Fyse June 12th, 2007
I sincerely hope none of you fine people are using Internet Explorer to view this site, as it looks perfectly ghastly at the moment. With IE6 the photos are all over the place due to a lack of support for ‘max-width’, and as for IE7, lord alone knows what’s going on with the comment link section. I’ll get round to fixing it soon. Maybe.
Under Firefox and Safari, however, things look passable.
The Floating Face March 10th, 2007
There is a large pile of assorted packaging dominating one corner of the office. Cardboard boxes of various sizes, plastic wrappings of assorted hues, and in the middle sits Fyse. From the opposite side of the room two colleagues eye him warily.
“I think he’s over stimulated, you know.”
“Yeah. Something very reminiscent of my five-year-old last Christmas. Too many presents and not enough time.”
Fyse makes a decision and reaches for the closest shiny electrical thing. He stabs at buttons and turns a few dials, ignoring entirely the fat and hugely helpful instruction manual. After a minute he stops, as if at a sudden noise, and grabs for another item.
“New phone and camera in one day. Dangerous.”
“Yeah. Bet you a fiver he has a break-down before lunch.”
Fyse is cackling to himself in a contended if slightly demented fashion, with technogical wonders clasped tightly in each hand. He puts the phone in his pocket before brandishing the camera and staring menacingly across the room. It’s kinda like that bit from ‘Terminator’. You know, the bit where Arnie stares menacingly.
“Fyse, don’t even think about pointing that at us. Seriously. Er, Fyse?”
Fyse hasn’t had a lot of luck with online orders of late. Having spent the best part of three weeks bouncing off the walls before his laptop arrived, complications of the most infuriating nature delayed the delivery of his new digital camera. He didn’t deal with this in most decorous manner (as Amazon customer services operators will testify), but the waiting is finally over. As chance would have it this also coincided with delivery of a new mobile phone. Fyse is something of a gadget freak at the best of times, and no one knows what effect such a concentrated burst of silicon-powered AWESOMEness might have. The world retreats to a safe distance…
Fyse March 7th, 2007
You know you’ve spent too much money on a new camera when you are woken in the morning by a call from Barclay’s fraud prevention team, checking whether your card has been stolen.
“Mr Fyson, did you make a purchase yesterday evening from Amazon.co.uk?”
“Yes, alright, I confess. I did it. I spent the money. Are you happy now you’ve made me face the truth? Is this what you do for kicks? I hope you’re really pleased with yourself.”
But was it worth it? Well, it arrives first thing tomorrow morning.
It will blatantly be worth every penny.
Fyse January 13th, 2005
Well, I’m making slow progress on the ‘Computational Physics’ project. In the end I decided to do one involving modeling the orbits of planets and asteroids, rather than percolation. This had less to do with the task being easier, but more that two friends had already started on it. Not that I’ve been copying, you understand, but it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off.
Another thing I will briefly mention is that my digital camera has now arrived. It’s a Sony Cybershot DSC-P73, and I’m really chuffed with it. (There’s that word ‘chuffed’ again!) I’d been pining for a digital SLR, but eventually concluded that my finances were not up to the expense just now. Instead, I went for a camera compact enough that when I do splash out an SLR, I’ll still have a use for the old one. The P73 also has a specially designed under-water housing, so when I get the chance to scuba dive again, I can equip myself for sub-aqua photography (relatively) cheaply.
I’d better leave it there. I need sleep if I’m gonna make any progress on my project tomorrow morning. Currently my program spews out an endlessly repeating loop of error messages every time I run it. This is not desirable…
Fyse August 18th, 2004
I’m watching archery at the moment, and it’s so tense! There’s a Brit in with a chance of bronze. It’s such a psychological sport, they must be so stressed.
All level with one arrow left! I’m having a heart attack here. She’s won! Amazing.
Ok, I confess that the main point of this is to test out posting from my phone. It’s an interesting new blogging experience, certainly, and maybe it’ll reveal a new side to my musings. Perhaps I’m funnier in my living room? Well, we can hope.
I’ve even started watching show jumping, which I never thought would happen. It’s impossible to judge other countries, because I’m not familiar enough with the accents, but I can tell you that that British equestrianism is populated by upper-class twits.
Incidentally, all comments should be sent to my phone as well as to the site, so leave me a message and I can test that too!
Fyse August 17th, 2004
Dartmouth is a small coastal town in south Devon, which is in the south-west of England, which is a part of Great Britain. Britain is currently in Europe, but it’s a little uncertain how long that will continue. Many of the lines tethering us to the rest of the continent have been severed, and preparations seem to be afoot to hoist the sails aloft and plot a course for the Americas.
