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Nottingham Trip
I went to the EP Christmas Party 2003 at Vision in Nottingham (I have been there several times but not for food) and since I do not have the IXUS 400 camera I want yet and no links have turned up, readers will have to take my word for it that this was real and absolute fun and once again I enjoyed myself completely. Yes Dave does fight back when attacked with a multitude of giant balloons – fantastic and so was seeing several others I have not seen so much since I graduated.
After staying with friends on Friday night I went in to Nottingham and met up with jok on Saturday for some coffee and a general trip around the town. I now know where Page 45 is and have slightly more insight in to what it means to buy many many comics in the same way that someone can actively look for new PowerPC books by certain publishers which are still not in print yet…but I am not bothered by this and do not crave this book oh no.
I went to Wagamama as usual and talked to several people who work there and by now recognise me quite well. I know that it is a slight problem going there as much as we do but the food is great and it is a good atmosphere to talk about random stuff. jok tried to get me using chop sticks and for once I had bits of the starter using them – but practice is what I require now in order to do it properly.
Random story
Here is something which I found interesting…On the way back from Nottingham something interesting happpened. I met someone I had previously met on a train from Oxford and might have mentioned previously. Gayle is visiting from the States for a semester and we recognised each other randomly in Kings Cross St. Pancras underground station – I wonder what the statistics say about the chances of that happening. She and her friend Naomi (I am not good at spelling names sometimes) been on a trip to a place I had planned to visit myself – I should talk to Martin about a visit to Edinborough.
Today
Today I did a little tidying and have to do some sorting through various bits which came back from Nottingham and still have not really been processed. Those who know me will know which set of boxes I am mentioning here but I really should have sorted them out by now.
I bought some random stuff today partly to avoid feeling out of touch and old! The main thing was a 120GB hard disk but that lead to the wireless basestation which is supposed to reduce the number of cables in our living room and so on 
. I bought a USB and car charger adapter for the Zaurus and some Powerbook Paint to help with the scratches. I got a wireless card for my brother in law to use when visiting and may use that in the iPAQ 3660 afterwards as I have a plan of sharing network block devices between PDAs. No there is no practical reason for doing that and it actually decreases reliability but then this kind of thing is what one can do sometime over the holidays. I got said brother in law a present which for obvious reasons will not be mentioned here but is nonetheless pretty cool. Also decided to check with friends whether the mutual “you do not have to buy me something so I do not have to do likewise” rule is applying this year – let me know if it is not!
Buffalo 54Mbit Wireless Basestation
I have been occasionally using the Zaurus in its cradle to serve as a temporary basestation although clearly a fixed one is more useful in the longer term. I saw one on scan and wanted a new hard disk now that once again much larger models are available than the last time I bought a disk (and one of my Deskstars is having some access problems which does not seem to affect its readings in ide-smart however it is probably a good idea to replace that disk soon anyway). I got a 120GB Maxtor disk with quiet drive technology (whatever that actually is) and 8MB cache (I doubt that will make much difference when running ext3 over having one with a smaller cache given that I am not likely to have hardware capable of consistently saturating its interface but hey.). I also got a Buffalo WLA-G54 wireless basestation because it was reasonably priced and I like the CompactFlash card I bought from them previously. They also acknowledge their use of GPL software however I should look in to actually obtaining source so I can break it .
FOSDEM
I am going to FOSDEM 2004 and also hopefully to the UKUUG Bournemouth event on High Availability & Reliability. Please contact me if you are planning to go to FOSDEM and would be interested in being a travel companion. I will probably stay at the Ibis next to Gare Du Midi as it was pleasant and convienient on my recent trip and I am a repeatative kind of person in that sense…but seriously it was ok and I liked it so will probably stay there. I am looking forward to FOSDEM.
The Bunker
I hope to be at the G2K4 Nuclear Bunker Party because I went to the last two (it has been held twice at that location so far however other events have taken place which I have not been to). I am not a hardcore gamer but it is generally an interesting event and when you are with friends you do not need to be the most frag inclined person to have fun. Besides I am considering a new cheap desktop and even a little gaming! .
Reading stuff
I am reading Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics by Stan Gibilisco. It is quite good at giving an introduction to a lot of different bits that I need to read about without assuming I am a particular student or whatever. Knuth is kind of waiting for the right moment which might be over the holiday period when I am curled up on a sofa or in a certain coffee house and in the right frame of mind for it.
I need to read a little on music and in particular the theory which will accompany my desire to play the violin once more.
Jon.