After a leasurely start due to my mum having a doctor’s appointment to check on the recovery of her face from a bought of shingles, we all went off to Newquay to visit the Blue Reef Aquarium.

Although the stuff on show was quite interesting, there wasn’t as much to it as I would have expected from the leaflet. What I did come away with was the knowledge that skates and rays love to watch people. They came to the surface of the open pool they were in, swam to where people were standing and gazed at them in the same sort of way begging dogs do, with as soulful eyes as any fish can give. They’d just sit there on the surface, eyes out of the water and beg. OK, after a while they’d move on to the next possible food source, but it shows that they’re not as dumb as many people may think.

On the way back we popped into a cider farm at which my dad picked up a couple of litres of cider and some strawberry wine. When we got home he suggested that I try a little of the wine as it “just tasted of strawberries.” Well, to me all I could taste was alcohol.. OK, after about five minutes after the sip and after the disgusting taste of the ethanol had disappated I did get a slight aftertaste of strawberry.

Didn’t do much during the evening other than watch “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” on DVD.

What can I say about today other than it was wet?

Well, I got up quite late for a start. After lunch I helped my dad replace the telly I gave them about a year ago with the 28″ widescreen one they acquired from my uncle and nan’s house. It was a package they bought about 18 months ago or less containing the JVC telly, DVD, and S-VHS video recorder.

It took about an hour or so to move the old cabinet out of the way and fully cable up the boxes and configure them. It’s annoying that the telly still only has RGB input on one SCART input. I had to put the DVD onto one of the S-Video inputs, as I did the video recorder.

Other than that I tried out my new headphones as they had finally fully charged. The sound quality’s good… As long as there’s no RF interference, which seems to be a slight problem, even when you’re using the headphones right next to the transmitter.

This morning I had to help my dad take his car to be serviced in Helston. This meant that I had to get up at just gone 8am. I could really have done with an extra couple of hours in bed.

I’ve been thinking for some weeks about getting some new headphones as the ones I have at home have far too short a cable to use with my laptop and the old ones I have here are uncomfortable after a while of use as they rest on the ear and aren’t well padded. Anyway, when we got back from the garage I had a look in the Argos catalogue. After looking at a number of the wired headphones I had a thought about how useful it would be to have wireless ones as then I could use them with my HiFi at home. Having mentioned this while sitting on the sofa it was changed by my dad from an aspiration to being, “Oh let’s get our coats on and be off then.” The upshot is that I now have a nice set on Sennheiser wireless headphones and a cheap pair of on the ear phones.

I had wanted a pair of cheap in-the-ear phones for use on the move with my laptop but all the ones but these Philips ones were out of stock. Still these Philips ones were half price, about £4. They’re not brilliant but for £4 they’re do.

Right, enough writing for tonight, time for bed.

I awoke at just before 7:30am this morning. My internal alarm is still set on workday time. Despite this I lay in bed listening to the radio ’til just gone 10am, after Broadcasting House on Radio 4.

It’s been a recovery day, really.

I have played ‘Return to Castle Wolfenstein’ which continued where I left off last Sunday. I think I’ve now got to the end ‘boss’ which is why I’ve pretty well lost interest now.

There was a very nice sunset this evening, though the sculpured clouds did spoil it a bit.

Here we are again. Back down in Cornwall for another couple of weeks.

The trip down was rather a long one, about 7 hours! I left home aat abot 10:25am and first went and got some petrol and checked the tyre pressures.

It was after this that I made the first mistake, I went south along the A34 not knowing about the ongoing roadworks on the junction of the M4. I spent about 20 minutes in that jam.

The next jam was on the M5 starting at the junction with the M4 and continuing beyong Gordano services. That was a good half an hour’s worth. Then there was another between Sedgemoor services and Bridgewater. This meant that I didn’t get to Taunton Dean services until about 2pm, where I had lunch.

The roads were reasonably clear from then until the Bodmin bypass. That jam was at least half an hour’s worth.

Anyway, I finally arrived at about 5:30.

Anyway, time for bed.

See you all in a couple of weeks…

Your soul is STEADFAST. You are a fiercely loyal
person who would never cross a loved one.
People always know they can rely on you and
your dependability is well-known. You’re
probably a little on the quiet side, but your
faithfulness is never doubted, and you always
back up your kith and kin whether they want or
need it or not. You are a dependable and
trusted soul.

What Is Your Soul’s Trait?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yesterday evening and a lot of today I’ve been playing “Return to Castle wolfenstein” after seeing it on sale for £10 at the “Game” shop within Debenhams yesterday morning. Hmm.. not a bad 1st person shooter. very much a single thread through the levels though and quite tricky in places. It still has the drawback of having “basses” at the end of a number of levels. The whole thing reminds me a great deal of te original Quake, even a lot of the sounds are the same. The background music seems to have come directly from “Freespace 2” and was again lifted for use in “Unreal 2” later. I think the composer must be rolling in it by now.

As for other things, my cold is mostly gone. however, I still have the same degree of gloopy snot as i had a few days ago and it’s not getting any better. Not only this but the cough I had has got worse. It’s a phlemy cough which is worrying. At te end of a cold the cough should go away, not get worse. OK, it’s still only about one cough an hour, in general, though a few days ago it was only a couple of coughs a day.

Anyway, enough of the medical stuff. This week is the last one ’til I’m off on my summer hols. It’s also the week that the department (ie. the administrator and myself) decide who’s the lucky company who will be allowed to sell us the new undergrad PCs. Oh, and there are a couple of Linux machines to rebuild.

I’ve just got back from seeing Shrek 2 at the local multiplex.

I was dubious about the reviews saying that it wasbetter than the original… it is! Tons better. Just go see it and laugh your head off.

Here I am sitting Borders awaiting a shower to go through.

I hope it stops soon as I want to get home in time to see “The Sky at Night” which starts at 12:45.

The main reason for this posting though is to see if the software update on the Treo has fixed the long posting bug. I wonder if I’ve written enough yet to trigger it.