There are many different kinds of bravery. There’s the bravery of thinking of others before one’s self. Now, your father has never brandished a...
Truthful Tuesday Cats And Toilets
When I was about five years old I tried to flush our cat down the toilet.
Surrounded By Mayhem
After leaving work an hour early so my other half could escape to a chiropractor appointment, I walked in the door to a kitchen to clean up, washing up to do...
Minimal Editor Awesome Writing
One of the applications I grew to love in Ubuntu Linux was a simple text editor called “PyRoom”a full screen editor designed to provide minimal distractions.
Update Hell
I re-installed Windows 7 on the netbook late last night. Google Chromium was great, but there were a few things that just didn’t work properly (like sound, t...
Update Hell Continued
Me: How many updates?Microsoft: 65Computer: I need to rebootMe: How many updates this time?Microsoft: 16Computer: I need to rebootMe: How the fck many update...
Short Story Recommendation When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth
If you’ve never read any of Cory Doctorow’s books, you have missed out. I discovered “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” amid a compilation of short stories cal...
Avoiding Tomorrow
I’m sat here, in the dark, practising the age old tradition of avoiding tomorrow. The longer I stay up, the longer I prevent tomorrow from arriving.
After The Night Comes Morning
I’m sat at work, buried in web development again. Working on the company website, drawing banners, re-writing pages, and untangling the mess made of the cont...
We Write The Blogs And Do The Other Things Not Because They Are Easybut Because They Are Hard
In the same way many people watch television, movies, or read books, I head towards the internet when I have free time. I search out people sharing a little ...
Swimming
Just got back from taking the kids swimming, and probably drew raised eyebrows from other parents in the poolafter the first ten minutes we pulled all of our...
Starting Over
In recent weeks my presence here has been deleted, reinstated, recreated, and finally reinvented. I think in some ways I had to walk away in order to realise...
Saying Goodbye To Google Chromium On The Netbook
It was fun while it lasted, but there are just too many things that don’t quite work right (which was expected, to be honestit’s a development build of an op...
Im Not Entirely Sure Where Im Going With This
I began blogging before the word had become part of the common vernacular. In the early days, people wrote about their daytheir life. Online journals formed ...
I Just Met The Greatest Dancer
The guy in front of me for the cashpoint in the bank was stood, feet apart, dancing around like his balls were on fire. He was not listening to any music, an...
Excerpt From Ulysses By Alfred Lord Tennyson
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,And though we are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and ...
And Can Somebody Explain
how a certain six year old girl managed to soak the ceiling above the shower so thoroughly?Even taking into account the technique required (I’m guessing cupp...
A Deep Thought For Sunday Night
The most interesting thing about any of us is our differences. If we follow the crowd, and adopt their views and opinions as our own, we may as well cease to...
Reinvention
I just discovered the first domain name I ever owned”pluggedout” is available as a username on Tumblr.
The Many Faces Of Jonathan Beckett
I’ve been struggling to think of anything to write recently. I’ve also been struggling to keep up with what others are writing or rather, not reading what th...
Days Become Weeks
It feels like I haven’t written much in here for daysor when I have written something, it’s just been captions to go with a few photos. Am I losing the will ...
The One Where Little Miss Seven Left Infant School
I had a couple of hours off work this morning to attend the leaver’s service at the infant school in town. Our middle girl has now officially left infant sch...
Tired And Grumpy
It’s just gone midnight, and I’ve finally downed tools for the evening not that I really hadan eveningor a day for that matter.
Truthful Tuesday
I just wandered into Tumblr, and lost myself for a few minutes reading “Truthful Tuesday” posts. While Tumblr has numerous failures and annoyances (more than...
She Flew In We Ate We Drank We Laughed And She Left
I can’t quite believe it’s been so long since I last wrote a blog post. I’m note quite sure what might be most to blame; life, social network distractions (y...
Saturday Rain And Unwritten Plans
It’s Saturday morning, and it’s raining cats and dogs. Great big ones. Ones that go woof (well, not the cats obviously). We are busy revising what on earth w...
Free Time Children Party Food And The Tour
More by luck than judgement, I appear to have a couple of hours to myself. Eldest daughter is upstairs pretending to tidy her room (read: doing nothing of th...
Bottle Shock And Office Space Help Me Do Nothing On Purpose
Last night I rediscovered the value of doing nothing. While there was washing up to be done, tidying up to be done, things to be put away, and various other ...
To Strive To Seek To Find And Not To Yield
I read a great post on somebody elses blog a few days ago about the willingness to carry onto keep putting one foot in front of the other. It struck all kind...
From There To Here A Personal Blogging Journey
In the spirit of re-visiting adventures past for the amusement of the masses, I thought it might be interesting to recount a few of the twists and turns of m...
Be Bold Be Mighty
I continue to struggle with sharing on the internet. For the last several years I have based my thoughts on the writing being primarily for mea record of my ...
Did That Weekend Really Just Happen
I vaguely remember writing the previous blog post (where I bitched about my entire weekend being eaten up by a variety of commitments). The reason I use the ...
Why Do Weekends Have To Be Like This
It’s heading towards lunchtime on Saturday morning, I’ve already walked into town once (to pick up a parcel from the sorting office that they couldn’t be bot...
Moo Minicards
The new Minicards arrived this morning in the post - for those who have never heard of them before, they are half-size business cards made by a great company...
George Returns From Hospital
George - our cat that was hit by a car last week - returned from hospital last night, and is getting used to his home for the next few weeks - a cage in the ...
When You Work Through Lunch By Accident
After meddling with some code that was “nearly finished” for “another five minutes”, I just looked up and realised I worked straight through lunch. I do that...
What Day Is It Again
I should have guessed today was going to slip by unnoticed when I woke up half an hour late this morning. Actually, that’s not the whole truth; I woke up whe...
The One Where Sunday Ate Itself
I swear, Sunday didn’t happen. I have vague recollections of it being talked about, and things might have happened, but I’m not entirely sure any more.
One More Thing
When I left the house to take the kids to the playpark yesterday morning, I spent my first few minutes in the park picking up the remains of an entire case o...
An Update On The Cat
For those who don’t know, one of our cats was hit by a car last week. He was discovered by a neighbour, hiding in a bush about 50 yards from our house, calli...
Tired Sunburned But Happy
After going out on the town last night for the first time in months, I woke up this morning feeling distinctly second hand. I’m not entirely sure how much I ...
The One With Thai Food Bouncy Castles And Playparks
A selection of photos from a mad, mad weekendand it’s only half over. Went out last night with friends for a thai meal, then at school throughout the day wit...
Seduced By Google
I got invited into the Google+ field trial (read:beta) late last nightif you have no idea what on earth I’m referring to, “Google+” is the social network tha...
Early Starts Scheduling Hell Hospitalised Cats And Globe Trottingchildren
I’ve been sat here for the last few moments thinking about how I might even start to describe the day. I’ve got nothing. The only phrase that comes to mind i...
When Will The World Slow Down A Bit
Some days start stupidly, and failing an injection of common sense (which we have very little of around here at the moment), they continue ongathering pace, ...
