1 Mar 2001 (Thursday) 

Saw the first episode of the 10th Kingdom today. Given that I only saw one advert for it on Friday, I'm really glad I did. It's really quite cool. So, have to remember... Next Thursday, 8pm, 10th Kingdom. But no Buffy for 3 weeks.

I love you, always forever. Near and far, closer together. Everywhere, I will be with you. Everything, I do for you. [ I Love You, by Donna Lewis ]

I blame WolfFM (why the FM ? It's not on FM radio!) for this one, as it's just played too much.

I'm still having problems sleeping at the moment. Maybe tonight I'll sleep better.

Oh dear; I scared the cat by laughing at him. He was playing with the springy doorstop behind the door, and it was twanging as he played. I thought it was quite cute .

I've just noticed that the Buffy season 2 DVD set will be available 28th May. For 64 quid. Hmm... And 10th Kingdom is on Region 1 DVD. I can't quite justify buying it after only one episode - although it's quite cool so far. And Spaced season 1 is on DVD, too.

Oceans Apart, Day after day, And I slowly go insane. I hear your voice, On the line, But it doesn't stop the pain. If I see you next to never, How can we say 'forever' ? [ Right Here Waiting, by Richard Marx ]

Awww... I just love that track !

Long ago, David Cotton wrote me a lovely email correcting the diary and saying that I'd got a track attribution wrong. I've finally got around to replying.

Other diary comments include someone pointing out that Catatonia is a person, not a group (q.v. 'how to sort music' in January), one from Ben Laughton also talking about 'The Ballad Of Tom Jones', and one from Michael Stubbs about MPEG decoders and 'ideas for things to port'.

I had a foolish idea about porting mailx today - it's simple and command line based. Really I should finish the pine port, but I no longer know where the source is. I know where it was. But that hard drive is long gone now .

Spent most of this evening whilst waiting for Mum listening to WolfFM on Shoutcast. It's really quite cool.

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2 Mar 2001 (Friday) 

Went to Norwich today for Opticians appointment. Got some new glasses. Got snowed on. Bought Command And Conquer Red Alert, Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri and Wing Commander Prophecy (they were all in one pack, for £9.99!). Should keep me in games (with Homeworld Cataclysm) for about 6 months I guess.

And I bought the Spaced series 1 DVD too. I'm too tired to think, so I'm going to sleep.

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4 Mar 2001 (Sunday) 

In a wild and bizarre attempt to open up my software development a little, I've decided to dump the CVS logs of what I'm doing on the website. The idea is to prevent me talking about the specifics on the diary; I can just refer to those details in the logs themselves. The logs are in a 'strange' format, due to the manner in which they've reached the webpages. But, if anyone is interested, they're updated at the same time as my main pages, so you should get them near immediately updated. There are still problems with the pages, but they're generally pretty neat, I think.

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5 Mar 2001 (Monday) 

Went to see Celtus (or at 'Folking') today in Reading. A very cool concert. I wouldn't say there was a single impressive thing about it - it was all great - but the way they came on stage and the three of them just went straight in to 'What goes around...' was amazing !

Anyhow, what did we have ? I can't remember an order, but...

• Strange Day In The Country
• Moonchild
• The Pilgrim
• We Two Are One (encore)
• The Awakening
• Portrait
• Cathedral
• What Goes Around
• Angel
• Jigsaw
• Changes
• Liberate
• Shelter
• Hole Inside My Heart

Angel was a particular favourite, as was Shelter, and The Pilgrim. But the whole concert was exceptional. And I managed to get a ticket signed, too. Which was very cool - they were meeting the audience and signing things at the end, which is a lovely idea.

This is no honeymoon picture postcard, I'm sending from the battlelines. Lines are drawn, Each side of the streets; Neighbours are strangers here, And never ever speak. And the smoke in the sky above is blotting out the sun. There are hard times up ahead, For our daughters and our sons; And all the kings and their desires, Making lifes blood fan the fire; When all we want it shelter from the storm; Sweet kisses in our mothers arms. We're all waiting for the storm to break; Then the sun might shine within, We pray with God we see a new horizon. [ Shelter, from What Goes Around..., by Celtus ]

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10 Mar 2001 (Saturday) 

Went to Cambridge yesterday to see Peter and Julia, with Matthew. That was quite nice, although I had to go quite early because of the trains. Next week, I'll try to spend longer with them and stay over night instead of rushing to the trains. That makes a lot more sense.

