Inchoate

How old am I?

It's always fun to have people guess your age. Most guess under, which I suppose is the polite social norm. Today was wild though: met a Finnish girl (24) on the Tube home who guessed at ... 19. That's right folks, me, a teenager. After I allowed her a second guess it crept up to "no way are you older than 21". Yeah, baby! Needless to say she received the kiss she so richly deserved at that point...

Outlook reminder: oops

Nuff said

Pillow fight lost property office

Last night was the second London Pillow Fight Club which amongst other notable features was live on ITV and had probably a thousand people involved or watching. Here's a video (2MB, AVI).

Tom and Me

So, stood around chatting with Dom, we were approached by a chap and our conversation went roughly like this:

Him: Hi, are you organising this?
  -- I'd turned up to the gig in an increasingly dishevelled velvet jacket, a Santa outfit, an enormous pink afro, and of course with a pillow. I looked ridiculous. And out of a crowd of a thousand people he'd picked me.
Me: Not this one, no. Anything I can help with?
  -- I know the organisers but my involvement for this event was absolutely nothing. Still, try to be of assistance, right?
Him: Is there a Lost Property place?
  -- OK, now this is funny. A few hundred people thwapping the stuffing out of each other at the top of the stairs in Trafalgar Square does not automatically imply existence of a field-tested municipal infrastructure. Still, worth a shot, eh?
Me: Heh. No. What are you looking for?
Him: The hood to this jacket, it's come off somewhere.
Me: Ah, like this one? *points to hood of jacket I'd been looking after for a bit*
Him (suddenly delirious): Yes, that's it! Er, here, have some chewing gum!

I love how the world works out like that ;-)

In other news that night... I was interviewed on Mexican TV and asked whether we risked arrest spreading feathers all over a public place. Quite off the cuff I said, if it's legal for pigeons to do so why not humans? Can you tell I'm not a lawyer.

(By the way, quite a number of people put in a solid effort clearing up the feathers, including an imaginative technique by one of the Skatefresh crew skating along with a pillow held to the ground, which others on foot then picked up and used quite effectively. I found a large bag and had been using my hands 'til that point. Bravo skaters!)

Peanut butter and honey yogurt

The midnight munchies.. Huge tub of plain yogurt in the fridge... Looking promising... No jam, and the honey's set so hard my birthday would come around again before any poured out... Denied! (Cos I'm not eating natural yogurt, dammit.)

Cupboard also yielding some peanut butter. Time to experiment. Mine a generous tablespoon of honey ore into a bowl, and an equal sized dollop of peanut butter. Microwave for 20s. Honey's runny, and bubbling beautifully. Mix it up well and blend by hand into half a tub of yogurt (200ml or so for you technicians).

Honey takes the edge off the yogurt's natural sourness without being overpoweringly sugary, while the peanut butter does just what it says on the tin. Delicious!

Awesome PC hardware mod

Here it is, people.

Thanks, Dell

That's right, a volume control on the keyboard. This has proved really useful for dropping the volume for incoming calls, unobtrusively trimming the sound levels when folks visit, and pumping up the volume when a decent riff kicks in. I love it. It should be standard.

The larger button, also useful, brings the music app to the foreground. The other ones do the usual play/pause/stop etc although with winamp, iTunes, and WMPlayer all competing it's got a bit weird on this machine.

Contrast the other custom buttons on this keyboard: browser controls (back, stop, refresh, etc) and Mail, My Computer, Calculator. The last one I've used maybe three times and that's more than the others. Waste of time. I wonder if others like them.

Further mods I'd like to see: a large scroll wheel that works identically to the wheelmouse. That alongside page up/down buttons would make a relaxing document reader.

Santa rampage

Sartorial preparations for Santacon took a leap today. I bought no less than four Santa suits for friends, plus a variety of props to theme up two of them (that'll be the Makepeace brothers). I'm going as Santa Austin Powers: frills, velvet, bad teeth; and Nik's Satan Claws: trident, horns, tail. Wandering around Camden searching for a red/burgundy velvet jacket seemed almost in vain 'til I got seriously lucky and picked up something passable for a tenner. (Purple velvet jackets are two-a-penny; add in a little more red though and they're gone.)

I ended up with some tacky fake ruffs à la these. Was tempted however in a gothshop by a proper sumptuous frilly silk lace-up-front shirt that would be spectacular. I'm gonna see what I can do with extra lace and fledgling attempts at needlework first...

Showing up immediately after this at a dinner of possible future work colleagues, all suited, with me carrying four santa suits and a conspicious cheap plastic devil's trident drew some raised eyebrows. Heh.

Blogging brother

After writing about his travel's in Japan (and elsewhere) Nik's recently acquired a blog, yay! But it's super-seekrit...

Multimodal transport

It occurred to me on the bus home that I used no less than seven modes of transport getting to and from a party tonight.

Walked to the Earlsfield station, caught the train to London Bridge. Picked up my Strida folding bike and popped my heely-wheels back in. Cycled back to London Bridge and heeled around in the station. Took the Tube to Tower Hill and then the DLR to Limehouse. Cycled to the party. Heeled around for the amusement of everyone else. Cycled back to DLR, heeled (pushing the folded bike - two at once!) through Tower Hill, taking the Tube to Embankment. Cycled up Villier's Passage and spotted the N77 bus which I rode ahead of and caught back to Southfields. Pulled wheelies in the driveway.

Didn't use a car: excellent.

In America people wonder "how do I drive there?". In Europe we wonder "which combination of public transport do I use to get there?"

Heelys

Thanks to Karen who brought some over to Vienna just recently I am the proud owner of a pair of "Surge" Heelys. These are trainers with a wheel in the heel: