27 Friday Oct 2006
Posted in books & writing, miscellany
Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work.
A couple of my favourites from the Wired website linked to above are:
How about you? What would your 6-word story be?
23 Monday Oct 2006
Posted in miscellany, retail therapy
More retail therapy (first the webcam, now this!) 
A slightly frivolous purchase as our old livingroom phone is still working, but it’s in an awkward position to use as it needs to be next to the phone jack beside the bookshelves . And anyhow, it’s quite cool having a second phone that works – we did have one in the bedroom but you couldn’t make calls on it because the buttons were stuck. Actually, we’ve put the ‘main phone base’ in the bedroom and the extra ‘remote’ one in the living room, as the remote one just needs to be plugged into the mains.
But having never had a cordless phone before, I have a question.
The instructions say that once the batteries are charged you get 10 hours of ‘talking use’ before it needs to be recharged again. And apparently you don’t have to wait until the batteries run out before recharging them. But is it okay to always leave the phones in the bases? Will this somehow screw up the batteries? I’m wondering because the main base gets quite warm and so the phone does as well. And since this is the one in the bedroom it’s really not going to get used much and will probably spend most of the time in the base.
Anyhow, it doesn’t say anything about this in the instructions and so I thought someone out there might know the answer . . .
11 Wednesday Oct 2006
Posted in miscellany
hmmmm . . .
Woodpigeon started a thread on ‘another site’ asking about whether using images on blogs found either on Google or elsewhere was an infringement of copyright laws. Which has made me wonder if I’m breaking the law. 😕
As is no doubt very apparent to you all, I like putting a wee image at the top of my posts. Which I find in a variety of places. Unless they are my own photos I don’t link them to the original full image, they are just thumbnails.
I think if I were to try and use these images for some sort of financial gain I would indeed be breaking the law. But just to have a cute thumbnail image at the top of my blog posts doesn’t seem like a serious offense.
What do you think?
07 Saturday Oct 2006
Posted in miscellany, photos, retail therapy
We bought a webcam today!
And it’s exactly the one in the pic, so I think we should be able to use it on both the PC and the laptop (if we ever see the ol’ laptop again… 😕 ). It also came with an earpiece microphone thingy – the type that dangles down from one ear and which apparently works just fine as I checked it out with Mudhooks this afternoon.
Anyhow, have never had a webcam before. Mostly because I quite enjoy being able to sit in front of the computer communicating with people without having to be properly dressed or worry about what my hair! looks like.
But the other day we were chatting with zoomer and he had his webcam going to show us his new condo and it was rather cool. We were just chatting on IM and it was nice to see him laugh when he received my messages (he has the most beautiful smile). And so Nog and I thought we’d get one too.
When I tested it out with Mudhooks on Skype today we had both visual and audio going and it was quite neat (she has a lovely smile too!). But I don’t think I’ll ever be going visual first thing in the morning, if you know what I mean . . .
I realise we are probably way behind the times as everyone seems to have webcams these days. I’m not sure why I never got one before – I think I always thought they were more expensive than they actually are. This one only cost 20€ (well, with the headset it was an extra 10€). A reasonable price for a new computer toy.
So does everyone else out there have a webcam? Do you use it a lot? Apparently I can send photos and videos to people with this one and I’m thinking it might be nice to send a video message to friends and family members, like at Christmas or on their birthdays, stuff like that. 
29 Friday Sep 2006
Posted in life stuff, miscellany
We had a wee accident the other day . . .
A rather stuck cork in a bottle of rioja suddenly decided to disengage itself with a fountain of red wine ending up on the wall behind our sofa (and also all over the sofa, and me, but that’s beside the point as the sofa cover has been washed and me too …)
The end result is that we have rioja stains on the wall over our sofa.
The walls in our livingroom are vanilla coloured – the same colour as proper vanilla icecream. It’s rather a large room with the sofa and tv-viewing area on one end, the dining table is in the middle, against a side wall between the two balconies, and my computer desk is next to the built-in book shelves at the other end of the room.
Our dilemma is about either trying to find the exact same vanilla colour to paint over the rioja stains on that one wall or whether we should paint it a contrasting colour, like a nice deep terracotta.
I think the room is big enough to have one contrasting coloured wall, but the deep orangy terracotta thing I’m thinking of might be too strong.
The sofa cover is off-white and we have orangy cushions on it. Hardwood light oak coloured floors (also slightly orangy) . The coffee table and dining room table are also this same light oak colour. The trim, doors, ceiling and bookshelves are white.
Accent colours in the room are cobalt blue, orange and a small bit of pale yellow.
Help?
casa azahar 