Achtung, Baby

Posted on December 25, 2006 by blogmywiki

I was going to write a small rant about Christmas tree lights (why wired in series, not parallel, etc) but they are almost all working now. A mere 7 bulbs replaced in one set, a mere hour and a half spent with a multimeter and some colourful language.

But, no, this is about toys. Long-time readers may remember my previous discussion about not liking Playmobil because of the amount of time it took me to build the pirate ship, compared with the small amount of time it took my children to demolish it.

This year Henry got the big Playmobil Subbuteo-style football game. Only took me about 15 minutes to put it together, using the usual nicely drawn graphic instructions. But the instructions on how to actually play the game – they’re in German.

Made me laugh almost as much as Mrs Blogmywiki insisting that Eau de Vie de Poire William was a light aperitif and turning the colour of Withnail drinking lighter fuel when she swigged back a capful.

Posted in children, Christmas, family life, Playmobil | Leave a comment

Polar Excess

Posted on December 21, 2006 by blogmywiki

Is it just me, or is the animated film Polar Express a nasty piece of work?

I watched it at the in-laws last year on DVD – I may have had too much goose and port but it made me feel sick. And it’s now showing in 3D at the IMAX cinema at Waterloo – that’s a great way to screw up your kids’ Christmas.

There’s just something sinister about it, and not sinister in a good way. Just bleak and scary with no shred of comfort. And not great to look at, either. Give me any old adaptation of A Christmas Carol, give me that cartoon of Oscar Wilde’s Happy Prince, but above all give me The Amazing Mr Blunden.

Posted in children, Christmas, cinema | 2 Comments

Great un-taken photographs, No.3 in an occasional series

Posted on December 11, 2006 by blogmywiki
  • Outside Royal Festival Hall early in the morning, about 50 identically dressed construction workers in a neat queue lining up to get on site, all wearing same hard hats and high visibility tabards. Title: “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go”.
  • At 6.50am this morning, row of neat houses. In one the living room is empty and illuminated by a TV set. In the hallway and clearly visible through the clear glass in the front door, a couple in dressing gowns standing a few feet apart, kissing each other on the lips in an oddly formal way.
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G4 Tower of Power!

Posted on December 4, 2006 by blogmywiki

Someone was chucking this out – a G4 PowerMac with OS 8.6, a 10GB hard drive and 64MB RAM.

I spent £30 on 256MB more RAM, and stuck in it the 20GB hard drive I used to have in my BondiBlue iMac. Luckily this hard drive already had OS X on it, as this G4 doesn’t have a DVD-ROM drive. Made this drive the master, added the computer’s own drive back in as a slave, and now I have a pretty servicable computer in the back room for the kids and family – all for £30. The flooping huge Apple Studio Display gives a damn good picture too!

Still a few things to do – this is one of the very first G4 PowerMacs I think, and it only has a miserly 2 USB ports, so a USB hub is pretty essential. But it also has two Firewire ports and once I’ve flattened the 10GB drive I’m going to see if it’s up to some video editing. A DVD-ROM or CD-R drive would be cool too, if possible.

Posted in Apple, computers, hardware, lowendmac, MacOS X | 2 Comments

Bad Parenting Tips

Posted on November 27, 2006 by blogmywiki

No.2 in an occasional series

  • If you are bothered by your small children insisting on climbing into your bed in the middle of the night, deter them with water pistols. I mean, it works with cats…

Posted in children, family life | Leave a comment