December 15th, 2008
If you ever played Command & Conquer back in the day and are looking for a passing distraction you could do worse than trying out Crystalien Conflict. It’s a great little RTS on the Lego web site, which Ben and I have been playing together recently.
Things have certainly come a long way from when I played Adventure with my dad, loaded from tape on a home-made Acorn Atom. I remember this experience vividly and how much fun I had as we mapped our way through the maze of twisty passages by leaving our possessions behind in a trail, Hansel and Gretel fashion.
For this reason I’m taking my time with Ben and making sure we get through the game. The adventure I had with my dad was never completed because we got stuck, much to my disappointment.
At this point it’s traditional to make curmudgeonly grumblings about there being nothing wrong with simpler, traditional games that don’t require a computer. Well, I don’t agree but I’ll make this observation: Just yesterday Ben was played Draughts with me (and others) on a real board in the real world. He got just as excited and involved as with anything on the computer.
I think what you’re playing is not so important. As long as it catches their imagination and is fun for both of you then you’re winning. If I can get Ben thinking stategy, be that why jumping an opponent’s piece isn’t always your best move or why defending your Crystal Harvester is so important, then I’m happy.
Tags: acorn, adventure, atom, ben, cnc, dad, draughts, games, lego, rts, strategy
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December 3rd, 2008
Today our cat Tilly died after a short illness. Louise and I are both very sad but Ben and Jess are too young to take on board what it means.
It will be strange not to have her around, as she’s been with us since before the children were born and for all the time we’ve been in our current house. We got her in 2001, around the time we were married, along with her brother Tiger. She was a rescue cat and the rescue centre estimated that she was three years old. That means she was about ten. She certainly didn’t seem old to us.
Tilly was the most docile cat I’ve ever met. She took untold grief from Ben and Jessica and would only scratch after extreme provocation. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer family cat. She was so unassuming I think we all took her for granted… and now she’s gone.
Goodbye Tilly. We’ll all miss you.
Tags: announcements
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November 29th, 2008
Louise and I both believe that one of the most important things you can teach your children is to be self reliant. To this end we work hard to teach both Ben and Jessica skills like getting dressed by themselves and getting their own breakfast.
Now, this is not the easiest course of action and often enough backfires. You’ll come down in the morning to find the fridge door wide open with a pool of milk on the floor next to it. Just yesterday Jessica got dressed on her own initiative but used one of her tops as a skirt.
However, it does pay off in the long run. Just a year ago the average time I’d get up on a weekend was 7am. This morning the children still got up at 7am but when I rolled out of bed at 8am they’d been playing nicely together (modulo one screaming argument which they resolved without our help) and had already eaten their breakfast together.
Tags: ben, jessica, louise, parenting
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November 27th, 2008
Congratulations to Tim, Kathy and Naomi!
One thing I’ll say is that having children certainly sparked my own interest in photography.
Tags: friends
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November 24th, 2008
This Christmas is the first one that Ben has had at his new C of E school. Although vaguely aware of religious connotations to Christmas, to him (and the rest of the family) Christmas is more about family getting together, and to be brutally honest, presents.
The other day, Ben came home with a competition to design the front cover of the School Christmas Fair programme. The theme was of the Traditional Christmas story. Ben (foolishly) asked me what this was.
Me : Hmmm I’m not really sure. Maybe Rudolf, or Father Christmas? Not sure if there is a traditional Christmas story.
Ben: Umm, is it maybe something to do with Jesus?
Me: Oh yes, that Christmas story.
Tags: christmas
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November 20th, 2008
Ben: Daddy? Do you stop growing when you’re 18?
Andrew: Well… some people stop growing before they’re 18 and some people stop growing after they’re 18 but I stopped growing when I was about 18.
Ben: And when was that?
Andrew: Err…
Ben: Was it 10,000 years ago?
Tags: andrew, ben, quotes
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November 9th, 2008
The last two weeks have been pretty hectic. This time two weeks ago I was sitting on a flight to Houston. The night before, Louise and I were working a bar together, which was a lot more fun than I was expecting.
The flight to the US was for work. Two days in Houston, visiting our seriously hurricane-proof data centre, followed by two days in Washington at a CDISC conference. For an inexperienced traveller, that’s a pretty punishing schedule; I didn’t do much useful on the Friday when I got back.
Saturday evening saw us all braving the downpours to go to the Wokingham firework show. The numbers were down significantly on previous years. I’d say only about a third the normal turnout. This had the advantage that we could park relatively closely. We left before the finale, however, as the kids had become very wet and cold.
This last week saw me scrabbling to catch up at work while trying to sort out a broken toilet flush at home in the evenings. I almost sorted the toilet out entirely on my own (with Louise on parts shopping duty during the day) but had to call in my dad for the last stage of reconnecting the water. I’ll get there one day. It only twigged with me a year or so ago that dads aren’t born knowing how to do everything, they just have twenty plus years head start on you.
I’m really enjoying work at the moment. We’re working on a new project, which is allow us to start over. This is a rarity in the application development arena. So often you’re building off someone else’s work, which limits your choices. We’re taking this opportunity to adopt some best of breed technologies and design the code in a way that we can have extensive automated unit tests. I’m very hopeful that the benefits this will deliver will be measurable. I’m also really chuffed that my team has taken my directions and run with them.
Yesterday saw my third visit to the Woking Beer Festival. The highlight, as ever, was the Whurlitzer performance by Len Rawle. Several hundred beered-up folks singing along to the likes of Old Bull And Bush and Jerusalem is great fun.
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October 15th, 2008
I’ve not been following Jamie’s Ministry Of Food very closely but I’ll have to admit that his Chicken Korma recipe is really good. It might feel a little like cheating using a pre-prepared curry paste — I’ve been a From Scratch curry person since Mr Sutton pointed me in the direction of The Really Useful Indian Cook Book about 10 years ago — but when it tastes this good I don’t care. This one’s a keeper.
So, in the spirit of passing it on, follow the link and give it a try. Just don’t blame me if you eat too much.
Tags: cooking, curry, food, jamie oliver, recipes
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October 7th, 2008
Tim, the link you posted to the Another Way to Die video seems to be broken. Here’s one that works, at least at the moment. Meh. Perhaps the title sequence will make it work.
The trailer does look good. My problem is with the name. I was going to complain that the plural of quantum is quanta but that’s the wrong way round. The real issue with Quantum of Solace is that it’s far too close to The Phantom Menace and we all know how that turned out.
Tags: films, james bond, music, soundtracks, star wars
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