September 2003 Archives

Verisign, believe it or not, has actually managed to find a further way to mess up the internet. This is verging on comedy--what do these guys do all day? Anyway, here's a petition site: http://www.petitiononline.com/icanndns/ (thanks Jeremy)

Sitting in the Office working on a new site design and it just occurred to me that I'm doing three people's jobs in a four day week and being an available and supportive superdad in the hours in between.

We're talking about moving house again (third time lucky?). Do you think I'll navigate myself into the same crazy situations if I switch to being a cheese-maker in Dorset or a furniture designer in Suffolk?

mmm...

Oh, and I've just got a £600 phone bill from Orange. How outrageous is that?

So I have this recurring fantasy where I design a simple 12 volt grinding tool using a starter motor with a ferrous metal cutting wheel bolted to the axle. In my dream I have long, coiled, power lead from the motor to a cigar-lighter plug so the tool can plugged into any vehicle's socket by running the cable in the window.

Anyway, I've never actually gotten anywhere with the project, but this guy has :-) Thanks to londonblog

Mark from Bristol has pointed out to me that there's a link on the scrapbook that can be read in such a way as to give access to nudie pics of a fat hairy guy in the bath (me). I hope he hasn't also written down my credit card details if indeed they were also visible.

Which reminded me of a similarly unsettling moment where my mother-in-law was scrolling through my iPhoto library looking at pictures of her daughter and granddaughter and came across the extreme close-up pictures of her son-in-law's spotty penis (I came upon the idea of using the camera to examine a rash in my crotch--works well, but you have to remember to delete the pics from the iPhoto library).

Now that's embarrasing;-)

This, from Hanan Levin a week ago and not sure what to do about it...

Wow, doug,
Thanks for linking to grow-a-brain, and wow, couldn't imagine that my approach got you to suspect that i am affiliated w/ Microsoft?#*?!
Now i have a question: how can i remove the forever quote acusing me for spamming? not the best thing to pop as # 3 when people google growabrain?...
Anyway, i found some cool links on your blog & will link to them this weekend (w/ credit)...

He's referring to an earlier post where I questioned the 'purpose' of his site. This is increasingly a fine line--the site does has some quality links and is frequently updated by an enthusiast, but then there's this heavy referring to his real estate business and the separation between them is a bit unclear.

In any case, there's not a lot I can do about my post's position on Google, but I'd welcome thoughts on where that line is and whether this guy is a respectable blogger or a sleazy salesman, or indeed if it's even possible to make that sort of distinction. Or, in other words, what does he mean by 'his approach'?

I'm all the more concerned as I've just added a Paypal "donate" button...

Funny taking her back to the hospital where she was born, kind of a return to the womb (that word should so totally have two 'o's)... She was there with Nick from 15:00 to 23:30 yesterday. When I got there Nick was shattered, but today being my childcare day I got to have quality time with doctors.

To cut a long story short she's fine. We've been given antibiotics, she's eating well and apart from looking like she hasn't slept in a fortnight, she's on the mend.

Clemmie's been running around the Royal Free's pediatric A&E for most of the afternoon. I'm stuck at work, so Nick's had to deal on her own. As of 20:00 Clem had had her first X-ray and was waiting for results.

She's had a bad fever on and off for a few days and hasn't been sleeping. Nick called NHS Direct today when the little girl got the shivers (and her feet and arms turned blue!) and was told to head straight for casualty. Clemmie has been looking pretty awful with very dark circles under her eyes, but I fear that this is just one of many long nights to be spent waiting for doctors :-(

She's only 16 months old but she's already been prescribed three courses of antibiotics. I have a sneaking suspicion that hers is the first generation of post-antibiotic western children that are going to be spending a lot of time in bed fighting off infections with the strength of their little bodies. My guess is that when she's in her twenties the Victorian workplace practice of isolating the sick will have returned, replacing our current culture of taking a pill and showing up sick...

Of course much of the above distress is probably (at least in part) down to her molars pushing (cracking?) through her jaw. This week saw the appearance of a number of whopping teeth the size Lego bricks. I've got her all day tomorrow so this should be fun ;-)

So I've become a bit of an ebay hound...

Recently, a nasty little troll has left negative feedback. Amazing how that spoils your day. Am weighing up ignoring him and getting on with it or completing the defamation form...