Truthful Tuesday
In the spirit of “taking part” rather than continually ploughing my own furrow across the internet, I’m taking part in the “Truthful Tuesday” meme for a chan...
Truthful Tuesday 2
I’m off work for the afternoon, it’s raining outside, and I’m sat here with a cup of tea reading the various “Truthful Tuesday” posts on Tumblr. It struck me...
The One Where Sports Day Got Rained Off
It all started so well. I left work at 1pm, got to the school at about 1:10pm, ready for the kids activities to start at 1:15. Although I missed our eldest c...
An Education
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn9IMe5jmf0&w=640&h=390]We watched “An Education” last nightand for the first time in living memory I found ...
The World Through My Eyes Annoyance And Grumpiness Abounds
While watching breakfast television this morning, a stand up comedian was talking about his routine, and his reputation of being “grumpy”relating every day s...
Sundays Barbecues And Family
Todaythe hottest day of the yearwe chose to visit family in Oxfordshire for a barbecuea thinly veiled excuse for us to get together. Throughout most of my ch...
Movies Slow Days And Frustration With Everything
Do you ever watch an entire day vanish in front of your eyes, and become frustrated because you know it’s the weekend, there’s only one day of it left, you’r...
If Blogs Could Talk
Hello blog. I’ve never addressed you directly before, so thought this might be fun. I haven’t given it a great deal of thought before doing so, so you’ll for...
Thud
Deep in the dark, dank depths of the cupboard at the top of our stairs resides a board game of special significancedelivered by Mr Claus one fine December to...
Pointless List Of Operating Systems I Know Better Than I Should
For some reason a few people have been reading an ancient blog post I wrote about programming languages (similarly titled “Pointless list of programming lang...
Please Ignore This Post
I’m working in concert with a lovely person called Sheri in WordPress support to try and get to the bottom of some strangeness in the wordpress.com platform ...
Owl City Makes Friday Bearable
I’m sat in the office listening to “Maybe I’m Dreaming” by Owl City. The music takes me away from the drudgery of chasing my own tail, and allows me an escap...
Zero Maintenance Haircut Please
Before rolling into the office this morning I stopped off in town to get my hair cut. Ten years ago the salon was “the place to go” for men with a roving eye...
Where The Hell Are The Brakes On This Thing
You’ll excuse me if I sound a little hassled, or a little breathless. It’s approaching 5pm, and it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to stop all day. I’ve dru...
Falling Out Of Love With Tumblr
For the past few years I have had a foot in both the “blogging” and “micro-blogging” campsmaintaining accounts at WordPress and Tumblr. In a curious way they...
A Day In The Life Nerd Edition
For the first time in recent memory, I spent the entire day buried up to my ears in HTML, CSS and Javascript, nerding out over a re-build of the company webs...
From Brain To Internet The Blogging Journey
I just posted this to Tumblr. I had thought about cross-posting the exact same words into here, but then thought that might be a bit lazy. I think too much.
Paul
I finally got to see the movie “Paul” last nightby Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I had heard from a couple of friends that it “wasn’t all that great”, so wasn’t...
Fathers Day
A few photographs to remember the dayI would like to report an easy day filled with relaxation, but as with most days around here, it was anything but. We ar...
Dad Swag On Fathers Day
There are probably worse things you could wake up to on a Sunday morning than this little collection - delivered to the bedroom by three little girls wearing...
Saturday In Town
A few photos from Miss Ten and Miss Six, during our journey into town today. Tasked with getting new glasses, football boots, and visiting the bookshop, we d...
The End Of One Thing The Beginning Of Another
In the spirit of “keeping it simple”, I’m going to stop the cross posting craziness. It won’t mean much for those who read the garbage I pollute the internet...
Considering Seismic Changes To The Blog
Since I started over with the blog, I’ve been posting into Posterous, and automatically cross-posting out to Tumblr, Blogger and WordPress. I’m wondering if ...
And So The Blogging Odyssey Turns Another Corner
It’s Friday night, and I find myself greeting the authoring page of WordPress as one might an old friend. There have been pretenders to the crownPosterous, B...
The First Week With Linux
It’s been a few days now since I installed Linux at home as a primary operating system on the desktop PC, so I thought it might be valuable to record a few o...
Pizza Popcorn Fizzy Drinks Movie Happy Children
We were supposed to be at Brownies tonight for a special “Father’s Day” evening filled with idiotic father/daughter races, competitions and activities. Rain,...
The Days Are Falling Into Each Other
At the moment life feels like a set of revolving doors where you’re pushing them round, but no exit is appearing, and you just keep pushing without really th...
Interesting If Geeky Times
I rule. Linux rules. I can now open a terminal window at work, and connect directly to the computer at home, use it, and see what it’s doing. It’s only a ter...
Nothing To Report
I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing anything today. I have nothing much to report, beyond the usual storyGot up, got the kids up, made breakfasts, walked t...
Silence Descends On Sunday
The morning began at 7am when the younger children arrived in the bedroom doorway, wobbling around, half awake in their pyjamas. “Can we go downstairs?” On a...
Saying Goodbye To Windows
I’m in the process of backing up our desktop PC. Later today, I’m going to wipe it, and install Ubuntu Linux. I’ve been running Ubuntu on the netbook for wee...
Dinner At Nandos
After a long day out, I suggested we take the children to Nando’s for dinner. The look on W’s face was a picture.
Remember The Milk
Oh no I didn’t… Oh yes I did…I installed “Remember the Milk” on my phone, and am about to integrate it into GMail to annoy the crap out of me. I’ll try it fo...
A System For Everything
One of my oldest online friends commented last night that I have a system for everything. She didn’t mean it in a bad way; she was just making an observation...
The World Slows Down
It’s Thursday, it’s lunchtime, and the world is finally slowing down a little for me. Lunchtime is my own once more, and affords the opportunity to write, an...
Long Lost Artwork
Now here’s something interesting. I got the USB ZIP drive working in Windows 7 (a feat in itself), and have just been digging through the contents of the old...
Its What You Do That Defines You
A few minutes ago several thousand bees landed on the roof of the house opposite the office I work in. A house where we know a small child lives with her mot...
On Not Taking Part And Being Stupid
I almost titled this post “Truthful Tuesday”, after the regular meme that crops up on Tumblr, but reason prevailed at the last moment, when I recalled the go...
Clearing The Decks
This evening I’ve been clearing some of the rubbish that had mounted up on the desk. Somehow I feel more productive if I have a somewhat orderly environment ...
Single Handed
While my better half returned to work today, I have been left in charge of the children. Apart from now sporting matching bandages on their big toes, all see...
Down To Three Chickens
Just as it was getting dark last night, a chicken appeared through the rain in the back garden and bounced off the patio doors. We raced out into the darknes...
Time To Empty The Head Again
If I don’t sit here and tip my head out, I’ll probably go mad. I might have to go and sit somewhere quiet though “ or put headphones on “ my other half just ...
