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I came across this article in the Metro yesterday:
As I read it, particularly the end, I was reminded of many Japanese izakaya where you have been able to order via touch screens for a long time.
Then there are the family restaurants where you press a buzzer for attention. I want to eat at Barmiyan!
Today is a bank holiday in England and I worked overtime. I'm a bit disgruntled that the weather was so good - why couldn't it have rained!
Going to work was surreal. I got on the train to work and it was bliss. There were so few people and the District Line whizzed into the city in record time. Saying that, the lack of people made the littered subway at the station where two tramps were sleeping particularly creepy. Outside there was practially no traffic and no shops near my office were open whatsoever - no coffee!
Work itself wasn't too bad, pretty quiet all in all. The gym was also nice and peaceful at lunchtime. Tomorrow it will be back to normal and the noisy folk will be back at the office to distract me from my work.
If you are the UK I hope you enjoyed your long weekend.
Pret have changed their tuna baguettes to a 'dophin friendly' variety. Don't tuna normally like dolphins?!
In stark contrast to the height of the sexy high heels I wrote about the other day, here's an interesting piece of footware popular in Japan at the moment.
Any clue as to the reasoning behind them?
Getting to work proved to be a nightmare this morning. At the station there was an announcement about 'emergency engineering works' in the Aldgate area which meant that that there were delays and that the district line was only running as far as Tower Hill.
Emergency engineering works? That seemed to be the official line but one announcement said that part of a tunnel had caved in! Can you imagine? I'm not sure how serious it actually was, but it doesn't sound good, does it? Were there Tube trains in the area at the time?
My clever plan B, which was to take the Piccadilly Line into the city, failed miserably due to a series of signal failures around the Hyde Park area. Talk about sod's law. Sometimes, you just have to let the frustration go and realise that whatever you do, you'll be pretty late for work.
I got to thinking that I should start a Tube blog, though it would inevitably involve a great deal of whinging. I see that there are other people with similar ideas:
> Going Underground's Blog
> The Underground Blog Experience
I saw a great website the other day about tube etiquette. It's an amusing read but gives away too many Tube riding tactics! Maybe my own Tube blog could have a 'tactics' section. What do you think?
After a colleagues recommendation of the Light Bar & Restaurant on Shoreditch High Street not far from Liverpool Street station I went to check it out last night.
When you walk into this ex-railway warehouse, you are entering a massive room, just as high as it is long or deep, and you sense a bizarre mix of old and new. There are black metal wheels and pulleys high up on beams; then there are metal vents running across the ceiling and a red back-lit mirrored bar on the far side of the room. The place is dark but there are many small candles alongside the huge windows.
Personally I liked the atmosphere, hanging out with sharply dressed city workers out for a drink after work.
HttpUnit emulates elements of web browser behaviour and allows you access to web sites through your own Java programs. Cookies are automatically handled and you can easily perform common browser tasks such as clicking links or filling in and submitting forms.
Used in combination with JUnit, you can write programs to test your web sites with ease. How about a simple program to test for broken links or even your own web spider to follow links across the Web?
Here's a few lines of code, taken from the HttpUnit site to show how easy it is:
WebConversation wc = new WebConversation();
WebResponse resp =
wc.getResponse( "http://www.notestomyself.net" );
WebLink link = resp.getLinkWith( "about" );
link.click();
This is just what I've been looking for! In my case, I'm tinkering with a program I wrote a while back to enable it to directly upload graphics to this site.
I know I could use macro programs or even Visual Basic, but I prefer this elegant solution, particularly because I can easily integrate it with my old Java code. The only down side, you might argue, is that you can't follow the browser visually without further output from your program.
On my commute to work in London I often see Japanese people. That's all well and good but sometimes they notice me, too. Why? Because I might be browsing a free Japanese newspaper or attempting to read a Japanese book.
Japanese books are easy to spot because of the paper covers that Japanese book shops put on top of the original covers. Also, novels tend to be smaller than typical English equivalents. See if you can spot them on the Tube.
For fear of stereotyping, a tell-tale sign of a Japanese woman out and about is Louis Vuitton. Why Louis Vuitton bags are so popular with Japanese women, I will never know.
Today, just as I was about to get a Japanese tennis magazine out of my bag, a man sat down next to me. I didn't see his face, but something told me he was Japanese. Was it his suit? Perhaps. Ah, his man bag satchel! A quick glance and what do you know, he was reading a Japanese book.
There are other signs of course I tend to go by: clothes and hairstyles. Of course, if you know a bit of the lingo, a couple of Japanese friends will be obvious as soon as they speak. That reminds me...
The other day I was having a conversation in Japanese with a friend in a pub. A girl sat down at the table next to us and she seemed to keep looking in our direction (not that unusual, I grant you!). It wasn't until her friend arrived and they started speaking Japanese that I realised she'd been listening to our entire conversation. With non-native Japanese, I felt violated!
At the cinema it was a toss up between Transformers and Die Hard 4.0. Despite numerous comments from colleagues about how good Tranformers I opted for Die hard.
