This is better than at least four of the actual movies...

...to everyone who chipped in to the retiring offering at my mum's thanksgiving service. Turns out we raised £750 for the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow, which I know will be put to good use.

Meanwhile, I'm back to work tomorrow. I promise I'll try to catch up as quickly as I can... probably just about in time to fall behind again over my Christmas break :)

As some of you may know, my mum, Janice, sadly died on November 13th. This is one of the last pictures of us together (along with my dad!), from Christmas Day 2007, which my parents spent with Julie and me here in Dublin.

Mum had been battling cancer since 2003, and although we knew it wasn't curable, her regular chemotherapy cycles (at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow, who were fantastic) seemed to be keeping things more or less in check. So to lose her just a couple of hours after being admitted to hospital suffering from what seemed to be non-critical abdominal pain came as quite a shock to us all. At the same time, we're all relieved that she slipped away quickly and relatively painlessly—one of her only fears in life was that her health might decline to the point where she could do little more but lie around in agony, a fate that osteoporosis had inflicted upon her own mother some years earlier. (Her other fear was somewhat less morbid—a lifelong phobia of birds!)

Although she had been comparatively poorly for the past few weeks, Mum's consultant expected her next cycle of chemo to clear up the main cause of her discomfort, and she remained pretty active right up to the end. Just after I last visited her and Dad back home in Scotland last month, they were off to Gran Canaria for a holiday (ironically, her 96-year-old aunt died equally-suddenly while they were away, and the first thing they had to do when they came home was arrange her funeral). And when I last spoke to Mum the weekend before she died, she had me looking up some hotel in Edinburgh on the internet for a wedding she thought she might be invited to next year!

Positive though she was, though, Mum was nothing if not ultra-organised, and she was well-prepared for the inevitable. She left us copies of directions to the cemetery to send to people who might want to come, and sheet music for the hymns she wanted sung at her funeral in case we didn't have the right books... but best of all—and this was Mum in a nutshell—she left Dad a notebook listing all the household chores that he ought to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual, bi-annual and occasional basis after she was gone, right down to specifying the correct washing machine cycles for the bedclothes, and the appropriate shades of paint to use on the outside of the house!

On Thursday, we laid Mum to rest in Dunblane cemetery, near her parents and several other generations of her family, and on Saturday we had a thanksgiving service at Hillhouse Parish Church in Hamilton, where she'd been a member for the past 40 years. The turnout at both was pretty humbling.

Of course we'll all miss Mum very much, none more so than my dad, to whom she would have been married for 47 years last Tuesday. But I certainly don't feel sad when I think about her, so don't feel sad for me either. Just keep your fingers crossed that she hasn't hidden one of those household chore books away for me somewhere as well :)

The "Nationally Known Comedian" Richard Herring unleashed a thrilling new craze on the world during this week's Collings and Herrin (sic) podcast... it goes like this¹:

The aim of the game is to get between two specific Wikipedia entries using only the highlighted blue links. The player who navigates between the two pages within the fewest clicks, or uses the cleverest path is the winner. For example, to get from the Wikipedia page for American actress Argentina Brunetti to French anti-communist party La Cagoule, one could go via the following clicks:

1. The Lone Ranger
2. Chocolate
3. Nestlé
4. L'Oréal
5. Eugène Schueller
6. La Cagoule

(Argentina played a supporting role in the Lone Ranger in 1955, The Lone Ranger starred in a chocolate advertisment in the mid ninties advertising Rolos, Nestlé are a chocolate manufacturer, Nestlé are shareholders in L'Oréal, L'Oréal was founded by Eugène Schueller and Eugène Schueller provided financial support and held meetings for La Cagoule.)

Have fun.

Fun with Pixelblocks

Update: Here's a QuickTime version for those of you who can't handle .oggs yet...

Dear lazyweb. What kind of fish is this?

Recently finished Cheryl Johnson's online 10-week Painting with Light photo workshop. Here's a montage of some of the snaps I took along the way (click for slightly larger version):

Certainly picked up a few useful bits and pieces, although I did find it a bit hard to drag myself out some weeks to do my homework! Will probably sign up for her Tech Pro Masterclass early next year too, to try and cement all that stuff about shutter speed, aperture and ISO speeds into my brain (which I keep reading, understanding and then instantly forgetting-- sign of old age, I suppose).

First up, the main part of Julie's belated birthday present from me was a spa weekend at the Johnstown House Marriott over in County Meath, still one of our favourite retreats when we want to spoil ourselves. That was supposed to be followed by her even-more-belated Christmas present the next day-- a trial flying lesson up near Belfast-- but it was cancelled for the second time this year due to poor weather. (It's rescheduled for this weekend, but the signs don't look good so far...)
		On Bank Holiday Monday, Julie again joined 40,000 or so other women in the Women's 10km Mini-Marathon. Lack of training opportunities meant her time wasn't quite as good as her last outing, but she still raised a tidy sum for the Niall Mellon Township Trust.
Following that, the other 'big bit' of Julie's birthday present was tickets to see George Michael at the RDS outdoor arena in Dublin... not especially my cup of tea musically (I enjoyed Sophie Ellis-Bextor's warm-up set more than I was expecting though-- and not just because of those legs!), but there's no denying he knows how to put on a show, and the weather couldn't have been better. Here's hoping it's as good on Friday for my birthday day out to see Peter Gabriel and Crowded House in Marlay Park, but as it's been tipping it down and blowing a hooley all week so far, that looks unlikely to say the least...