On Being Discovered
I have been swapping war stories this evening with a great friend online who has recently had their blog “discovered” by their family. I have been there, don...
Look No Hands
Taken while en-route to work this morningit’s surprisingly difficult to hold a phone above your head and not look where you’re going while travelling at 20 m...
Doing Nothing On Purpose
I have ten minutes of work left, and I’m doing nothing. On purpose. You might think this lazy, but I worked straight through lunch today. I did the age old t...
Watching The Minutes Tick Down
It’s been the kind of day that could have gone off the rails at any point, but didn’t because you hang on, and pretty much force it to go the way you want by...
All She Ever Asked For Was The Right To Twinkle
Once upon a time I went to college, and spent two years drawing people every day. One of the projects intended to fill our head with ideas was “Pop Art” “ we...
Travelling To London
Sat on the train as early morning light stutters between the trees and the train windows, briefly illuminating the carriage, and making me squint. When I fir...
How Did I Not Know About Kik Messenger
A new friend on the interwebs just pointed me in the direction of KIK “ a fantastic messenger app for iOS and Android that looks and works pretty much the sa...
Weird Dreams
For the first time in recent memory, I have a pretty clear recollection of a dream so am recording it for prosterity. This is probably going to serve as a wa...
The Night Before The Morning After
I’m headed back into London tomorrow morning with work (while I say “tomorrow”, it’s nearing 1am “ so it’s really “later today”). I’m tempted to get the earl...
Chess Challenge Dad Versus 3 Girls
Just before dinner this evening I took on the combined might of our three daughters at chess. The eldest now plays a pretty mean game, next eldest knows all ...
Movie Night Spiderman Wine And Meatballs
After another day spent almost exclusively with the children, we ended it by choosing a movie to watch together after dinner. Spiderman won the day, after a ...
Commodore Amiga Another Blast From The Past
While searching for things in the attic the other evening, I stumbled across a Commodore Amiga computer from the late 1980s that’s been quietly sitting in a ...
A Forgettable Day Exposes A Superpower
The desk is strewn with remnants of the day “ vague clues to the recent past. A Linux magazine, a coat hangar, a lava lamp, and a stack of writeable DVDs. No...
Retrieving The Past
Tucked away on a shelf in a dark corner of our study, a row of ZIP disks have hidden for the last decade. They have moved house with us, and survived multipl...
Rain Brownies Imacs And Wallpaper Decisions
Last night I was supposed to accompany the Brownies after work on a walk along the riverbank to the next town, and then catch the train back. The arrival of ...
Embracing Retro The Apple G3 Imac
Yesterday evening a large box awaited me in our study, containing a piece of computing historyan Apple iMac. It’s a little over ten years old, and in it’s da...
Facebook Funny Cats And Macintoshes
I meant to sit quietly and write something this lunchtime “ really, I did. Before I knew it, the web had quietly sidled up to me, and started whispering inte...
Uneventful Mornings Rule
The day started at 7 with the eruption of rubbish radio from the alarm clock, and the sound of little people creating as much noise as possible across the la...
Oiling The Cogs Of The Internet Machinery
I’ve just gone through the various iterations of the blog (Posterous, Tumblr, WordPress and Blogger) and fleshed out the Contact and Links pages. I’ll link t...
Helplessly Watching Carnage Unfold
I’ve begun writing this post several times, and scratched what I have written each time. I can’t seem to find the words. Perhaps if I just empty my head, it ...
Recreating The Blogroll
In the far distant past, I used to read a lot of blogs. This was back in the days before social networks, microblogs, tumblogs, or whatever else has been inv...
Monday Morning And I Feel Fine
It’s Monday morning, and everything seems to be right with the world for a change. No doubt some kind of express train from hell will burst out of nowhere so...
Elton Takes Me Back To The Three Month Hotel Odyssey
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsC3g3N_qUQ&w=425&h=349]In late 2009 I spent the best part of three months living in a variety of hotels in ...
Sometimes Busy Is Good
Following a sleepless night last night, it’s been good to keep busy today “ not having too much chance to stop has meant no time to reflect on lost friends, ...
On My Own Terms
Following the destruction and re-creation of the blog, I have been busy this evening putting various pieces of internet chicanery back in place. Rebuilding t...
Preparing For The End Of The World
I’ve just been reading various news stories about the “end of the world”, which apparently occurs tomorrow. This is all according to a number of self importa...
Running On Empty
Sat here at lunchtime, tools downed, listening to a barrage of electronica in my ears and wondering how best to waste the next half an hour. There are probab...
Contents Of The Bag Of Holding
I’ve posted the inventory of my bag several times over the years “ ever since I began the great commuting adventure in London, and found myself carrying a tr...
Finding The Undiscovered Country
While talking to a close friend online earlier, I caught myself thinking about building “something” on the internet. I stopped myself in my own tracks (now t...
Wired
After a day spent submerged in swathes of C#, Javascript, class libraries, web services, HTML, SQL, CAML, and various other dialects of computer language kno...
Truthful Tuesday
I’ve never taken part in the “Truthful Tuesday” meme before, and don’t have much time to write today, so here’s something I prepared earlier it’s all truthfu...
A Moment Of Clarity
I’m sat bathed in the light of several laptops and flat screens. Source code is scrolling past, along with compilation results, and various debug traces. The...
Unsettled
Today feels strange. After a weekend where I was afforded the rare luxury (essentially through being housebound) of following my own interests “ my own agend...
Its All About Me
While writing an email to a dear friend who is going through a rough time on the internet at the moment, it occurred to me that I had unwittingly been busy i...
Drawing A Blank On Sunday Afternoon
You know when you want to write something, but nothing appears in your head to write about? That’s kind of what’s going through my head this afternoon. I’ve ...
Emptying My Head Into 750 Words
Have you ever heard of a website called 750 words ? It encourages you to empty your head into the computer each day “ kind of a private blog, where you pull ...
A History Of Blogging And Ten Tumblrs To Turn Your Head
I’ve been writing online for years, on just about all the major platforms “ LiveJournal in the early days, my own blogging platform, WordPress, Blogger, Type...
Writing Our Legacy For Future Generations
It’s a strange thing, this “internet”. I sit here in a darkened room tapping away on a small slab of plastic with a glowing screen, and within seconds of hit...
To Strive To Seek To Find And Not To Yield
I read a great post on Tumblr early this morning about the willingness to carry on “ to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It struck all kinds of c...
Zathura
I’m sat watching the movie “Zathura” with our youngest. Her eldest sister is grounded “ considering her actions of the past few days in her room. I delivered...
Being A Blogger Hiding In The Tumblrverse
I got accused of being one of the “tumblr people” this morning, after being complimentary about a friend’s photo. My immediate reaction surprised myself; “bu...
Working Through Lunch
It only occurred to me late this afternoon when I received an email from a new friend that I had worked straight through lunch. The email rapidly turned into...
The One Where The Mac Blew Up
The G3 Mac arrived this evening. I unwrapped it, put it on the desk, plugged it in, and powered it up. The front light came on, then nothing else. I sat wond...
