Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in Mike, the Imp's LiveJournal:

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
10:15 pm	Where, when, why I wonder whether I'm really losing it, or whether I'm just a bit tired. Lost it the other day with a motorist who beeped their horn at me for being in the road & in their way, & on a cycle route. I yelled and swore at them, but they didn't stop, unfortunately. Made pedestrians uncomfortable I think. And this evening it was some other c***. Beeped and yelled at us (me and another cyclist) for being in his way when he needed to cut in. It angered me rather. Lost the tv remote tonight, swore to myself & considered throwing the coffee table about. Was grumpy with the kids & didn't read them a story. Not exactly a good show for someone who used to be the happiest one people knew. Bum. I don't like to complain, but, well, arse. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 19th, 2006
7:40 am	Not a blog - just for friends & family Thought I'd use this LiveJournal thing to keep you updated. But I can't upload photos.  Hmm. Current Mood: contemplative (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 18th, 2006
8:16 am	OmniGraffle I'm sick of OmniGraffle. I mean, the original idea is great, and the original application is great: really simple and fast to use (and I need fast applications) with a mostly good interface. But I use LaTeX for most of my documents (aside from those I'm forced to use bloody µ-soft products, which drive me mad) and so graphics need to be exported as encapsulated post-script (eps) files and loaded in to the LaTeX document as eps. OmniGraffle STILL can't properly export text. It's all completely stuffed up. I did find a hack that works: run the eps2eps command in the terminal, which cleans out some crap that OG puts in and often does the trick (significantly reducing the size of the files too). But I'm sick of it really, because Omni keeps on releasing new versions that require payment to upgrade, the latest being from 4 to 4.1! It's just greed. I'm sure they have put a load of work in, but these niggling little problems remain, like, exporting as vector-based pdf simply *isn't*. Exporting as eps stuffs up the fonts. It's buggy, it crashes a tad too often, and I'm not going to bother with the next version, or possibly the next 10. I bought the latest Adobe Illustrator (as part of the Creative Suite 2) and it's great. Not quite as quick to compose diagrams, but at least it exports them properly and doesn't mess them up. Argh. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 17th, 2004
7:23 am	Monday, 17 May 2004 7:23:50 AM Black belt grading.. I've wanted my black belt for years, and years, and years... Took a huge break (never thought I'd get back into it) when writing up my PhD, but found a club in Oxford 9 years later... Yesterday was the grading, in front of several very highly ranked Tae Kwon Do practitioners (including my instructor Master Hopwood 7th Dan) for my 1st Dan. He was right in the middle, and it was really good to see him. He gave me a smile, which really improved my mood! It was up in darkest Derby, at Tony Sewell's TKD academy, essentially down an alley, but it was very nice inside. Shona drove me, Jonathan and Alison (my sister, visiting from NZ) up there, and then took off to do something less violent. After changing into (clean, pressed) doboks we waited and got more nervous, then were given coloured sashes to identify us in the dojang and assigned a position in the hall so we wouldn't be all over the place. I was position three. Ooh. We began with patterns. Do San, Won Hyo, Yul Gok, Hwarang (twice), Choong Moo. There's a flying kick in Choong Moo that always grieves me, but this time was ok, -ish. We did step sparring: quite a bit of three step, some 1 step (I was running out of ideas by the end but did ok I think), some self defense, and then a few bouts of free sparring, which was pretty fun. I got this one guy a beautiful turning kick to the head (we all wore head gear of course), 'cos he blocked the first two mid section ones, then on the third I just kicked again, lovely little 'smack'.. :-) There were almost no injuries: one guy got a slightly bloody nose but that was it. I emerged unscathed. We did some basic line work too at one stage, but I can't remember where it fit in. Nothing too difficult. Penultimate thing was breaking, which was pretty straight forward: we broke with a foot and then a hand technique; I chose rear leg side kick (very safe) and though I missed the first attempt on the black board I got the second, then managed it first time on the left leg too. Palm strike for the hand technique: I missed the first one, rats, then got it cleanly the second time. The theory section was pretty straight forward too: name a load of foot parts, talk about meaning of a couple of patterns, then was asked what did I think I would give back to TKD, which is obvious really: teach it, name a load of hand parts and stances. All in all it was pretty good. I emerged not too knackered, was presented with a beer by my darling wife, and then we sought lunch. Now I'm awaiting the results, but Master Hopwood did look pretty pleased so I'm hoping....... Current Mood: bouncy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 3rd, 2004
6:35 am	Blog! testing, testing... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 14th, 2003
