As I was leaving work today, my manager was chucking out a load of things that we didn’t want any more or didn’t have room for. I took a brief look through the stuff that was destined for the rubbish, and snagged a Nikon Coolpix 2500 with 4 batteries, charger…
French songs on the brain
Mini-Elbeno is taking weekly French classes, and has a CD of French children’s songs, which we have been listening to for the past several weeks. I now know almost all of them and find myself humming them through the day. Some of them have catchy tunes… In addition to the…
Soup up your Powershot
If you have a Canon Powershot series camera (hi Dad!), you must give this a go. The power of the Internet brings you the CHDK firmware: third party firmware that unlocks so many useful features! Start out by checking which firmware version you already have. Then grab the current king…
You never forget a good teacher: part 2
I got a reply from my former teacher! It really gladdened me to get home on a Friday evening, in the dark, with the rain sheeting as Pacific storms are wont to do, and find a letter postmarked “Exeter & Devon” and addressed to me in familiar, tiny, reverse-side-of-the-fountain-pen-nib scrawl….
A look at the XO laptop
Tonight I spent a brief time looking at the “one laptop per child”. It’s a quite a nice little machine; just the thing for kids. You don’t get much in the box – in particular no manual to speak of, but what isn’t evident through exploration can be found at…
New Year’s Day
January 1st 2008 was our 10th anniversary, so Mrs Elbeno and I dropped the small one off at his friend’s house – where he was parked in front of a Dora the Explorer DVD, happy as a dog with two tails – and headed off for lunch and 90 minutes…
You never forget a good teacher
Just before Xmas, I wrote a letter to a former teacher thanking him for being excellent. It’s been over 15 years now since I was in his class, but I still remember the passion for learning that his natural enthusiasm instilled in us. I hope his Xmas this year was…
The Quiz is on
In fact, has been since a little while before Xmas, but I only got around to looking at it today. The King William’s College quiz (PDF). It’s quite tricky. I find it somewhat akin to crossing University Challenge with a cryptic crossword. Have at it. Google won’t help you (until,…
Xmas is almost over
It took us most of the day to get through mini-Elbeno’s haul of gifts. Many books and toys. Big items were a desk for colouring etc, Tonka truck, Fisher Price Learning Zoo, mini-kitchen with play food and pots and pans, and a wooden railway set (Melissa & Doug). The poor…
Stairways to Heaven
So, in the wake of the Beatnix’ version of Stairway to Heaven, I discovered Stairways to Heaven. I’ve listened to quite a few of them (or at least the beginnings of quite a few) and so far they roughly fall into the following categories: People mucking about doing something vaguely…