Podcasts Saved My Life
Throughout the best part of 2 years beginning in 2007, I was subcontracted into a big company in central London. This meant joining the millions who commute ...
School Fundraiser
I’m ever so slightly hung-over this morning after drinking the best part of an entire bottle of red wine to myself at the school fundraiser last night. There...
How To Lose Friends And Alienate People
Over the last few years I’ve watched broadcast television increasingly infrequently. I tend to only catch anything if I happen to be sat in the lounge at the...
Be Bold Be Mighty
I continue to struggle with sharing on the internet. For the last several years I have based my thoughts on the writing being primarily for me “ a record of ...
Time Is Sloooowing Down
I swear, I can hear the gears of the universe crunching as Friday refuses to quit on me. Not funny. If this was all invented by a creator (Flying Spaghetti M...
Back In The Office
Back in the office this morning after the adventure in London yesterday. Lots to think about “ ideas for the future, and long term plans being thrown around....
Thursday In London
(transcribed from the Moleskine that I sat scribbling in after arriving an hour early this morning) Sat in a coffee shop next door to the Microsoft Building ...
London Calling
I’m returning to London tomorrow morning for the first time in a while. I’ve been invited to the launch of a new product by one of our technical partners “ a...
Better Than The Sum Of Its Parts
A few weeks ago I almost deleted my Tumblr account. I became frustrated with the many (and there are many) bugs, missing features, and the general bone-heade...
At Least Im Here
The morning began at 3:30am with the arrival of a little girl shaped silhouette in the doorway of our bedroom. Quite why it woke me up is a mystery. I think ...
A Day Off
W is taking the younger children over to visit her parents this afternoon “ which immediately affords me some real down-time. Time to catch up with podcasts,...
I Like To Ride My Bicycle
Why knew that I could be trusted in charge of a six and a seven year old on the back roads and tow-paths of our local town? I found out this afternoon that I...
Reflecting On A Day Of Spectacular Unachievement
I have written nothing of substance for several days now, and have felt no inclination to do so. Not exactly the words that should be leaving the keyboard of...
We Know How To Hold A Royal Wedding
“Come on girls… time to watch the Royal Wedding” “Why?”“Because two or three of these will happen in your entire life - and this one happens in ten minutes.”...
Typewriters
I read on the internet today that the last well known Typewriter manufacturer (in Mumbai, India) shut down. Various news outlets jumped on the story and clai...
The One Where We Bought A G3 Imac
Shortly after talking myself out of purchasing a typewriter earlier this evening, I found myself looking at G3 iMacs - the Apple computer from the late 90s t...
The Idiocy Of Masterchef
I’m half watching this idiotic TV show we have here in the UK called “Masterchef”, where aspiring chefs compete to find out who’s the best. The series starte...
Final Day Off
It’s my final day off work today. While I would like to kick back and do as little as possible, reality is dictating otherwise. The presence of three little ...
Aligning The Planets
Since starting to use Posterous as a blogging platform, I’ve been thinking about doing two things; Bringing the various auto-post destinations under one name...
Royal Wedding Mania Descends
It’s all kicking off finally. In a few days time Prince William will be marrying Catherine Middleton. To not know this, you would have to have been buried un...
Building Memories
This should be on page one of the book called “How to be a Parent” - If you’re seven years old, your sisters have gone off to play without you and you’re fee...
Lack Of Faith
One of my favourite bloggers wrote a fantastic post crossing through online bullying, Lady Gaga, Easter, religion, and any number of other explosive subjects...
On Vacation
Just a short update today (sort of inspired by a close online friend asking after me on Tumblr). Yes, I am on vacation “ only for a few days, but a few well ...
One Hour And Counting
I find myself in the strange position of having run out of work to do this afternoon, and not having enough time to start anything. In an hour or so I will b...
Stolen Moments On Sunday Evening
Here we are again “ holed up in the study in a few stolen minutes between other things happening. I very much doubt I’ll finish writing this before I’m calle...
Single Handed Saturday
W headed off to spend the day and greater part of the evening with her Mum mid-morning “ leaving me in charge of the little maniacs for the remainder of the ...
Seriously Impressed With Posterous
A couple of weeks ago I started taking another look at Posterous “ the clever web publishing platform that can auto-post out to dispirate destinations. A sin...
Reality Television Choosing Family Over Fame
I’ve just watched perhaps the most memorable moment on television I have ever seen “ and for all the right reasons. While noodling around with the laptop and...
Random Questions And Answers For A Friday Lunchtime
What are you reading now? I bought “Generation A” by Douglas Coupland just after getting the Kindle, but still haven’t started reading it. Lack of free time,...
Tiredness In The Aftermath Of The Far Flung Commute And The Piratebirthday Party
It’s the Thursday morning after the longest Wednesday. Now there’s a great first sentence. As you will already know if you’re an obsessive reader of my onlin...
Returning To London
I woke half an hour before the 6am alarm clock this morning, and lay staring at the ceiling for the next half hour “ playing through the day ahead in my mind...
Blogging Things You Should Do And Things You Should Not
Many moons ago I read an interesting post at Coding Horror regarding the “deadly sins” of blogging “ the things you should never do. On the whole I agreed wi...
Posterous And Its Markdown Awesomeness
Warning “ this post is going to be about something incredibly geeky, so unless you too are a closet nerd, or you own a skinny fit shirt with “Talk Nerdy to m...
Pausing For Breath
This afternoon I find myself approaching a rare situation indeedthe work required for a client demo mid-week is functionally complete, and fairly well polish...
Pedalling Like Mad Going Nowhere
Enough bellyaching. I hate others going on about their maladies, so it’s about time shut up.
From There To Here A Personal History Of Blogging
In the spirit of re-visiting adventures past for the amusement of the masses, I thought it might be interesting to recount a few of the twists and turns of m...
Lets Try This Quiet Weekend Thing Again
I headed into this weekend with hopes of not really doing anything - perhaps a chance to get better at last. That didn’t really happen at all yesterday… I en...
The Reality Of A Quiet Weekend
Given that I have now been ill for five weeks, and have had a cough for the last week that only shows itself if I exert myself in any way at all - you know, ...
The One Where I Got My Hair Cut
Here’s a lesson for anybody who’s thinking about having children - getting my hair cut this morning took three and a half hours. While I might have been sat ...
Nothing To Report
I wish I had something more interesting to report than “life is going on”. Close friends have probably gathered as much by my absence from the social network...
Night Off
Tonight was needed. A night away from doing anything, after days - weeks even - of thinking I should be somewhere else, doing something else.
Sunday Ironing Hell
What wasI thinking of last night when I told W that I would do the ironing today? After six hours of ironing, the washing machine and dryer still going, and ...
Random Questions On A Saturday Morning
It’s been a while since I’ve done this kind of blog post, but in the absence of anything more interesting to share this morning, here you go…
First Real Friend
This afternoon our eldest was supposedto be painting a blown egg for a competition at school. I’m not sure who’s idea it really was to take part - Little Mis...
