davidrickard.net

I’ve been having a tidy-up of sorts. I went through a couple of old stacking crate things I had hidden under the bed with various odds and ends from previous tidy-up sessions. They were the left-over oddities that I couldn’t think what to do with, so they all get put into one box and forgotten. So now I’ve been through both boxes and thrown away roughly half of the stuff, or put it away ‘properly’. So that has freed up a little bit of space.

I’m always wary of creating clutter, and I try to not do it. That being said, there’s still plenty of it about! It’s just lots of odd bits. Some I don’t want to bin as they’re nice to keep, or genuinely useful. Other things are vaguely sentimental. I’m definitely better at this tidying thing than I used to be. I rarely threw away anything. Tidying up to me used to mean just pushing it around, and putting it into a different order. The notion of actually throwing any of it away never really occurred to me. I’m much more ruthless now though.

My desk is still covered in random stuff, and needs sorting. I’ll do that later maybe.

In unrelated news, I noticed that the imported blog entries on Facebook don’t include any of the YouTube videos I’ve ever posted – just me rambling on about how good the mystery thing is (or bad). I’ll have to post an alternative link in future. That’s assuming anybody reads this. Does anybody read this? Hello?

Is there anybody out there?

Pretty cool version of One Week. I’ve heard the acoustic version millions of times, but this one was pretty nice.

I was woken by my alarm this morning as normal. I did my usual thing of reaching for my glasses only, as I did so, hit the side of my clock with a glancing blow. The alarm stopped. I focused my eyes onto the clock, and noticed it had reset itself – totally. The whole clock had reset. Time, date, alarms, everything. It’s not like I hit it that hard! I can only assume I dislodged the battery as I hit it or something.

My general experience of electronics is that hitting them doesn’t do anything. It might make you feel better if it’s playing up, but otherwise, it doesn’t have much effect. I dropped my iPod today getting it out of my bag – as I lifted it out, I caught it on the edge, and ended up just holding the headphones. As they were wrapped around it, it all unravelled like a yoyo and crashed to the floor, landing flat on its back. From what I can see, it’s still working. It was off when I did it, so it probably didn’t damage it.

Yet I hit my clock with my glasses case and it resets – the mind boggles sometimes!

This has plagued me for years – people calling me Chris.

In school, people would often call me Chris. At work, people often refer to me as Chris. I have a theory I know why – wherever I’ve been, and people have called me Chris, there has been somebody called Chris who just so happened to be, like my good self – well proportioned.

So I think they just make the connection and think, “He’s the big guy – probably called Chris” and so they call me that. It’s akin to saying all French blokes are called Francois or all Germans are called Hanz. It doesn’t bother me a massive amount. I’ll often politely correct them, and generally speaking, they remember from then on.

So anyway, my name – as ever – is David. Just thought I’d clear that one up.

I went to Ikea today, looking for a new beside lamp. I’ve got a shelf thing I bought in Wickes (of all places) next to the bed now holding my clock radio and pile of magazines from subscriptions (Computer Shopper, Focus, Digital Photographer Magazine, Guitarist, for those who care). There’s various other odds and ends on it.

Anyway, my existing lamp, which I bought donkeys years ago is a simple gooseneck desk lamp type thing I bought in the local Kwik Save. This was back when fitted plugs weren’t a legal requirement! It’s served me well, but with how the new shelving unit sits beneath the shelves on the wall, it just didn’t fit in anymore. No matter where I put the lamp, it ends up either blinding me, or not casting enough light to read properly.

So I bought a new lamp today. A Knivsta. It’s a nice lamp, and not a bad price. A couple of things annoy me about it though. It uses a halogen bulb, which are renowned for sucking down power like a wino at a free bar. Not a problem, as I can replace the bulb with an LED bulb – uses less power, so it’s all good. The second annoying thing is that it uses a mains power adapter. Halogen bulbs run on DC generally (as far as I know) and so need a transformer. Transformers waste power, but this one wastes power even when switched off! The light is off, yet the transformer is warm, so it’s obviously drawing power (and wasting it).

There’s not much I can do about it, so it’ll have to do. It’s annoying though, as I’m trying to SAVE power, not waste it! I’ll admit I have a fair amount of stuff that sits on standby. But for good reason:

• Sky Box – Has to really, or it won’t record anything!
• Video – This could switch off. I rarely use it. It’s a DVD/VCR combi, and I use it for playing DVDs more than anything. The whole recording part of it, I rarely use.

I have stuff that HAS to stay on. Or rather, is better it does. I might invest in some of Noodle’s Domia kits. At least I can switch off stuff without having to faff around down the back of the shelves trying to find switches!