My family has had ties to Dartmouth for something like 30 years now, ever since my Dad and Grandmother drove over the headland and saw the pretty little port laid out below them. They were looking for a place for my grandparents to retire to, and family folk-lore has it that they turned to one another saying ‘this is the place’. Almost immediately everything went soft-focus and tinkly music began to play, for it was love at first sight. The clan had arrived in Dartmouth and, for good or ill, have never left.
Incidentally, this might be an opportune moment to mention the nature of my family’s stories and ‘tales of yore’. There are many, and like this blog, much contained within is far from reliable gospel truth. They are entertaining, however, in their own special way, and become progressively more so with every retelling. Propogation of such stories is a tradition eagerly adhered to, and the process has surely found no more enthusiastic a participant than my father himself. Many a dinner-time proclamation has begun with “I’ve probably mentioned this before…”, and it has become something of a game to try and finish off the stories for him. I do wonder whether this is the entire aim, however, since he has often remarked that unless the stories are hammered into my generation, they will simply vanish. And what a tragic loss to the world that would be…
It’s in Dartmouth that I have been for the last week or so, and it’s less than a week till I’m there again. Next week is the ‘Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta’, with events galore, but I’ll tell you more about them at the time. What other news is there for you to catch up on?
I have a new phone. You may remember that my previous phone was, well, useless. It suffered a long, drawn out, tortuous death, and every day I looked forward to seeing just how out of date the messages I received would be. Finally I gave up, and went and got myself a new phone. I haven’t yet decided what to do with the carcass of my old phone. I’m thinking some sort of ritual sacrifice, though perhaps trying to exact revenge on an inanimate object is a bit weird.
Now, I’m not sure whether this has come across yet in my blog, but I’m a bit of a gadget freak. I don’t own that many, but when I can get my hands on a new piece of kit it’s like all my birthdays come at once. I went into the mobile phone shop intending to buy the cheapest phone possible, (attempting to curb my escalating financial crisis), but that’s not quite how it panned out. The best laid plans, eh? At least I get to play with my new toy’s camera, mp3 player, organiser, email, java games, polyphonic ringtones and video football highlights…
The biggest advantage of ‘my new toy’ is that, with its email function, I should be able to blog from anywhere in the country! (insert appropriate evil laugh). I haven’t tried it yet, and I also don’t know whether there is network coverage in the area of Cornwall I’m gonna be in during September, but with any luck you’ll be receiving regular updates throughout. I can almost hear you sighing in relief.
Fyse July 15th, 2004
Guardian Unlimited-Today’s issues-Useful excrement
“During a two-year expedition to Mars, a crew of six astronauts can generate over six tons of waste.”
The article mentions a number of other fascinating faeces facts. For example, did you know that the frisbee was (apparently) invented by children hurling pats of buffalo dung at each other? Or that a visitor-fuelled dung generator at the Science Museum, London, will eventually produce over 1,500 kW? (That’s an electricity generator fuelled by visitor’s dung, not a dung generator fed with visitors. Just to clarify.) Or that a little known delicacy is pasta with ‘dung-smoked paneer’ (an Indian cheese). Who’d have thought that a humble piece of crap would have so many uses? The dominion of oil shall end, and dung shall inherit the earth…
Fyse July 15th, 2004
Well, in a turn of events that threatens to end, all too abruptly, my total lack of activity, I have a job interview next week. Which is great, really. God knows I need the money, and it certainly wouldn’t do me any harm to get off my arse and do something constructive. It’s not actually that promising, though, since it’s only an interview to go onto a temporary register, which means there isn’t necessarily even a job available. Have to wait and see.
This next bit is such a cliché, (ooh, would you look at that? It’s added an accent all by itself! I ought to explain that I’m writing this in word, cos I’m not dialled up to the internet at the moment. I’m at home which means sharing an internet connection, which is irritating in the extreme. I keep trying to persuade my Dad that we need to get broadband, but he (quite rightly) points out that he doesn’t even want broadband, let alone need it. Where was I with these brackets?)
As I was saying, this next bit is such a cliché, but it’s true. It’s only when technology stops working that you notice quite how reliant you’ve become on it. My mobile phone, at an age of only 15 months, has gone silicon senile. With an almost apologetic beep, it tells me of an answerphone message left three days ago. I attempt to send a message, it takes a full minute to tell me it has no signal. It’s got to the stage where I can stand below a telephone mast, the transmitter in full sight, surrounded by people happily cooking their brains as they talk, and my phone has not a single bar of reception. Is there a form of cataracts for aerials? Am I the only one who personifies technology?
What is more, my brother’s phone (same model, similar age) is also packing up. Coincidence? Now, I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but if I told you that the major Nokia share holder is related to the ex-owner of the Texas Book Depository, the whole sordid affair begins to come into sharp focus, doesn’t it? (He/She’s not really. I made that up. I make a lot of things up. Please don’t sue me.)
Another thing. When I finally get a new phone, I may have to accept that there’s another reason why I’m not receiving any text messages…