The Grand Tour Unlimited Budget No Ties
A friend asked me a fascinating question earlier today - if you had an unlimited budget, and no ties, where would you like to go - what destinations would yo...
The Washing Up Mountain Before And After
While I often write about my hatred of washing up, while stood contemplating the task at hand this evening, it occurred to me that my phone was in my pocket,...
Finding Friends In Times Of Trouble
While sat at home feeling sorry for myself yesterday afternoon (off sick again) I looked at my watch, and some flag got raised in my subconscious that somebo...
Off Sick Again
Lunchtime
Another Desk In Another Office
It’s all change in software developerville for the next few weeks. In order to help collaboration with colleagues I’m working closely with over the next few ...
Goodbye Sunday Morning
It’s Sunday morning (just), I’ve been up for hours - doing this, doing that - and a short time window has appeared where I’m not being expected to be somewhe...
Friday Night And Saturday Morning
I sat at work yesterday, thunking my way through a pretty complex pile of javascript, jQuery, webservices, and server side code, and the day vanished in fron...
Tron Legacy And The Closing Of A 25 Year Circle
I finally got around to watching Tron Legacy last night. All I can say is wow. It’s probably worth explaining that I was always going to be biased towards it...
Kicking Back Avoiding The Burn Out
I’m taking ten minutes out from programming the world to a standstill (Javascript, jQuery, and Webservices have been the poisons of the morning) to surf the ...
Searching For Life And Sharing My Story
Last week I figuratively drew a chalk line across the road that told my story for seven years on the internet, and started from scratch.
Im Not Talking To You Ever Again
I arrived from my windswept bike ride home in pretty dismal spirits. It’s quite amazing how being pulled from pillar to post during the day, and headbanging ...
The Universe Likes Me This Morning
Somebody, somewhere atop mount Olympushas flicked a switch this morning(insert appropriate godly location for your belief system - Olympus presented itself t...
Drawing A Line Under Adventures Past
After spending the best part of an hour this evening investigating the various reasons my old blog posts might not import into Blogger, I’m taking a brave an...
Sunday Morning On Naboo
Normally Sunday mornings would find me in the playpark while the children race back and forth on rollerskates, skateboards, or bikes, competing for my attent...
Has Anybody Seen My Saturday
Do you ever have those days where you reach the end, and it seems you’ve achieved nothing? I’m having one of those days.
Far Flung Friend
After doing a little re-wiring of the internet firmament yesterday lunchtime ahead of this post, I received a somewhat puzzled email from a long time interne...
The Carnival Of Death
Late yesterday evening I sat at the dining table with the laptop, checking email before going to bed. The catflap made it’s “clunk clunk” noise heralding the...
Free Beer At The Brewery
It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it - a chance to visit a brewery and drink free beer all evening. And yet that’s exactly what I did last night with my...
Pancake Day
Guess who found himself walking to the corner shop at 7:15am this morning to buy eggs, and guess who’s other half was making pancakes at 7:30am.You’re probab...
Taking A Walk
While buried in programming code at my desk, I tend to lose myself. Before I know it, I’ve forgotten to eat lunch, or not even got up from my desk for hours....
Skating On Sunday Morning
As I begin hitting the keys, it’s just gone 11:30am, and Sunday Morning has almost gone. Simon and Garfunkel are filling the study with sound, sun is streami...
Refilling The Wash Bag
I don’t know if all guys work the same way as me, but I tend to keep using stuff until I’m out of virtually everything, then resupply. Today was resupply day.
Bikeability Cycling Proficiency
This weekend sees our eldest attending a bicycle training course at her school. We were up bright and early, making her a packed lunch, finding her warm clot...
David Arquette Crashes Car And Witnesses Take Photos Instead Of Helping
What the hell is happening to the world? This evening David Arquette was involved in a car crash, and the bystanders took photos of him rather than check he ...
The One Where Everybody Forgot
This morning happened just like any other morning. Literally. Got up, shower, dressed, hit the kitchen for breakfasts, lunches, washing up, then brushing kid...
The One Where My Mobile Phone Bricked Itself
While the “Welcome to O2” screen is quite pretty, I actually expect a lot more from my mobile phone than being a glorified torch. The title of the post has a...
Happy To Be Outside Apples Reality Distortion Field On The Morning Ofthe Ipad 2 Release
It’s going to be an interesting day - a day to avoid the internet perhaps. Even sat here in the UK, several hours ahead of the US east coast waking up the we...
Its Not Their Fault They Do Not Know The Birdsong From The Radio
I awoke biefly at about 5:30 this morning, and found myself listening to something I’ve not heard so early in the morning for months.
Memories Of The Adoption Process
I’ve spent the last hour or so reading my own blog posts from late 2007 and early 2008 - the months when our adoption quest came to an end, and little people...
Three More Chickens And One Chicken Down
At about midnight last night I heard what I thought was a cat fight in the garden. I wandered through the house and discovered W stood at the patio doors, sh...
The One Where The Pub Sends Me A Birthday Card And The Promise Of Afree Pint
How do you live this one down? I received a card this morning from the “Marlow Donkey” - our local pub. “The Donkey” -as we refer to it - is the pub we used ...
Mcdonalds Equals Rocket Fuel For A Given Value Of Five Year Old
At quarter to eleven this morning I found myself trudging through the spitting rain with our youngest to deliver her to a friend’s house for the day. She pro...
Looking Back Our Adoption Journey
The beginning of February marked the third anniversary of our quota of children increasing from zero to three. The anniversary of our life being tipped upsid...
There Has Been An Accident
This morning started quietly. The clock radio cranked itself into life at 7am, the sun filled the bedroom with soft light, and the silhouette of a little per...
Wednesday Night Becomes Thursday Morning
As the clock ticks through to the early hours, and I’m still sitting here, coughing, sniffing, and attempting to fight a pretty bad head cold, I’m thinking I...
Unexpected Entertainment From Cupertino
When the first tweets rang out across the twitterverse this morning about the online Apple Store closing it’s doors for a few hours, I informed my colleagues...
Running On Expectation
At 7am this morning I really wasn’t looking forward to the idea of scraping myself out of bed. Having already missed a day of work, and not feeling quite so ...
Were Back
I am supposed to be back in the office tomorrow - however, unless some kind of miracle occurs overnight, it might be a little short lived. I’m running a HUGE...
To Begin Again
Three thousand posts, seven years, multiple platforms, multiple technologies - all directed towards one rather ordinary goal : to delivery my thoughts to you...
Off Sick
As predicted, the cold arrived during the night with several big lads, and has set about extracting as much snot as possible during the day so far - often ac...
Time With Friends
It’s heading towards 9am on my final day off from work, and I’m trying to wake up. The children are slowly appearing from their bedroom, stumbling through th...
Aaarrggghhh
The Tumblr theme bugs resurfaced this morning and destroyed the theme I was using.
First Full Day At My Parents
We are in the south west of England for a few days (we travel home Tuesday night) visiting my parents. The plan wasto do nothing for a few days. That will be...
