Look out, a meme! (If you’re Pat then please imagine that first sentence in the voice of Anthony Antelope). I’ve been tagged so here we go…

4 jobs I’ve had

1. telemarketing drone (in my student days)
2. DJ at students’ union (in my last few months at uni)
3. network guru (for a couple of small companies in summer holidays)
4. management consultant (er, now)

4 movies I can watch over and over again

1. Shadowlands (stellar performances all round)
2. Ghostbusters
3. Aliens
4. High Fidelity (if only to remember Dave thinking about explaining the intensity of relationships using integration)

4 places I have lived

1. Sheffield (where I was born)
2. Leamington Spa (well, it was there or Coventry)
3. Ealing (I’m sitting there right now)
4. Reading (well, living in hotels for a couple of years at least)

4 TV shows I like to watch (deliberately avoiding those I mentioned here)

1. The Mighty Boosh (daft but brilliant)
2. Curb Your Enthusiasm (best thing on TV)
3. Top Gear (it’s a CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR)
4. Nerd TV (fascinating interviews, available here)

4 foods that I like

1. pizza (particularly double pineapple pizza)
2. burritos (a recent conversion)
3. prawn biryani (my standard curry choice)
4. sausage and mash (with peas)

4 websites I visit daily

1. BBC news (on most days it’s my only source of news)
2. Google (dull but true)
3. remember the milk (to keep myself organised)
4. Apple (to make sure I don’t miss any product announcements)

4 things I want to do before I die

1. live in Canada for a while
2. start a company with friends
3. write some decent short stories
4. learn at least one programming language to a decent level of competence

4 places I would rather be right now

1. Vancouver
2. Edinburgh
3. The Jug And Jester, Leamington Spa
4. Having dinner with my colleagues (worked late tonight so missed team do)

4 people I’m tagging to do this

1. Paul
2. Pat
3. Britishsportsguy
4. Kitteh

(photo taken by my flatmate Dave)

After a few weeks where I have been too busy to play at all, I got back into poker a fortnight ago. I’m still not good enough to win any tournaments online (I usually make it to the last 25% or so) but I at least seem able to consistently profit in low limit cash games when I’m concentrating. I’ve found that the opposition at Pacific Poker is generally a lot easier than at Pokerstars (where I play most of the time) although people don’t stay at the table long so it’s very difficult to keep track of who might be a decent player.

I’ve followed the advice of Wil Wheaton so far in my short poker “career” and stuck steadfastly to low-limit hold ‘em whilst I get to grips with the game. There’s much less scope for bluffing in limit games and I tend to find that I can play to a set of “rules” that I set for myself and do reasonably well. No-limit requires me to mix things up a bit more and I’m still not very good at combining all the “information” that I’m getting about the cards and players with tactics that I ought to use.

This weekend I ended up playing a huge amount of poker with my friends (not for money, but still fairly competitively for honour) and, for unknown reasons, everyone seemed keen to switch from limit to no-limit. I must have played in about ten games over the course of the weekend and ended up winning three, which I don’t think is too bad. It was surprisingly difficult to bully anyone off a pot, even early in the game, which I found surprising (as this is something I expected to be easier than in limit games) but maybe this was unique to my group of friends.

When I next have a bit of time I’m going to try my hand at some online no-limit tournaments (I’m still not ready for no-limit ring games as I think they require a bit more of a bankroll). Also, my friend Patrick has offered to take me to the Victoria Casino at Marble Arch where they run beginner classes on a Sunday afternoon (to teach you the card room etiquette rather than how to play) and I think that could be quite good fun, although it sounds rather intimidating. I also fancy making a trip to The Gutshot at some point; anyone want to come with me? All preparation for Vegas, of course… :-)

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and I’m sitting at home in Ealing, sipping on a can of Pepsi Max*. This, my friends, is the life. Full marks to my past self for wisely booking an extra day of leave when planning my holiday to Devon this weekend. I love random days off with nothing planned: they usually turn into a mixture of getting things of medium importance done which I can’t be bothered with during the weekend (booking an eye test, taking advantage of Apple’s great Soundtrack Pro -> Final Cut Studio Pro upgrade deal**, cataloguing my CDs) and enjoying things that I’d normally claim to be too busy to do (watching the Classic Albums programme about Nevermind, browsing through interesting photos on flickr, catching up on various magazines).

