So, last week...

Well, the work bit was dull; the company bits were better. Saturday was His Dark Materials with loads of people. Enjoyable, not as good as last year's production IMO, mostly free of stress and good to see people.

In the spirit of good PR I had dinner with one of my colleagues - who I'd not got on especially well with. This worked too well - Friday night she was on MSN, probably a bit drunk, telling me about her friend who had gotten involved in the swinging scene. Erm, right, yes.

Of course, not wanting to waste the fact I took my camera with me I did take a few photos, behind the cut for your delictation ( Photos )

Rudeword-Animal

Avid readers will remember my annoyance at trying to get my Dad's PC working over the Christmas period - well today the replacement was returned, was out of the box for an hour, now has been put back in the box awaiting collection tomorrow.

I could use large numbers of creative expletives at this point, but I won't. I will be restrained and professional, but really I will have to question building a PC in that way another time. First there was a DOA, then the courier pretended they couldn't find the house to collect it, then the courier couldn't find the house to deliver the replacement, then the next is a DOA...

Next time - Dell...

Caricature

Having just been to my german class again, I'm convinced I've stepped onto the set of a sit-com. All the stereotypes are there - the old man who mumbles to himself, the overconfident professional, the mousey quiet woman and so on. Part of me is intrigued which one I am - so go on LJ - help me out with suggestions...

It's all good fun mind, but I do question the quality of some of the teaching - the instructor knows something (to reinforce learning, to encourage participation and interaction) but she's very fast, mumbles her target language and seems almost afraid to correct mistakes. I'd rather a bit more accuracy.

Also this evening I've installed the new version of Trillian. Apart from being more like Windows FisherPrice and taking up more screenestate to do the same thing it seems ok. However, the contextual links to wikipedia seem a little over-enthusisatic. I used the word "manage" in a conversation to mean "to apply principles of managment" and it thought I was talking about Belgium and offered me this:

Manage is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On January 1, 2004 Manage had a total population of 22,091 (10,820 males and 11,271 females). The total area is 19.68 km² which gives a population density of 1,122.33 inhabitants per km².

So, now I know...