Tumblr Radar
While digging through old photos last night, I turned up this shot - notice what’s on the screen - it’s the Tumblr Radar - a feature they dropped about 2 yea...
Watson
Watson is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever,...
Thoughts About Blogging
Since putting my personal blog of seven years on ice a few weeks ago, I have been wondering just how stupid I am to have continued on in any shape or form at...
Motivation Reaching A Low Ebb
Do you have days when you have no words to share, and very little motivation to share anything anyway?
The Office
The Office
Our Words Will Live On After We Are Gone
It’s been too long since I last emptied my head into the blog. Work, life, chores, and children seem to have been chewing me up and spitting me out in small ...
Afflicted
The morning at work is rapidly vanishing up its own backside I discovered a virus on my work desktop machine yesterday - which triggered a full scan of the s...
Reality
I spent most of yesterday afternoon fighting the worst headache I’ve had in quite some time. While cycling home I had to get off my bike and walk because I t...
Love Actually
It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters...
From Blackberry To Android
Following my Blackberry going missing at the swimming pool this weekend, I did some mental arithmetic and figured out the cost of a new contract was less tha...
Primary School Charity Night
I don’t get some people. At all.
Why Did It Have To Suddenly Get So Complicated
Until this week it was all so simple. I was going to wait until my mobile phone contract ends in October, and get a Google Nexus S.
This Is Getting Ever So Slightly Vexing Tumblr
I edited the HTML of my tumblr theme earlier (to add site verification for the Bing Webmaster Tools), and it completely scrambled the contents of the custom ...
Thoughts On The Verizon Iphone
I’ve been reading the news story about the Verizon iPhone with interest over the last few weeks - and wondering why huge swathes of America went down the rou...
The One Where Tumblr Arsed My Theme Up Again
I tried to make one change to the theme, and it completely randomized the configuration of the colours and various constants within the theme.
Study
Our study smells. Not of anything particularly bad - it just smells. Of dust. The old room smell that happens if windows are not opened often, and nobody “li...
Location Location Location
A friend on Tumblr asked where I am located on the wonderful spinning ball of mudearlier. Any excuse to avoid working on this ten year old javascript.
Hooked
Damn you, people of the internet, what have you done to my brain?
Finally 2 More Miles
After failing conspicuously to get out of bed this morning early enough to go for a run, I managed to escape at about 8:30pm for a couple of miles running th...
Cycling In The Rain
Tonight was one of those nights when swimming was probably an easier method of getting home from work than cycling. The rain didn’t so much as fall, as perme...
Adding Subscriptions
I added a load of subscription goodness to the blog today via the lovely folks at Feedburner (umm I guess that would be Google then). If you have no idea abo...
Expanding And Expounding
Following the shift of my humble tumblog to it’s own “proper” domain name - now amusing people at blog.jonbeckett.com - I thought I should perhaps fill in so...
Blogjonbeckettcom
I own the domain name jonbeckett.com. It’s a homepage of sorts on the internet - with bits and pieces of code I have written within it.
Apologies For The Interruption In Service
If you head to the public facing side of my tumblog, there’s all manner of domain jiggery pokery going on today (out of my hands) while the URL blog.jonbecke...
A Letter To Myself At 20
This letter has travelled 17 years into the past to find your hands. You are single, you live with your parents, you have just left college, and you are work...
750 Words For Wednesday
It’s been a while since I attempted 750 words, but better late than never, right?
Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women
Astronauts landing on Venus encounter dangerous exotic creatures and almost meet some sexy Venusian women who like to sunbathe in hip-hugging skin-tight pant...
Truthful Tuesday
I’m not usually one for memes, but have ten minutes to kill before the end of the day, and am unlikely to make much headway with anything new - having just r...
Damn You Rim Damn You Blackberry
My crappy Blackberry crashed this morning after inviting me to update the app store on it. It was the sort of crash that you can’t recover from and luckily (...
Very Very Tired
Sat up watching the Superbowl until the beginning of the fourth quarter. I guessed when Pittsburgh got intercepted that they had no chance, and was proven ri...
Save Me
from this interminably boring coding. I’m tired, I don’t want to be doing this, it’s boring, and I’m fed up. Woe is me. Boo hoo, and all that.
On Repeat
Somebody has pressed the “repeat” button on my life at the moment. Each day is approximately the same as the last;
Survived My First Run In Years
In spite of the new running shoes turning up and being too small, I dug my old ones out (which are destroyed, but still), and figured it wouldn’t hurt to run...
Sunday Morning
It’s 9am, the kids are fed, the TV is pumping some kind of rubbish at them across the lounge, I’m showered, washed, shaved, teeth brushed, dressed (if you ca...
Movie Moments That Stay With You
I was just reading a post by Stephie Hell about Karate Kid, and it got me thinking about “movie moments that stay with you”. You know - the scenes that chang...
Hungry
Sat here waiting for better half to arrive home with her brother. They are picking up indian food on the way home from the pub.I haven’t eaten since lunchtim...
Blackberry Messenger
At some point in the distant past, I got rid of my second broken iPhone, and switched to Blackberry. Apart from being humungously shit at anything except mes...
10 More Awesome Tumblrs
The most recent results of my expeditionary attempts to discover the interesting, thought provoking, and original within the Tumblrsphere. The following were...
Thinking About Ditching Wordpress For Tumblr
I’ve been thinking about doing this for some time. I’ve been writing a blog online since 2003 - first on my own script, and latterly on whichever blog platfo...
Thank The Maker Its Friday
Do you ever have days where you can’t really concentrate on anything? Where everything seems just a bit too much like hard work to make any progress - or eve...
Originality
The suckage amazes me. I just spent the best part of half an hour digging through random tags at the tumblweed website, checking ten blogs at a time to see i...
It Is Done
I just put the notice up on the front of jonbeckett.wordpress.com. I guess this means I’m “officially” a citizen of Tumblr now which I guess also means I nee...
Firework
While cycling in to work this morning, Katy Perry’s “Firework” was blasting into my ears, and I thought about a friend who mentioned the church he goes to sa...
Apparently Im A Born Teacher
Astronomy night with the brownies went well. So well in fact that our 7 year old said this on the way home;
Why Do I Do This To Myself
I just ordered some New Balance running shoes. I’m also going to send in the entry form for our local 5 mile running race - it takes place in May, so it will...
Uk Crime Statistics
The police in the UK launched a website yesterday showing up-to-date instances of crime right down to street level. Interesting to see that there’s one hotsp...
The One Where Google Charge Me For A Domain I Dont Own Any More
A couple of years ago I maintained a technical blog called “Bag of Spanners”. It served as a notebook of bits and pieces of code I had figured out, and that ...
Reality Resum
A fantastically stupid idea occurred to me this morning, and would make a pretty good meme. Write yourself a “real” list of skills for yourself.
Offloading Secrets
Well not really “secrets” as such - I don’t really do “secrets” - I’m pretty much an open book. More a case of “things people don’t know, and that don’t crop...
