Year: 2013
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BlackBerry Crumble
Last week my beloved BlackBerry Z10 bricked on me. I have no idea why, but after the alarm waking me up as normal (and switching on my Sonos system and playing NPR automatically), the red notification light started blinking almost constantly and I couldn’t get it to power on. I tried a battery pull, recharging it, trying another battery, but nothing. I tried connecting it to my PC, but BlackBerry Link failed to detect it. A quick scan of the forums (fora?) suggested a hardware issue. So that was that. I spent the rest of the day realizing how much… Read more
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Peddling my Wheres
Last week, my car started getting through antifreeze faster than it was getting through gas; I’d fill up the radiator and before I’d gone a couple of miles the Radiator light was on and I’d left a trail of blue liquid all up and down the road. This being Texas, there’s ample opportunity to overheat, so I thought I’d better get it seen to. I’m a one (crappy) car family, and the nearest Chevrolet service center is some 5 miles away, so I figured I’d strap my bike to the back of the car and drive it round on Monday… Read more
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A measure of life
I don’t know, kids today, they’re just growing up so fast. Despite being only 12, my daughter decided that she wanted – no, needed – a subscription to Seventeen magazine. When I was 12 I think I was subscribing to 2000 AD and worrying about whether my Curly Wurly would melt in my satchel, not subscribing to magazines five years ahead of me and worrying that my satchel made may ass look big… Still, Seventeen seems innocuous enough (at least when compared to Cosmo or Marie Claire), and is only $10 a year (which is about what I spend on… Read more
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Hipsters are pants
Last week, whilst my kids were ‘enjoying’ their mom’s summer possession period, I thought I’d take my mind off it by taking a long weekend away with the gf. We wanted to go somewhere that neither of us had been, and eventually settled on Seattle, WA as a suitable destination. We reasoned that Seattle had a pretty hip cultural scene, and had the added advantage of being somewhat nearer the North Pole than home, and therefore a suitable refuge from the searing heat of Houston, TX, in August. This latter assumption proved to be of marginal benefit, as Seattle seemed… Read more
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Apple Turnover
Despite having rented houses ever since I left England (some 20 years ago), every so often I think about how nice it would be to own my own home. Not because I think renting is money down the drain (although it is) or that I want to ‘put down roots’, or any of the usual reasons, but because I really want to wire the entire house for sound, so I can stream music to whatever room I am in at the push of a button (or swipe of a touchscreen). I’ve always got music on when I’m home – and… Read more