Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Had a relaxing Father’s Day watching the football and went out with mini-Elbeno. We had lunch at Panda Express. As we walked in the door, the girl behind the counter said to me, “Do you want to try a sample of our new walnut-and-something-or-other shrimp?” So I thought: “I like shrimp. I like walnut. I like something-or-other.”

“Sure, I’ll try it.” So she handed me a (cleverly disguised) blob of molten lava on a cocktail stick, and like a fool, I put it into my mouth whole. My tongue still feels rough today. Anyway, after I’d recovered, we ordered some food and mini-Elbeno actually tried some orange chicken and some broccoli beef, and liked it!

After that we went to Borders where I got Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers and used a 40% off coupon courtesy of My Coupons. Then on the way home we stopped at Marie Callender’s to get a cherry pie (on sale for $8) and at the British store for a few supplies.

Simply take my old mobile number and add 1,134,866,492 to it, and you’ll have my new one.

I have finally acceded to the march of technology and got a new mobile phone. It’s quite an upgrade for me because my old phone is a Nokia 2115i and the new one is an HTC Evo.

Here’s your obligatory pic of the unpackaging.

I’m looking forward to speedy 4G coverage in LA and messing about with Android. I’ll shortly be updating everyone with my new mobile number.

It’s the 2009 edition of the King Wiliiam’s College Quiz. Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est, indeed.

I am spending my time off playing with the mini-Elbeno and relaxing. He got Simon (the light/sound sequence game) for Xmas and one of our favourite games is now “extreme” Simon. This involves me trying to actually play Simon while he tries to get it, clambers all over me (with little regard for his or my safety), and generally attempts to press the wrong buttons deliberately. Our record is a sequence length somewhere around 12.

Otherwise we had a quiet Yule, with just a few presents between me and the wife and many for the young chap. I got Mrs Elbeno a few things from her Amazon wishlist, a Slanket and The Beatles in Mono.

I got some new pyjamas, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a Dilbert desk calendar, three seasons of The Universe on DVD, and the following books of geekery:

• One Hundred Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know: Math Explains Your World by John D. Barrow
• Impossible?: Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitiv​e Conundrums by Julian Havil
• Design Concepts in Programming Languages by Franklyn A. Turbak
• Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van-Roy
• Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace

I also got a dark Chocolate Orange in my stocking. Excellent.

In other news, Mrs. Elbeno’s laptop started to exhibit graphical corruption on Saturday night which was looking like a RAM or video card failure. Bluescreens everywhere, corruption even in the boot screens, and inability to boot except in safe mode. So we went to Fry’s yesterday and she got a spiffy new laptop. At least the drive on the old one is still good so no data loss.

The sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway…

And I am driving through the neighbourhood when I see a woman standing outside her house. She’s blond, tanned, and “dressed” in a red bra, panties, and heels – you know, for Xmas. And her photographer friend is taking her Xmas photos.

Just another normal December day in greater Los Angeles.

Today I put together a new PC. I was due for an upgrade since it’s been about 4 years since I upgraded, perhaps 5. Here’s the specs in brief:

• Intel i7 920
• 12GB RAM
• 2 x 640GB HDD
• nVidia GTX 275

I went for a decent multicore CPU (i7 920 represents the best price/performance point of the new Intel line) and extra RAM for doing intensive tasks. Everything is fast now!

Mini-Elbeno starts his new school next week and last weekend I went over there to join the staff and some other parents in a cleanup session. First was wheeling up some recycle bins and filling them full of old pairs of jeans which the kids had collected previously for a jeans recycling project. Then I got the job of power-washing all the outside equipment: tables, racks, toys, etc. For about an hour I was using the petrol-powered washer and powering off the dirt. The tables and racks were straightforward, but the toys were kind of random with splashing everywhere. With the bright sunshine, for a while I was living in a world of rainbows.

This rather indistinct pic was a lot clearer when it was in realtime. But if you know what you’re looking for, you can see the baby lying at the bottom, head on the left and arm & leg buds pointing up.

Haven’t blogged in ages. Here’s a quick update from the Elbeno household.

The movie at the quarterly company show-and-tell was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I enjoyed. Can’t wait for the 7th movie(s) and I have re-read books 6, 4 and 7 in the last week or two.

We have been enjoying warm days and balmy evenings here in my part of Socal. I have been mostly working, playing WoW, playing with mini-Elbeno, and in between times, taking on all comers at the ping-pong table at work. There has been a resurgence of popularity for ping-pong with everyone (except me) investing in new bats. I may need to get a new bat at some stage because my old bat is starting to flap slightly at the edges of the rubber.

No book sales lately. I am trying to get through the ones I have. I always have half a dozen books on the go and after the Harry Potter interruptions I am getting back to The Origin of Species, which I have actually never read before. It’s really readable for a book written 150 years ago.