Google Docs Gets An Update
I just looked in on Google Docs, and noticed the document list has received a huge upgrade Just when I start thinking Google are guilty of sitting on their h...
Followers
Somebody asked me the other day how to get the list of followers out of Tumblr - and I shook my head. It’s one of the things that’s missing from the API, mea...
Asp Classic
Warning: this post contains geeky stuff. To ward off sudden attacks of narcolepsy, look away now.
Apple Its Our Football
Has anybody else read the story breaking this morning about Apple changing the terms of the App Store? It looks like iPhone or iPad applications will no long...
Social Networking A Personal History
I don’t often think of myself as using social networking much. Sure, I have accounts almost everywhere, but that’s more to do with reserving my name should I...
Embracing Your Inner Weirdness
While tangled up with the routine, chores, and requirements that fall upon us as expectation earlier, I became increasingly frustrated about the lack of time...
Books I Still Havent Read
The above books have been sat on the shelf now for well over a year, and are getting no closer to being read. They sit there, looking great, looking interest...
Wine Beer Pizza Friends Win
I just returned from a supplies gathering mission at the local store. We have friends coming later armed with pizzas for a movie night. We’ve been doing this...
Moleskine Memories Of A London Commuter
In late 2006 I began a five day engagement in London, working in the heart of the city. The journey each day took two hours each way, which I filled with mus...
Recuperating
First sight this morning was of a little blonde shadow in our bedroom doorway. I can’t recall the exact conversation that ensued between her, her older siste...
In Pursuit Of The Interesting The Original And The Awesome
While holed up at home today with whatever it is I’ve caught from the children, I’ve been on another voyage of discovery across the tumblrsphere. I was aided...
Goldilocks Has A Lot To Answer For
While sat here in the study at home, in an otherwise empty house, I finally realised the reason I’m having trouble typing, and that I can’t feel my toes is b...
The One Where We Survive A Change Of Broadband Supplier
When I arrived home from work yesterday evening, a parcel had arrived from Orange - a new Netgear broadband router. As part of our continuing efforts to save...
200 Followers
And so it came to pass, on this day, that 200 people had thus far mistakenly clicked the “follow” instead of “like” button on my tumblog.
Revisiting The Backpack
I wrote a blog post last summer about the contents of my backpack while travelling with work. I thought it might be interesting to revisit it - six months on...
Revisiting My Backpack
I wrote a blog post last summer about the contents of my backpack while travelling with work. I thought it might be interesting to revisit it - six months on...
Dipping A Toe Into Facebook Again
About a year ago I unfollowed everybody in my Facebook “friends” list, and began building back people I care about. With that in mind, and the amazing people...
Shhh Its So Damn Quiet
Sat here, in the lounge, on my own. Other half is at something to do with the school. Kids are in bed asleep, television is off, and I’m noodling around on t...
Random Information
Height - 6ft 3C/3
Morning Brings Peace And A Haircut
Looking back over my posts last night, I must have been in a hell of a foul mood. I knowthe team at Tumblr is small (probably smaller than the company I work...
Introducing The Beckett Theme For Tumblr
Over lunchtime I’ve been tinkering with the theme my own tumblog is based on, and am making it available to the community as the “Beckett” theme.
Tumblr Listen Before Its Too Late
The web startups on the west coast you seem to like comparing yourself with are significantly different in one regard.They care about what they are doing, an...
Teuxdeux Goes Down And Not In A Good Way
Over the last week or so, I’ve been playing with an online task management tool called TeuxDeux. Since I got in to work this morning, their website has been ...
Ok Now Im Annoyed
I posted to the official Tumblr support email address earlier, asking for an estimate on the server scaling they wrote about late last year (they mentioned t...
Mork Calling Orson
While the international nature of Tumblr is fantastic, it occurred to me this evening that it might be interesting to find a few people to follow a little cl...
Has Anybody Seen The Weekend
Seriously… has anybody seen my weekend anywhere? I’m sure it was due to arrive at the end of Friday. I checked the doormat. I even checked down the side of t...
Goodbye Weekend
This entire weekend has vanished up it’s own ass so fast it’s almost unfathomable. It hasn’t been all bad though. I just finished putting the kids to bed aft...
A Note To Those Following Me
Over the past few weeks - since I started dumping my ever inconsequential thoughts into Tumblr - a strange thing has happened. People have started following ...
Thinking About Building Something Awesome
Wouldn’t it be great if there was an open directory, where anybody could post Tumblogs, or posts they like, as often as they like? Kind of like an open direc...
Goodbye Weekend It Was Nice Not Knowing You
This entire weekend has vanished up it’s own ass so fast it’s almost unfathomable. It hasn’t been allbad though. I just finished putting the kids to bed afte...
Generation A By Douglas Coupland
Bought this from the Kindle store last night. Completely forgot I did it until I noticed the receipt in my email this morning.
Waking Up
This morning began with a young blonde jumping on top of me and giggling. Before you raise an eyebrow, she’s five years old and smells of strawberry shampoo ...
Tfi Friday
Just got in from work. It’s been a fairly brainiac end to the week; trying to understand and add to a mass of code that has been mashed up over many months, ...
6 Punctures In 4 Days
This is getting a bit silly. I was late in to work this morning because the bike had a flat on the way home last night, and after fixing it, and checking ove...
Pedalling Like Mad Going Nowhere
While cycling home from work this evening, a flash of paranoia made me hop the front wheel of the bike in the air. It hit the ground softly. Shit.
100 Hot Chocolate
I just made a cup of Green & Blacks organic 100% cocoa hot chocolate, with full cream milk, laced with unrefined sugar. I am going to die of a heart atta...
The Process Of Tinkering Continues
I just wasted half my lunch break at work tinkering with the theme of my tumblog. I now have drop-shadows under the posts (if you’re looking at the front-end...
I Come In Peace
Greetings to all those I have begun following over the past few weeks - an odyssey that has opened my eyes to the awesome community that exists at Tumblr is ...
At The End Of The Day
It’s just gone 9pm, and I’m sat in the study, wondering where the day went. “Sparks” by “The Who” is playing in the background, I have a glass of Brandy (slo...
Truthful Tuesday Starring Kent The Banjo Cat
I have been reading some wonderfully candid posts from those I follow as part of the “Truthful Tuesday” meme, so thought it might be interesting for new foll...
The Four Cornered Triangle Of The Social Networking Apocalypse
In the last year I have been something of an online vagrantwandering the streets of the various blogging platforms, trying to find a place to likea place to ...
Instant Messaging Procrastination Nirvana
If you would like to help me procrastinate this afternoon, feel free to add me on any of the following networks;
Why Is It So Hard
I just spent the best part of half an hour going through perhaps 200 tumblr accounts, looking for new and interesting people to follow. All I found was reblo...
The Path Of Discovery Continues
I’ve written about my search for the inspiring, the interesting, the original, and the (probably) insane enough recently; time to share the results of the pa...
One Time Use No Questions Asked
A friend of mine on the other side of the planet introduced me to a novel idea some years ago. Let me explain:
Monday Morning Mayhem
Waking up and dragging myself out of bed this morning was hard. I suspect it might have had somethingto do with yesterday - where the greater part of the day...