It was on a random day off like this that I discovered a huge park in Ealing about fifteen minutes away from my flat; on another I properly ‘got’ Mercury Rev and spent hours listening to their amazing music. For me, not planning to do anything at all seems equivalent to planning to do something very fun indeed. I highly recommend it.

* I’m slightly worried that I end up buying at least 24 cans of this every time I go shopping at the moment. Finally, a low calorie drink that tastes really good and has the advantage that you can shout “TO THE MAX” whilst drinking it. Just don’t tell me that it will make my fingernails drop off or something.

** Yes, I am the kind of person who thinks that booking an eye test and buying some software that I don’t really need but which is too good a deal to resist (139GBP to upgrade from a 199GBP piece of software to a 899GBP suite!) are about equally important.

Seemingly at random, a few people have asked me recently what kind of music I like. I’ve updated the about the author page here to point to my last.fm page which gives far more details than I could be bothered to repeat (and whilst I was at it I also linked to my flickr photos). Since it’s unlikely that anybody would notice those small edits I thought I’d also mention them here. Which I have. Job done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to be up at 5am tomorrow again. “Yay”.

Excellent paper on the thorny issue of whether the seat always needs to go down. Probability, game theory and toilets. What’s not to like?

Criterion (2) seems plausible. It requires, however, that Marsha put the seat in the up position after performing a toilet operation some percentage of the time. No instance of this behaviour has ever been observed in recorded history; ergo this criterion can be ruled out.

For much of my life the ratio of (programmes on TV that I want to watch):(time that I am happy to devote to watching TV) has been something like 2:3. But over the past year or so it has flipped the other way round (perhaps because I now fall into a better-served demographic, perhaps because there are a lot more channels available but probably mostly because the amount of time I have and, therefore, the amount I want to spend watching TV has diminished quite a lot) and I find myself turning down whole series of programmes that I know I’d like because I don’t want to commit the huge chunk of time to them.

Anyhow, here are the programmes that I am currently making an effort to watch:

Beauty & The Geek The UK version started this week and I have also been watching the 2nd US series. Despite being yet another reality show, I find B&TG rather endearing. The UK version seems a lot less extreme (I know plenty of people geekier than most of the geeks and plenty of people more attractive than most of the beauties) and somehow less exotic yet I still think it will be a lot of fun. The choice of David Mitchell for voiceover duties seems quite random but I’m not complaining (even though I do have to keep remembering that I’m not watching the action unfold through the eyes of Mark from Peep Show).

Harry Hill’s TV Burp “Doing a Harry Hill shrug” has become part of the subculture of my friends recently, which I’m delighted about. Despite not generally watching any of the programmes that Harry examines, I love the show and wish the series were never-ending. The special “Harry Hill sudden ending” to the songs performed at the end is always a pleasure and the various bits of business with Harry turning up on the Coronation Street set and so on are great.

Hyperdrive I must admit that I don’t actually like this new space-based sitcom a great deal. The Britain-focused humour and general quality of writing fall a bit flat and most of the plots are so linear that they could be neatly described by an equation of the form mx+y. Having said that, there are occasional flashes of brilliance (”this is the room where we keep all the signs”) and it is the performances of Dan Antopolski and, in particular, Nick Frost that have kept me watching. Frost can deliver a line brilliantly when you least expect it and that general makes up for the preceding 5 minutes of rather plodding humour.

The IT Crowd Richard Ayoade is now a complete comedy god (having been in Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place and The Mighty Boosh) and he is completely perfect for the role of Moss in this new sitcom. Chris O’Dowd is also very good (mind you, I find someone saying “mental” in an Irish accent funny at the best of times) and, whilst she doesn’t blow me away, Katherine Parkinson is well-suited for her role. The writing is a little shakier than I’d expect from Graham Linehan, although there are plenty of excellent scenes (and lots of Father Ted style surrealism). The much-praised attention to detail on the set is also a nice touch.