Got back from Cambridge at about 8pm. And opened my new computers. I've bought myself a second RPC, so that if the one I use dies I've still got one to fall back on. "Just in case". At 9pm it was Angel, which was strange. Angel's going a bit crazy now . And Julian rang to say he wasn't very well, so after Angel finished, mum and myself went up to York to pick him up. He really isn't very well. We got back at about 5am, and I just collapsed into bed.

Apparently Mum took him to the hospital today, for some tests. I do hope I hear from them soon - they're not back, and Mum hasn't rung to say what's happening yet .

He's stabilized in hospital now. It's Diabetes, I'm told. At one point he had a blood sugar level of 64, which I'm told isn't very good. You're meant to have a level of 7. He's likely to be in for a little while, anyhow. I hope to go to see him tomorrow, if I can get in.

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11 Mar 2001 (Sunday) 

Spent most of today at the Hospital with Julian. He's looking - to me - a lot worse than he did on Friday, when we picked him up. But I didn't see him on Saturday morning and it was late Friday. Anyhow, he does look rough, and his voice was very gravely and low. But he did seem a lot better as the day went on - Mum said he was looking a lot better from Saturday, too. He's not had much chance to sleep, though, because they're taking blood samples about once an hour which tends to disturb you. He's got these Potassium and Saline drips and Insulin too, in different proportions. It's very strange. He's hopeful he'll be out soon. I'm hoping it'll be before Wednesday, anyhow, because he'll be getting a bit distraught by then.

Finished watching Spaced today, too. It's quite a cool DVD. It's got commentary all the way through the each episode, and on the out-takes.

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12 Mar 2001 (Monday) 

Charmed tonight rocked. At first it was just strange, then it went to bizarre and finally just wierd. The whole 'Matrix' ending was really quite amazingly cool.

Watched Spaced tonight, too. Unfortunately I lost the end of it whilst they're at 'Robot Club' (only having seen the adverts for Fight Club, it still seemed cool). But unfortunately the tape stopped just as the missiles were being deployed .

I've had an overwhelming response to the CVS logs question, it seems. I'm really quite amazed at how people feel about the logs. I have to ask myself, though, why do people find it so interesting... It's not like they're anything special. I do feel quite pleased that I'm keeping to documenting changes relatively well now, though. The whole move to CVS has been very productive, actually.

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14 Mar 2001 (Wednesday) 

Julian's home now, and I spoke to Philip for ages tonight, and... um... that's about it for today.

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16 Mar 2001 (Friday) 

I had a play with my little digital camera today. It's not great. It doesn't like low light levels. But I've got the source to the programs, and it's reasonably fun to twiddle with bits and pieces. Plus it's an opportunity to play with VC++, which is annoying, but interesting nonetheless.

Wrote a long email to drobe today. Far too long, really. But that was vaguely interesting anyhow .

Online ordering things is good. If the company believes you live where you tell them you live, that is. I thought I'd try ordering from Scan on the PC, as I was in Windows anyhow (for the first time in about two weeks!). So I enter my postcode and house number. And what do they say ? We don't have a record of there being an address like that there. No, that's because your records are wrong. I live at 17b. There is no 17 on this road. And certainly not two of them. Your database is in error .

I've had quite a few replies to the 'why do you like the logs' thing. One of them suggested I RSS parts of it; that sounds like a quite cool idea too. I could certainly do that for the History section, although extracting the Summary from the data would be interesting. It'd not be too hard, though.

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17 Mar 2001 (Saturday) 

It was Dad's birthday today, so I remembered to give him his present. I'd bought him Top Gun, as he really loves the film .

And on that subject, it seems I share my birthday with John Tytgat, which is quite nice to know .

Oh, to everyone who wished Julian well since he was taken to Hospital, he's back at home now and I passed on your regards. He was very thankful, and a little surprised that I'd talked about it. Just so that you know - he is grateful for the interest shown.