Considering A Switch
I began blogging around the same time the term “blog” first become common. Since then my words have lived at Vox, Yahoo 360, Orkut, LiveJournal, Blogger, Wor...
Remembering Marilyn
While digging through some old emails earlier, I stumbled across this one; written to a blog that doesn’t exist any more about 18 months ago (I think).
On Any Sunday
7:00am
Aspiring To Mediocrity
I caught myself looking at the visitor statistics on this tumblr account earlier. It occurred to me that it would be all too easy to become obsessed with gai...
The Best Of Us
The last couple of days have hit me like an imaginary freight train. I nearly fell asleep listening to our eldest daughter read at bedtime. She’s reading an ...
If We Were All The Same We Wouldnt Be Interesting
While I may have intimated earlier that most of us prepare the best version of ourselves for public consumption, I completely ignored the others.
A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words A Friend Is Worth More
The anonymous question I received this morning from a far flung admirer got me thinking about friendship in general, and how the modern world seems to have d...
The Quest For Originality
Is it just me, or do some people do nothing but reblog? It’s no accident that Tumblr sent a number of bloggers on an all expenses paid trip to New York Fashi...
Reading Stories
Our seven year old has two friends staying over tonight for their first ever sleepover. We tried really hard to let them burn themselves out - we really did.
Little Miss 7
At just gone 6am the silhouette of a slightly bigger girl appeared in our bedroom doorway and woke us with the words “can we go downstairs?”
Warningoverload Warningoverload
For the last week or so I have been working on a pretty significant software development project for the future. It didn’t start out that complicated - what ...
Warning Overload Warning Overload
For the last week or so I have been working on a pretty significant software development project for the future. It didn’t start out that complicated - what ...
The Other Stuff
I thought this might make a good topic for a post - the “other things” that are in your bag. Just to make it a bit more interesting, I figured out if I could...
Lunchtime Ruminations On Blogging
Inbetween writing swathes of programming, I have been wondering about the place my efforts should be concentrated online. Over the last few years I have ende...
How To Seo Optimize Tumblr
I was looking at my Tumblr stats in Google Analytics the other evening, and wondered why they are so poor - why very little traffic finds it’s way to my tumb...
The Desk Of Holding
I saw the meme “TMI Tuesday” earlier on somebody elses Tumblog, and it neatly solved the question of “what pointless garbage can I share with the tumblr comm...
Deathly Hallows
I finally escaped this evening to watch the latest Harry Potter movie on the big screen, accompanied by a wonderful friend and fellow fan of the books.
The Cart Before The Horse
I have been wondering recently how I have managed to write online for 7 years, and - perhaps more amazingly - how I’ve managed to keep hold of the majority o...
In Search Of 50 Amazing People
Unofficial quest for the next few weeks find another 50 great people to follow on Tumblr - in a rather random crusade to follow as many people as are followi...
11 More Awesome Tumblrs
In the spirit of reaching out a little further (read: extending the desperate death grip), and doing things by the example of the guitarist in Spinal Tap, I’...
Unfollowing
I had to unfollow somebody today. I didn’t do it lightly, and I’m still wondering about it now.
Tinkering With Drupal
Still tinkering with jonbeckett.com - at least I have the aggregator working now (after hacking the Drupal 7 database - it didn’t like the long titles of Tum...
Achieved Today
Installed Drupal on jonbeckett.com
Where The Hell Did Saturday Go
How on earth is it nearly midnight already?
Three Themes For Tumblr
While monkeying with Tumblr recently, I have somehow ended up making three different themes
Currently Reading The Right Stuff By Tom Wolfe
One of the books I’ve always known about, read bits of over the years, but never knuckled down and read cover-to-cover. In the 80s it was turned into the won...
I Very Angry With You And Goodbye
A couple of evenings ago while washing up the dinner things, I heard the outbreak of war in our living room - or at least the version of war that occurs betw...
Working From Home
Today finds me sat in the study at home once more, on account of the offices at work undergoing something of a renovation. The office I would normally reside...
Tumblr Community Unexpectedly Awesome
Although I’ve been a member of Tumblr since it was still in beta, I have only really immersed myself in the community recently. I think I first heard about i...
Time For A Coffee
After having my head in and out of C# and SQL all morning and most of the afternoon, I’m taking a few minutes out to have a coffee a really terrible instant ...
An Admission
I have no excuses with drawing, and should perhaps do it far more. I did art at college years ago. It’s the one thing I’ve always been able to just do - much...
12 Awesome Tumblrs
Following my recent journey of discovery on Tumblr (read: a concerted effort to find real people that share their thoughts), I hit upon a novel idea. Perhaps...
In Search Of Interesting People
I have somehow reached the point with Tumblr where I have far more people following me than I am following, and I’m not altogether happy about that. In order...
Impressed With Long Forgotten Code
About six months ago I started noodling around with some top secret programming (I was going to write “secret squirrel programming”, but guessed that nobody ...
An Invitation To Ask Questions
I did this once before, a very long time ago, and it proved remarkably entertaining (if a little foolhardy).
The Professional Theme Keeps Getting Rejected By Tumblr
I have a horrible feeling the reason my “Professional” theme for Tumblr is not clearing the hurdle for the theme garden is because of the social links.
Solving The Tumblr Custom Property Problem
I just discovered a workaround for the extremely annoying bug in the Tumblr theme “custom property” feature.
An Amazing Evening A Strange Day And An Even More Strange Week Ahead
Yesterday evening I went to the local theatre with our children and the leader of Rainbows (young brownies/guides) to see the pantomime production of “Peter ...
10 Random Questions
10 random questions, garnered from the vast stockpile that I once discovered online, and answered for your interest and amusement
This Is Normal
A conversation that happened early this morning with our eldest…
In Other News
I will neither confirm or deny that I just created a fork of the theme my own tumblog is based on for the use of fashion, design and/or art blogs.
Sunday Morning
I’m sat here in my Hong Kong Fooey t-shirt, wondering what to do with myself. The younger children are already up, eldest is still fast asleep, other half is...
Molly Ringwald Had The End Of Pretty In Pink Rewritten Who Knew
I had never heard this story before you want to know why Molly Ringwald suddenly vanished at the height of her fame? She insisted that John Huston have the e...
Embracing The Bazaar Crowdsourcing The Theme
After a day tinkering with HTML and CSS, following my nose rather than a carefully evolved design, I have ended up with a half-respectable Tumblr theme. If y...
2010 In Review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The One Where I Submitted The Theme To The Tumblr Theme Directory
I doubt very much that there are any staff beyond skeleton support staff at Tumblr today, so don’t expect the theme this blog is based on to appear any time ...
Read Write And Engage
While playing with Tumblr over the last few days, I have been reminded how great the community is, how much creativity is going on, and how much more people ...
New Year Free Time Tinkering
It was predictable really, wasn’t it. Given a few days off work, what happens? A new theme for Tumblr is what happens…