On the geek front, pretty much every gadget I own has given up the ghost this month. First my camcorder, which fortunately was repaired under warranty. Then it was the turn of my ageing Minolta S414 digicam, whose CCD has thrown a fatal wobbler. (I luckily have a bit of birthday money to replace that... price and feature-wise, I'm looking at something along the lines of a Finepix S5700, but I'd prefer the proper image stabilisation and the form factor of a Lumix-- suggestions welcome!) My PS2's optical drive then proceeded to expire noisily; cue a quick trip down to Game to get one of the new slimline jobbies. (And another trip back next week armed with WEEE documentation to take my old one back for recycling again, since they refused the first time.)

Finally, the video cable on my PowerBook G4 has failed to the point of uselessness, after creaking a bit for a few months... 'fortunately', the five-year-old Dell Inspiron 8100 that I was using as a home server also suffered yet another hard disk failure the other week, so the PowerBook can take over those duties when my new MacBook Pro arrives :)

Just back from a nearly-free preview screening of same. Hadn't seen the first one, so didn't really know what to expect.

Not a lot, as it turned out; a mildy diverting (if utterly linear) gorefest with some big explosions and a lot of early-morning shooting around London to make it look deserted. And one of the most obvious "we're going to make a third one" endings I've seen in a while.

Came back out to my car to find that somebody had stolen the magnetic ISPCC ribbon from the back, presumably to stick on their own. Only in Ireland...

No, it's not my own birthday today, but the 25th birthday of the groundbreaking ZX Spectrum.

I still remember the excitement as the bundled Horizons tape threw up a proper loading screen (rather than the psychedelic loading squiggles I'd grown used to on the ZX81), and later presented me with Thro' the Wall, a full colour Breakout clone. Which was written entirely in BASIC of course, complete with neat squashy visual effect as the ball hit the paddle... turned out to be nothing more clever than swapping UDGs when the ball hit row 21, but half the fun in those days was finding out things like that so you could do it yourself. If only making computers do things were still that easy...

Way too many favourite games from the Spectrum era to list here (feel free to add your own), but suffice it to say I still play many of them via FUSE on my PowerBook! Thanks for the memories, Clive.

So, first blog of 2007... bliadhna mhath ur, and all that.

It was a fairly quiet break for us this year, at least in terms of travelling and seeing family-- we did neither, apart from a one-night spa break up the road at the Johnstownhouse Marriot in Enfield. (The food there really is gorgeous.)

We were out and about around town a bit though... went to see Jason Byrne on December 23rd, and we took in Casino Royale, Flushed Away, Happy Feet and Deja Vu at the cinema (mostly for free-- thanks Curly!)

Work-wise, I'm trying out a Sun Ray 2 at home for the first time this week... the technology is certainly impressive, although it remains to be seen whether it'll oust my laptop as my working-at-home tool of choice. It would probably be more useful if I had one on my desk at work as well, to get the full benefit of session mobility-- maybe it's time to retire my old Ultra 10....

First I was going to try and post something arty (like a Luis-esque mosaic), then considered writing screeds about the whole escapade, but that would have taken forever. So, in summary:

First we did this:

And then we went here:

And we had a blast.

Have seen it all now... got this phishing email today that actually includes a snail mail address to send your money to, just in case you're too "clever" to click on the link.

Account On-hold: Please pay your eBay fees today

Dear member: You are late in paying your eBay fees of $718.28 and your account for user kahlocjd is past due. These fees result from listing items on eBay or using related services (ID verify, Stores, etc). This account has been restricted and you will not be able to bid or list on eBay. To avoid further collections please pay your fees today by following these steps: 1. Log on to [dodgy phishing link deleted] 2. Click 'Site Map' at the top of the page 3. In the 'My Selling Account' section, click 'Make a Single Payment'. Sign in if requested 4. Select a method to pay your eBay fees and follow the online instructions on page If you do not have access to your account or prefer not to pay online, please mail your payment with your payment coupon and clearly state your account ID E286455801001 on the check with a copy of this notice to: eBay, Inc. P.O. Box 2179 Carol Stream, IL 60132-2179 United States If we do not receive your payment, your account may be suspended and additional collections remedies may be used to bring this account to current. All current listings will be ended and you will no longer be part of the eBay community. If this past due balance is the only reason for restricting your account, it will be reopened for bidding and listing when your full payment is received. Your account will continue to be charged a late payment finance charge of up to 1.5% of your past due amount. Thank you, eBay Global Collections

So, here starteth my last day's work as a single bloke. The next morning I need to go to work (if you don't count later on this morning, after I've been to bed) it'll be with a resized-but-still-not-really-sure-if-it-fits ring on my wedding finger, if I haven't managed to lose it on a South African beach by then.

The arrangements have been anything but smooth, and I'm vaguely regretting not having a stag night¹, but otherwise (largely thanks to Julie) things are about as organised as they're going to be before Saturday week. Speaking as someone who's actually never much liked weddings² or churches, and hates being the centre of attention, it's fair to say it's taken me a while to warm to the idea of combining all three into the one day, but I'm quite sure the end will justify the means!

Now, back to all that pesky work stuff I need to finish before I disappear for a month...