Up a lazy weekend

Mostly wasted 3-day weekend, but got some stuff done. Have been helping a new friend with her web site, Lynn's a dog and cat sitter, runs errands, and I almost chose her to watch my cats last year while I was in Thailand, but there were some scheduling conflicts. She wants a relatively simple site, just better than the one her brother threw up, and won't change. We spent about 4 hours this evening working on it, she was mostly hunting for graphics and I was mostly correcting my typos. We have a lot more work to do because despite my nagging her all week, she had not done much planning, and what little she did she didn't email to me till this morning.

I'd never met her in person. She's very nice, older than I expected, but not old. Her web site photos don't look anything like her - they are maybe 15 years old and she was wearing contacts and was chubby back then. She shares some of my FL's thing for Bichon Frise dogs.

Saturday I did some playing with potential pages for her site.

Also shopped for salad stuff and fruit - this has been a lousy summer for fresh fruit, oranges and apples are tiny, peaches and nectarine-like objects feel like hardballs and don't ripen well. Grapes and bananas have been fine lately, but just in the last couple of weeks. And got more cat food, and did some tidying up the apartment. More to be done. Today I vacuumed for the first time in weeks, I think.

Also spent some time this weekend playing with the new TV. HDTV over the airwaves is very temperamental, even with a powered antenna. I get no signal from Comcast, though I thought I was supposed to get the broadcast channels. I've ordered the converter and associated service, but that's 2 weeks away from installation.
( digression on the nuances of HDTV which were new to me )

Watched a few Dr. Who episodes. I am very happy with the growth of Rose as a character and as a person. I was sad to see them kiss Mickey goodbye - I hope it is because Noel Clarke has landed a good acting job somewhere. I don't see anything major for him on imdb, though. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he would have made a fine Doctor. Tennant is good, but his monologues aren't. Writers keep trying to make him talk forever, especially when he goes into his rants at the end where he preaches to the bad guy. Boring. And I think they've made him a tad too sentimental about Rose.

Took some poolside time this afternoon before Lynn came over, and was rewarded with two excellent bikini-clad sunbathers to check out. I have hardly been swimming at all this summer, didn't have time to swim this time either. Maybe if I get out of the apartment before 2:30 pm...

Back to work tomorrow. Kind of dreading it, much boring work to be done before I can do any real testing. Planning on going to the new tech meetup in Palo Alto, but I see they have twice as many rsvp's as they have seats, so may skip it. Or not - if I get there early I'll be fine.

Busy week coming up

Tonight is the new tech meetup in Palo Alto. Vincent Luria has done an exceptional job of lining up demos of interesting new tech products, and arranged for an excellent location.

Tomorrow is the monthly south bay peace corps alumni hangout at Tied House in SJ.

Thursday Lynn is coming over for more web page building.

Friday is unbooked, but I'll try to see a show. maybe howbearca's, which looks like it will be outrageous. Check out www.renegadetheatre.com for more details.

Saturday dinner and work party on Treasure Island with Friends of Thailand director Carolyn, and Thailand Peace Corps staff alumna Kathy. We're putting together a poster collage of 45 years of photos of Peace Corps in Thailand for the national RPCV conference. Also tempted to volunteer my car for iamradar's move, but suspect my little Corolla won't be that useful.

Edit add: Also taking the cats to the vet in the morning.

And this weekend is Mountain View's art & wine fair, which I'll bicycle to, armed with camera.

World Cup Scandal Redux

AP reports that finally the insult which decided the 2006 World Cup has been made known:

Materazzi says that after he held his opponent's shirt, Zidane said: "If you want, I'll give you the jersey later."

In Tuesday's interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport, Materazzi said, "I responded that I preferred his sister..."


Personally, I think it was pretty clever.

Moon Over Penzance Harbour

Moon Over Penzance Harbour
Originally uploaded by how3ird.

Some more pix of the train ride from Plymouth to Penzance on Flickr