As it often the case with films which deal with computers and hackers, stereotypes were a little over-used (do all hackers love Star Wars?) and hackers were glamourised, including their incredibly colourful user interfaces. I suppose typing at command line prompts or launching little utilities wouldn't make for good viewing.
Even though I'm not into action films that much anymore, overall I was pleasantly surprised by Die Hard 4.0. The action was non-stop and well-scripted, with just one scene which went way beyond far-fetched, but what do you expect? There's also some good humour thrown in for good measure.
Next up, Tranformers, then.
On the train a woman got on, looked at somebody sitting down and said in a very confident tone, 'Excuse me, would you mind letting me sit down? I have a injured leg and I can't stand up for too long.'
Of course, the man obliged and stood up. How couldn't he? If he'd refused he would've looked terrible. On the other hand he must have wondered if she was bluffing, as I'm sure half the carriage did. Was it the perfect bluff? Would people stoop so low?
My middle finger has seen to much use and has started to hurt... Can you guess why? On second thoughts, I don't want to know. I think I've got RSI resulting from my mouse scroll wheel! Typing all day is not helping, either.
There was a lady in front of me this morning walking to work in her trainers.
She was carrying nothing but a see-through plastic bag, inside which was a pair of sexy high heel shoes and an apple - just the essentials!
Just what is it about heels which makes them look so good? What I find interesting is how some women love their high heels and couldn't be without them while other women won't go near them.
Have you ever sold domain names before? Maybe you can offer me some advice. A while back I purchased a few domains but I'd like to sell them. I won't name them but one of them is pretty sellable but fits a niche market.
I've found GoDaddy's Domain Name AfterMarket (see example domain name auctions), which costs $4.99/year, though I'm not sure of the fees for listing domains and whether they charge comission.
Another service called Sedo is free to join and there is no fee for listing a domain. If you domain sells you pay 10% commission.
Do you know of any other domain name selling services you could recommend?
This isn't my first grumble regarding PayPal. Far enough, the service is convenient for buying on sites like eBay and makes it easy for individuals to receive money from auctions or even friends and family around the world.
Paying via PayPal once you have Direct Debits set up is quick and painless, but what about the other way around? Today I tried to transfer my PayPal balance to my bank account and I find it hard to believe that this will take 5-7 working days.
I know that standard banks typically take up to three business days to transfer money to different banks which is bad enough, but 5-7 days? Then there is the small charge for transfers under £50, encouraging users to leave their money with PayPal.
Is there a good reason for all of this, or is PayPal just making an extra week's interest from its users' money?
Six months after its release, how many people do you think use Windows Vista compared to Windows XP?
In terms of Internet Browsing do you think more people use Windows vista or Mac OS X?
To find out the results according to my website statistics click below to see the results.
When you were in school and you tripped over, did people used to say, 'You fel'ooova!'?
I kept thinking about the phrase today because I couldn't seem to walk properly. On a few occasions I nearly twisted my ankle walking along the road. This was all really quite strange as I'm not normally a clumsy person.
At lunch I was stepping out onto the road from the curb. My ankle went and I ducked down to regain my balance and must have looked so stupid as I vanished from view between the cars either side of me.
On the train on the way home a guy was standing in front of me reading a paper. The train lurched forwards and the guy lost his balance and fell backwards badly, nearly flattening the woman sitting opposite me. He just about kept himself upright by slamming his left hand into the window behind the woman's head. As bad as it is, I felt pleased that my embarassments had clearly been eclipsed!
Was it just national Fall Over Day?
Enough was enough: I was tired with my old colour scheme so I've changed it. Greens are still the order of the day, but it still feels fresh.
Quiz time: can you remember exactly how it was before? I hope you noticed that it had changed, at the very least.
The banner has also slightly modified for a cleaner graphical design look. Full points if you'd noticed that, too!
At this time of the morning I thought I'd be sound asleep but for some reason I'm wide awake. My week of night shifts has finally ended so it's back to a normal routine. I feel like I've got jet lag without having been anywhere. Actually, the week wasn't too bad and I did have the days to myself when I wasn't asleep.
I suppose I'll be moaning doing the hot crowded commute next week. The grass is always greener...
'Is there any give in these jeans?' I asked myself, thinking they felt a little tight. I twisted this way and that in the changing room, then did a little squat to see if they'd stretch at all. As I did this I heard a horrible tearing noise!
As I pondered my predicament - how many of us would leave the jeans back and not say anything? - I took the jeans off to inspect the damage. But there was no rip; it had been my boxer shorts that ripped down the back!
Incidentally, I decided the jeans were a pretty good fit and bought them in the end. Time to shop for some new boxer shorts, then...
A pigeon decided to fly into the Subway where I was eating my Sub of the Day (too much deli mustard). It then tried to fly out through nearly every closed window in the place. With the force it was smashing into the windows I thought it's skull might crack. Moments later, it slid down a window pane, wings flapping helplessly.
A small bloke from behind the counter came out, reached under the table in front of me and grabbed the pigeon with one hand and let it go outside the window where it flew off. Not bad! It probably happens quite often, but I felt sorry for the flustered ladies in front of me who dropped their Subs in fright.
It's quite sad that this was the most exciting thing to happen today...
