Today was a completely hectic day in work. If it could possibly go wrong, it did. And it did it seriously too, not just a minor fuckups. ::sigh:: At least its over now. Came home, we had a lovely dinner of chicken fillets and asparagus with baby potatoes, chilled out, and then kicked Anna's ass at worms ;-)

Tomorrow is the first of May. Where is time going??? It seems like only a couple of weeks ago I was just moving in here, but it was 10 months ago!!! I really have to get back to Ireland soon, do the family thing and see everyone. I miss that sometimes. Did I mention that on Sunday we're going to go to Brighton? If the weather holds out and stays sunny we're going to go see what its like, as neither of us have ever been there. It supposed to be quite cool - in a traditional English sort of way :-)

Went to the pub this evening, and really wanted a fag. It was quite difficult to suppress, but I did it :-) The feeling wasn't physical really, just a longing for a cigarette. I guess it'll take a while to be out of the habbit of smoking in certain situations… you should see me after sex ;-) Anyway, had a fairly good time, then we went to see "Message in a Bottle" in the cinema. Lovely film, brilliant acting by Paul Newman (wasn't this the film he got the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for?) and Kevin Costner was fantastic. But Robin Wright, whose only role I knew before was as Buttercup in the Princess Bride, was outstanding. Particularly at the end. Go see it, you'll see what I mean.

Anna fell down the stairs earlier today, and actually got quite badly hurt :((( She was on her way to college and she simply lost it on the top of the stairs, and tumbled down about 7 or 8 steps. She's ok now though, although a bit bruised and still in pain. I had to reinstall Windows today. I had put a development client on my machine and it hosed my registry. I should know better I suppose. Anyway, I had a crap day. I went out to buy my new stereo. I was going to pay it off over several months, so avoid being completely smashed this month, and they turned me down!!! I couldn't believe it. Seems that unless you've lived in this country for at least 3 years then you aren't a person as far as the financial institutions are concerned. Bummer. Could be ok though, I talked to my bank manager about it and he seems fairly keen on giving me a short term loan to get it that way, Have to fill out the forms now…

Played Alpha Centauri. Can't write, must play more…

BT played ball - the phones will be back later tonight :-) Of course, I DO have to pay the bill. Did some shopping around today to see where I can get my new stereo, and I found a place called Tempo, which seems to be an increasingly popular electrical chain over here. They do a nice finance deal too - we can buy the stereo now and pay ot off over as much time as we like, but if its cleared within 12 months then its interest free. I like interest free :-) Think I'll do that too - I can pay it off at something like £50 a month :-)

BT, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that we can't make any outgoing calls until we pay the phone bill. I'm getting tired of them getting stuff wrong. When last I talked to them they said the bill was fine until the end of the month - and of course at the weekend, when they can't be contacted, outgoing calls have been suspended. ::sigh::

Yep… that's it really. Nothing much happening I want to tell about, a massively lazy day. Anna's getting better at worms :-)

Yo-Yo day. I started out in our Cavaye Place office, then went back to Fulham Broadway, then back again in the afternoon. When I was in Cavaye Place I spent most of the time just running up and down the stairs… Yo-Yo day! Pretty interesting though, some good things happening soon and loads of fun to be had :-)

Well, Anna's gotten the Worms bug. I got home at about 18:45 today and she wanted to play worms with me… and we kept playing until close to 12! We didn't even play shithead today!!! I'm looking forward to the weekend, I plan on doing absolutely Nothing. I'll maybe do something like walk as far as the washing machine… perhaps to the kitchen, and there's a slight possibility I can be persuaded to go to the shops. The rest of the time… Nothing. I'll maybe update my web site a bit, I've had some new ideas on a navigation system (con't tell you about it though, you'll have to come back and see). I think I may even watch some television… which is kinda contraversial for me ;-)

My mail server is down again… partially. I seem to be able to get some mail but not all of it. This sucks badly enough that I think its time to get a refund and go shopping for another host. Hey… it’s a month later, so things will be cheaper ;-) Work was cool today. The project I was working on took a major step forward after I tried a new set of script commands for my CD Validator. Instead of using the MD5 checksum, I'm using the RIPEMD160 algorythm, which is faster and has greater security (MD5 is 128bit and I'm using a 160bit RIPEMD)

I went for a pint after work, to this little Irish/Thai (what a GREAT mixture) pub across from work. It was really strange - I swear they import the Guinness, because it doesn't taste like the standard domestic stuff. Played Worms Armageddon with Anna. She lost a bit but then caught on quite well… but I'm starting to really learn how to use the ropes now, so I have an advantage ;-)

find /mnt/cdrom +name 'Desktop Folder' +name '.*' -printf("'"/%d/%f"'") | xargs --null rmd160 -b

I think that’s it, but I'll have to check for definite in the morning. That single sentence has taken me almost an entire day to learn - the consequences of putting things in the wrong place are absolute. If it isn't PERFECT, it doesn't work. This is day 5 without smoking and I think its actually getting easier :-) I've had a fairly high-stressy day, trying to get the Linux part of my project working. Anna wasn't in the best of moods either when I got home, she's stressed over the projects she has to get done by the end of next week. But despite it all I didn't once find myself really wanting a smoke.