Popworld I was very sad to read that Miquita and Simon are leaving Popworld in a couple of months since, without them, I’ll most likely stop watching. As it is, I find the best way to watch this is to fast forward through most of the performances and just enjoy the banter, the piss-take interviews and the bitchiness. Quality!

The Apprentice The new series starts this week – woo! It’ll be hard to find people as entertaining as Saira, James, Paul et al but as long as Alan Sugar’s pithy wisdom is dispensed each week I’ll be happy. The Adrian Chiles sister show might be worth a look too.

So, that’s what I’m currently enjoying. What am I missing?

I’m terrible at getting my hair cut. I instinctively know the point at which it is ready to be cut; the point at which I actually get round to having a trim is usually around six weeks after the realisation. Hence six weeks of horrible-looking hair. I’m not quite sure why it always takes so long (I’m busy but not that busy) as I really enjoy my visits to Big Jim’s Trims in Ealing. The no-frills approach certainly appeals and the conversation tends to be a bit more interesting than at the average barber (topics such as why people in Germany try to get bitten by dogs* are the order of the day). Then there’s big Jim himself.

The absolute best thing about Big Jim is that, although both of my flatmates also go to BJT for their haircuts, only Russell and I have ever met him. So there’s still a certain level of suspicion in Dave’s mind that we’ve just made him (and the associated stories) up. I love the idea that Russell and I decided one day that it would be great fun to invent a whole character based on the name of a hair salon and that we have been tirelessly making up things that he’s said and done for the past three years, all the time sniggering behind Dave’s back. But, then, perhaps we have!

It’s always good when Jim’s there as he usually has something interesting to say, whether it’s to pause the haircut to examine someone’s scars (because he has the power to tell how long ago the fight was just by looking at the damage) or to attempt a spot of mind-reading. He was in residence today and, when the music stopped briefly, it came to light that he has a Ricky Martin CD in his collection. After an initial claim (quickly shot down) that it was to “help him learn Spanish” he explained that he really liked Ricky’s leather trousers (though not Ricky Martin in the leather trousers).

I like the idea that someone would buy an album on this basis and may have to re-evaluate my own CD collection (luckily I like Neil Hannon’s suits). Perhaps people constantly make assumptions about my musical tastes based upon what I wear (though I’m not sure I’ve seen too many bands wearing “I Dig Mac OS X” t-shirts); if I take a stroll without a coat then maybe the implication is that I like Phil Collins (No Jacket Required). Sorry, that was unnecessary.

Anyway, I got a great haircut (it’s like a weight has been lifted off my, er, head) and my hair is now the shortest it has ever been (since I was a baby at least). I also bought a 9v battery, a birthday card and some trousers whilst I was in town. Nothing remarkable occurred during these purchases.

* Apparently you get lots of money from the government; I’m dubious about this.

I succumbed to another spending spree at the play.com sale. I don’t really like buying full-price albums (I’m lucky in that there are only a couple of artists whose CDs I feel I need to buy immediately) but I’m quite happy to send big chunks of money to play whenever they have one of their excellent sales. This is the second (and somewhat smaller) spree this year (if you don’t count the one at Amazon). I bought:

• The Beatles – Red Album (because most of the Beatles stuff that I have is on vinyl);
• School Disco.com Box Set (as much as I generally hate the concept of School Disco, I don’t own quite enough music from the 80s and this seemed a reasonable way to get 80 tracks quite cheaply);
• Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better (because, even though I predict that I won’t play it all that often, I feel I should own it);
• Kasabian – Kasabian (as it is important that I lag behind popular culture by at least a year);
• The Killers – Hot Fuss (I somehow became aware of more of their tracks than just the singles and they’re pretty great);
• All Saints – Saints And Sinners (they made some of the catchiest pop available);
• Basement Jaxx – The Singles (I’m not quite sure other than I was curious that this somehow includes 15 tracks);
• Bjork – Medulla (because, when I’m in the right mood, Bjork’s music is the greatest thing ever).

Found via plasticbag.

This has to be the comic with the best name ever. And, beyond the name, it’s actually also brilliant. Ninjas with no trousers on, pirates and people using the phrase “to the max”. I’m looking forward to reading through the first couple of stories a lot.