Playtime Postponed

I can't get my hardware to work. Lights flash but nothing happens. I've got some lovely toys to play with and I can't get anything to go. It's like "Christmas morning and no batteries" all over again.

Except with RS232 cables.

Am I Spam?

I've sent some email of late which I don't think has been read at the destination. In fact, I think that my deathless prose has just ended up in the spam folder of the recipient. I wasn't offering any little blue pills, I was just getting in touch. But perhaps because the correspondence was from a new address and the content included a web link the filter may have decided that this was fishy..

What I really need is some form of "From Rob and therefore highly important" tag that will get the attention of people the world over.

Then again, if it fell into the wrong hands.......

Pirates Ahoy

Went to see number one daughter play tonight. Actually,didn't see her play at all, since she was in the orchestra pit at the York University Gilbert and Sullivan Society production of Pirates of Penzance.

The PR machine

Now, as you all probably know, I'm not really one for culture. I remarked, as we were listening to what I now know to be the overture, "Aren't there supposed to be singers in this..."

Anyhoo, the production was excellent. It is surprising how many of the songs have found their way into my head over the years. It was great to see the performers enjoying themselves as much as the audience. Actually there is not much of a story to the show, it is more a collection of sketches and songs and a bit of shameless pandering to Queen Victoria at the end. But that didn't get in the way of the fun. I took the tiny camera and grabbed a few snaps.

Pirates!

Ladies!

The model of a modern Major General....

The Police

The happy ending....

Got Hardware

I've got me some .NET Micro Framework hardware. Donald, my co-author, has sent me an i-MSX system to play with. It is very nice, but scarily fragile. Given my experience with hardware earlier in the week (current thinking is that I converted a functioning but wrong memory device into a non-functioning but still wrong device by cunning use of a nailfile- at least it should give the chaps at Ebuyer something to laugh at before they stamp "Rejected" on my letter) I fired the device up with some trepidation.

At present it doesn't work. This is no surprise. It connects via RS232 and so I'll need to use one of my copious collections of cables and lights to get the signals aligned correctly on the plugs. But it does light up. And it looks very promising.

Valentine's Day

Found a screw that fits the Motion. So now I'm kind of happy.  And I got some nice things for Valentines day from number one wife.

I bought her, amongst other things, some chocolates, an exercise ball and a book called How to Kill your Husband.