Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Tell me a story - plot generator

Since DIY's been on the back burner, we've been busy building something else instead. A plot generator.

A what?

A nifty gizmo that's guaranteed to while away hours of your time, producing Hollywood-style plots at the click of a button. Give it a shot. It's a throwback to A & Steve's code geek days (they also made a programme that produced cocktail recipes), rewritten in PHP and housed on my nice new website.

Let me know what you think.

We caught up on a couple of movies this weekend too, Closer and Sideways. London and California. Art and wine. Beautiful people making a mess of things, and not so beautiful people making a mess of things (but not so irredeemably). I liked both, but Sideways wins for making me want to hit the bottle (in a wine-appreciating way, of course!). And for making me laugh lots.


Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Springtime?

It feels like it. Today was a home-work day, and I had windows open, bare arms and sockless feet as the sun streamed in. It's been like this for days, unseasonably warm and spring-like. Crocuses are sprouting all over the place. It's enough to distract a girl from the dangers of climate change for long enough to enjoy the moment!

We hired a car this weekend, as we had a family 5oth to attend in Uddingston (much like the family 60th in Uddingston). Nobody in my family lives in Uddingston, I hasten to add, but for some reason St John the Baptist Church is a favourite venue. Must be the cheap beer (£1.40 a pint) and liberal smoking policy, which to me seem incongruous with a church hall, but it is like a different country over west. Uddingston is a Glasgow commuter town these days, but hard to commute to a) from Edinburgh and b) on a Saturday night. Hence the car.

Anyway, with such splendid weather and a car to play with, the Pentlands were a good choice. If you've been to our flat, they are the hills we look out on. The hills were nice and high (for lowlanders like us) and the views right nice:

View from Carnethy Hill, the Pentlands

Those of you who hang out for DIY updates (or should that be DIY, A?) will be pleased to know that we now have two shelves in the study, nifty floating bracketless ones that were a complete bastard to mount on our crumbly masonry. It's starting to feel like a proper office now. Progress on the bathroom has been slower, and our designer curved ceiling is yet to materialise. Maybe we need a designer's help?