Well, there you go. The op’s been cancelled. I was half expecting it: mine was hardly the most pressing need. I’m half relieved, of course, but half frustrated because it must happen eventually.

A quiet night in with some pretty good Chinese food and the last 2 NFL Wildcard games. Trying to take my mind off the impending surgery. It worked, more or less. Games weren’t too good, though - predictable and not too close. Certainly proved that the Colts were just toying with the Broncos last week, or maybe even by letting them win they knew they’d have an easy start to the playoffs?

Also playing a bit of the old Black and White on the new laptop. God, it’s a good game (no pun intended). Mind you, having read a tip-sheet it would appear that the fact my creature is a fat bastard is in fact not such a good thing :->

It’s funny how our expectations and assumptions change over time. Coming back from town on the bus, a bloke got on who was chuntering away to himself continually. Time was when you’d have just have thought “mad bloke” and smiled in a compassionate but don’t-come-near-us-just-in-case kind of a way. Now you just assume he’s got a phone handsfree and is having a terribly important conversation.

Now, there’s a whole second argument we could have about how annoyed you get with people talking on handsfree sets (wired or, for some people even worse for some reason, Bluetooth). Some might be surprised, given how many things I do get annoyed about, that this one really doesn’t get my goat at all. OK, poeple who shout on phones are irksome, but provided they’re just talking, what’s the problem? The only difference between someone on a phone and two people on the bus having a conversation is that you can only hear one half of the phone conversation. Big deal! What’s the problem - is it that you can’t eavesdrop properly?

Even more bizarre, though, is the subset of people who don’t get wound up by people with a phone to their ear but do object to people using and handsfree device. For goodness’ sake, why? What on earth is the difference? Answers on a postcard.

Postcards. How quaint! Remember you used to know the postcode for Swap Shop off by heart? Or Tiswas if you came from a -ahem- common household. I’ve actually had TV nostalgia conversations with people the same age as me who said “Oh, I never saw Magpie because we weren’t allowed to watch ITV.” Eh?

Anyway, I digress. The bloke on the bus? After all that: mad bloke.

Walking Desdog on the Common today and there were daft twonks trying to fly huge kites and ride kite buggies. For those not from these parts, we’re currently experiencing what you might call bloody strong winds. Some people have got no right to expect to see tomorrow - honestly, to pursue a hobby that involves goading the elements and tweaking the nose of danger is just plain irresponsible! Oh. Hang on - snowboarding. No, that’s different.

Because I say so.

I must stop comparing myself to people. This second nascent attempt at a blog (Who reads it? Who cares. That’s not the point, necessarily) is still to some extent inspired, like the first, by people like James Lileks, whose www.lileks.com is a constant source of little nuggets. The Gallery of Regrettabe Food is priceless. The Daily Bleat is what most bloggers might aspire to: well-written, despite his disclaimers to the contrary, and in turns funny, poignant and powerful.

Point is, he’s a professional writer. It comes easily to him (bet he’d hate me saying that) whereas for a geek like me, I’m much better at telling a machine what to do. Maybe that’s the point: this is real-world time for me. Up to a point, of course, because I spend as much time dicking about with PHP and CSS as I do with content. Mind you, my other pre-rolled excuse is that all the mucking about with the website might bloom into a career change at some point: it’s useful to have these skills in your locker, just in case. Hey, let’s just cut to the chase here: I’m doing this because I want to. So there.

Snooker with the cloggy tomorrow night. Looking forward to it - the club will be less busy because all the copy-cats who do whatever’s been on telly recently will be playing darts instead. Working on the sovreign rings, body hair and sweaty brow.

I’m bound to lose. I’ve got the ready-made excuse now, having only one good eye and all - binocular vision is kind of important for snooker, but it really doesn’t matter. It’s a social thing. The snooker club being a hang-out for APU students, the other game we’ll be playing is Spot the Anglophone.

SELinux needed to be unbunged after the nightly yum update, leading to complete loss of all dynamic content. Now fixed. Sorry bout that!

Sky Plus kicks arse, it’s true. But here we are, months and months after first sitting down and deciding as much, I have my first nit to pick. It’s a pretty small one though.

I thought I was clear of all the chuffing annoying Christmas adverts, but of course because I have so much stuff to choose from, some of it recorded weeks ago, I still have them. Of course, I can skip them - the glory of Sky Plus at its best - but the Boots ones with Harry Hill are just so annoying that even a frame or two makes me incandescent with rage. Well, nearly.

Today was a write-off because of the strange flu-like lurgy that’s been going round. Didn’t feel up to much, and ended up having a Martin Sheen day: finally watched Apocolypse Now on Sky Plus (the greatest gadget known to man) and the first three West Wing episodes on my lovely new first series box set Christmas present.

I couldn’t put my finger on what was different about the first episode - then I realised that of course there was no “previously on the West Wing”.

Time spent queueing in traffic on Newmarket Road: 95 mins. Cars passing me in the bus lanes: about 37. Actual buses: 1. ONE. For crying out loud, what’s the point?

It would appear that the New Year’s Day Bank Holiday is the time when every bugger in humanity must visit a furniture shop. Of course, given that Newmarket Road is the furniture shop ghetto for the whole of Cambridge, that means that the single lane in either direction given over to real, rather than imaginary, traffic becomes a car park.

Before you ask, I was picking up 2m lengths of tile trim for the bathroom project from hell, so the journey was unavoidable…

(Victor Meldrew moment number one in a series of, well, lots.)