8:58 am	Breakage How do you add a picture to this? I like breaking things. I broke the black (middle strength) board yesterday at tae kwon do, with a palm strike, which is completely weird looking but it's one of the easiest ways to break! Last week I did side kicks, easy, first time. Breaking is good. Of course breaking during a grading is never that easy. Will, who's great, and works in the waste industry (which is just generally a good thing), broke his hand last night when breaking the black board with a punch. Youch. Poor chap. :-( I fixed a not actually *broken* computer yesterday, but it did involve installing some new software on it. It was Bob May's, that's Lord May of Oxford to the rest of us. He's president of the Royal Society. I felt quite guilty telling him I'd resigned my Royal Soc. University Research Fellowship to go work in The City (of Westminster) and just make some money instead. He was really nice about it. Actually he's a really nice bloke. Even if he is Australian. Much nicer than my current boss. Counting down the weeks.. Shona's breaking things too, but that's because her brain's turned to mince (tm). Pregnancy does that, apparently. She looks damn good on it though. Wow. :-D Current Mood: caffeinated (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 29th, 2002
8:30 am	Life decisions... Ok, so what can I do. I've just been offered a senior lectureship in NZ. This is GREAT. I have a possible opportunity to work in The City and earn (if I'm good at it, and I get to find out) megaquid. Also GREAT. :-D Oh my, which fabulous option should I go for??? Need to find out more. Right after this statistical test is done.... I'm such a geek. Hee heee! Current Mood: ecstatic (Comment on this)
Monday, October 28th, 2002
5:36 pm	Ouch I hate colds. I hate colds that descend from a clear blue sky like a heavily armed stealth magpie and bop you in the head. I hate *this* cold because after the fun of waking up early on Sunday morning to a fully congested throat and not insignificant nausea, I now have a POUNDING headache too. It's making my eyes water. Ouch. I've stayed in bed for the day and feel worse than I did this morning, which is unusual. Can't face checking my e-mail. Ouch. Current Mood: sore (Comment on this)
Monday, October 21st, 2002
6:06 pm	Mixed feelings Why should I dread talking to Paul, my boss? Maybe it's because he's just so unpleasant. He really is. Instead of saying, when I went to tell him today that I've applied for a job in New Zealand (senior lectureship / researcher, if that means anything), that I should have a good chance, I'm a good scientist, or even a nice person or something, he immediately launches into a quick analysis of what my main problem is in my chosen career, that (apparently) I'm viewed as someone who's taken Rod's work (my old boss in Glasgow) and just extended it, and that's all. Which, if you're a researcher for a living, kind of means that "oh, by the way, your perceived as completely unoriginal!" How nice. (Untrue really: I think I've taken the research area far forward by solving it in a completely new way, quite apart from other totally different research avenues I actively pursue. Which presumably he doesn't know - or care - about. And when I think of all the "tinkering" which also passes for research around here.... well. Sigh.) I shouldn't be surprised really: I realised the other day that he's never actually asked me, in my 5 years here, how I am. For instance. Or, how was my weekend. I guess it's not part of the contract, but still. I don't like the man, and he's the main reason that I want to leave. I'm going to try hard to get a job in my home, near my oldest and dearest friends, where it's cheap to live, the weather is nice, and people are supportive. Well, now I've had a beer. Beer is... foamy. Current Mood: drained (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 12th, 2002
11:06 am	SomeWhat™ Wholesome I have to run a SomeWhat™ game tomorrow – am busily getting all the stuff together for a nice coherent game. I've run it before in Glasgow, but this time I'm doing it in Oxford for the first time, and the lovely wife will be playing. Also three completely new players for me (and to SomeWhat, which should be interesting), so I'm finding resources on the web and trying to make sure it will work well during the day as opposed to a Friday night when things are generally much funnier.. Have thrown the organization of it together with OmniGraffle, trying it out, and it's really cool! Not a bad interface, and the whole flow chart thing (ok, it's a semi-directed graph but let's not get pedantic) works terribly well. So far. Am nervous now. Current Mood: productive (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 6th, 2002
2:07 pm	You always remember the first So how does this work then? I've been spotted: freeloaders such as I (the congenitally honest kind) can never get away with it for long. Cleodhna has asked me why there are no entries here, which of course really means why I haven't written any, since she's quite good on that whole causality thing, and I had to admit that, well... um... (sic). So I don't have much of a reason. Nor do I have much to write at this time. No furious fast-paced adventures as yet. Ah! Tea. Tea is good. Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)