Spent some of today trying to understand the phenomenon that is 'All your base are belong to us'. Whilst not entirely impressed by it in its own right, it's interesting nonetheless. To save me explaining this, though, 'Retrogames' have a Page explaining the derivation of the phrase.

Oh, and Rob Davison pointed out I'd made a mistake in one of the URLs I posted for Celtus. Thanks for that Rob - fixed now .

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18 Mar 2001 (Sunday) 

Are you now, or have you ever been, Dave Gorman ? If so, Dave Gorman would like to hear from you. B. Dave Gorman need not apply.

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19 Mar 2001 (Monday) 

Don't you think it's pretty good of Sky to say 'Program synopsis unavailable' instead of saying 'Program details unavailable'. Firstly, because it's the right word to use, and secondly because it's a much nicer word all around

My 10th Kingdom book arrived today, too. Cool.

And in other news... um... yeah, I've updated the textlist library to handle sorting and so... dum, dum, dum... the Modules list on the CVS page is now ordered.

Yesterday's Dave Gorman link was broken; many thanks to Iain for pointing that out .

Hmm... Balthazar destroys the triad... Charmed just gets stranger...

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21 Mar 2001 (Wednesday) 

Coo. 10th Kingdom DVD arrived today. That's kinda cool.

I was having problems today trying to get a chunk of code to work. The main reason it was failing was that I'd assumed I could write to code areas within it. And for various reasons, I now find that I can't. So I had to restructure how it works. I spent about two hours trying to get it right before giving up and going to watch telly. I came back and immediately wrote the code I needed. And it worked first time. I was pleased.

It does also mean that I've now seen the beginning of the 10th Kingdom - the first episode which I had missed.

We were meant to go to Norwich today, but it was snowing quite badly, so we called it off. Ah well.

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23 Mar 2001 (Friday) 

Mike: I've had an idea for a new infiltration technique. Guard: Yeah ? Mike: We drain the enemy's blood and replace it with Tizer. [ Mike's infiltration technique; Spaced ]

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24 Mar 2001 (Saturday) 

Take my hand, And if I'm lying to you; I'll always be alone, If I'm lying to you; Take your time, And if I'm lying to you; I know you'll find, That you believe me. [ Take My Hand, from No Angel, by Dido ]

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26 Mar 2001 (Monday) 

Couldn't sleep tonight. Went to bed at about 2am, lay there for a few hours, and got up at about 4:30. Decided to code something. Did so, and then collapsed in to bed at about 7am.

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27 Mar 2001 (Tuesday) 

Anthony: What is the point in the door with the horrible death behind it ? What does that achieve ? I mean, what is the purpose of your life ? Just to be a pain ? Frog: Hey, don't touch me there; only my girlfriend touches me there. [ Horrible Death; The 10th Kingdom ]

A section that appears to be omitted from the book. Odd that.

Anthony: What are we going to do all day ? Wolf: Sleep. We're exhausted, are we not ? Virginia: Definately. Anthony: Did I miss something ? [ Sleep; The 10th Kingdom ]

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28 Mar 2001 (Wednesday) 

There's a nice 'little' article about AMPlayer on Drobe.

Someone called 'Rick' asked me about the 10th Kingdom... Is it a region 2 DVD ? No, I bought it from the states, so it's a region 1 DVD. There's bound to be a region 2 DVD out soon, I guess though. Well, I would have thought anyhow. I got my copy of it from Amazon.com anyhow.

'Which Charmed has the Matrix-like ending ?' Hmm... I don't know their names. But... coo... I've just realised that it's the one that I've got the trailer from in MPEG format... Which I now can't find. Gotcha.... After 20 minutes searching I found it... S3E6 - Primrose Empath.

Oh, and Julian's gone back to York now; he's with his friends at uni. He has to do these little insulin injections around meal times (I'm not sure of the details) depending on his blood sugar levels. He's a lot better than he was. Thanks to everyone who passed on their regards .

Simon's also at home now, too. He's back from Reading Uni for... um... four weeks, I think it is.

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