The hot water boiler in the kitchen seems very optimistic. Every time I go to make a cup ot tea it blinks a red light saying half full at me.

Portering along

Beer, beer, beer, beer. Beer, beer, beer, beer. Yes, I spent last night at the Cambridge Beer festival over on Jesus Green. An enormous tent filled with a bizarre mixture of students, professionals, Iron Maiden wannabes, normal folks, and strange facial haired CAMRA members. There must have been a hundred or so types of beer for sale and the weather so so good we say in the sun drinking away.

One hint though, if you ask for Stout, don't expect to be handed a Guinness or Murphy's. It tastes more like porter that's been left sitting in the slops tray for a couple of years, heated up, and then served in a filthy glass which was last use for storing sewage.

Last night I went to a talk sponsored by the Brahma Kumaris over in St. Catharine's College. Entitled, "Finding the Missing Peace" and given my the BK's representative to the United Nations in New York Sri Gayatri Natraine, it was an interesting exploration of where peace comes from, haw to cultivate it, and problems with our perception of what it means to be peaceful. Interestingly, Sri Natraine mentioned that some people she's talked to think peace con only exist because of an absence of war. It's frightening that those in power can think this way and says more about the current state of society than about the nature of peace.

The evening was topped off by a half-hour's meditation, where I almost fell asleep but felt very relaxed for the wet cycle home.

What a bloody boring weekend. I never thought I'd say it, but I'm starting to miss Dublin. Not the place of course, but just going out and having a laugh. Living on your own in England can be a gloomy business.

Two words to strike fear into the heart of adult and child alike: Root Canal. I've had an abcess for a while ever since the eight fillings escapade and decided to find an NHS dentist to take care of it. Little did I know that it'd involve five injections of anastethic, much drilling, and a good looking dentist poking around in the soft tissue of my gum for fourty minutes all made worse by having my appointment at eight in the morning. The only thing that kept me sane was munching on Ibuprofen for the rest of the day. I'm probably over my limit, but I've a low tolerence for pain and a high tolerence for drugs.

Six days rest not before I go back for more drilling. Good time to watch Marathon Man again.

Yes it's lazy bastard me again. Well that was a busy weekend, first going down to London to meet Iain and then having him come up to Cambridge to potter about the town.

Get in to London in the afternoon and of course we went down Tottenham Court Road where I went and got a digital camera for next to nothing then at last to another part of London - South Kensington and the Science Museum. We hadn't much time there but we got to see the introductory exhibit, the Space stuff which did moan over, much to Iain's consternation, and some odd, old, household appliances. A cheap Chinese buffet for dinner and then on to O'Neill's Irish pub to meet Elizabeth, Iain's girlfriend. I was the only one drinking, but then again, you have to when playing a gooseberry.

Got the last, cancelled, train home and fell asleep. It's not good for the heart to be woken up by someone banging on the window at the station at 2am,no matter how good looking she is. My chat-up line of, "Oh fuck, sweet Jaysis" didn't go down well, so I muttered a quiet thanks and wombled off to the taxi rank.

Bloody hell. Not five minutes down the railway line in Potter's Bar a train came gallumphing off the line and smashed into the platform. Six people dead so far and quite a few injured, it makes me feel a bit better about heading down to London tomorrow. On the other hand we've just had Happy Hour - a regular Friday occurrence where beer and various foodstuffs are provided to make happy little codemonkeys of us. Justin would be happy. There were bowls of Skittles.

Friday mornings. Teasingly not the weekend, but only eight hours again from the two days a week we get to ourselves. Unless you're a student then you never bloody work apart from the week before exams.

Just has the most gut wrenching news that a engineer can face; company is changing focus. Aparantly all it means for me is double the work and learning how to cope with another two products. Who needs a life anyway?

Good news though is that the Brahma Kumari centre is having a talk by a woman who's thought meditation to prisoners. Going up to meet Iain tomorrow and to Peterborough on Sunday I think, so I'll be nicely occupied.

Getting back into the work thing now. We moved out the a shiny new office in the Science Park over the weekend, and surprisingly everything more or less worked when I get in. I've gone from a very cramped, open-plan office to a lovely view of the UUnet building out a window, half-sized partitions, and more then a foot's distance from my boss. The only thing is, it's supposed to be closer, but it seems like it takes me longer to cycle in the morning.

Incipit Liber Primus

Well here it is - a diary I've been planning to keep for the past god-knows how long. Hopefully Bloger will make it a little simpler than writing a lot of bloody html.

Just back to Cambridge from a weekend home in Dublin where much alcohol was imbibed and many brain cells destroyed. The only problem was Ryanair - The Low Service Airline. I got into Stansted Airport in plenty of time for my 7:10pm flight when it was delayed, not for fifty minutes, not even for an hour, but for four long hours. Airports are depressing places at the best of times, but having to wait until 11:30pm while three flights to Dublin leave ahead of you, without even a cup of tea from the airline is enough to make you go looking for the nearest clock tower.

Bah!