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Moving on?

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Shit. Blogger are discontinuing support for ftp. What to do? Migrate to – shudder – blogspot? Buy a new domain from Blogger and hope for the best? Or jump ship to WordPress? I don’t want to do any of these things! I have loyalty to Blogger, dammit I’ve been with them over 9 years now! Nine! That’s an eternity in internet years! And I’ve been on wetflame for, what, 6 years? That’s also plenty FAR time. I don’t want to be on blogspot! But I don’t know what their custom domain shit would do to mikebot’s stuff. I had one instruction given to me when I joined the good ship wetflame – “don’t touch my stuff”. I don’t want to let Blogger in to do just that…


Grump.

I don’t know what to do.
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Holding out for a Hero

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Holding out for a Hero

Today I upgrade my phone.  I talk about this a lot, because I enjoy the process.  The research, endless agonising on gsm arena, working out which one is bestest, flicking between networks’ websites to compare deals, deciding, changing my mind, going back to the first decision… all of it.  So, yes, today I will walk into Carphone Warehouse and demand an HTC Hero.  It fills the gap between a phone and a netbook!  Oh, wait, no, that’s the iPad’s job, apparently.  Good luck with that, Apple, you big mentals.  Still, if you’re a massive giant of a person, the iPad might yet work for you as a regular iPod Touch.  Provided you don’t mind only being able to run one application at a time (SURELY THIS IS NOT TRUE?).

I intended to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night, but then I realised I had to transfer all the pictures of my daughter from my old phone to its memory card and to the computer, so they’re not lost when I reset it to trade it in.  Had a weird moment last night – not the first – when Ella woke up crying and all she really wanted wasn’t food but for someone (it happened to be me) to hold her and reassure her.  It may well be the best part of the job, that, the moments when you realise that your responsibility to your child isn’t just material, isn’t just about keeping her safe and fed and clothed, there’s an emotional need that she has which can be filled *only* by her parents.  Or, to be fair to adoptive parents and whatnot, by their parental figures.

And that, so far, is my favourite part of parenthood.

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Almost didn’t post

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Almost didn’t post

Don’t have anything to say.  Short sentences only.  Punchy.  Been reading “The Road”.

It’s payday – got paid.  Went out for lunch.  Restaurant hadn’t taken our booking.  No table big enough for all of us.  Walked back to work in rain, ate M&S sandwiches.  Got wet feet.  Walking around in my socks.

Baby keeps waking in the night.  Crying.  Waking just before the alarm, losing the end of sleep.  Teething.  Has top incisor.  Will get the other soon.  Took her to John Lewis this week.  On the tube.  She seemed happy with that.

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It’s the only way to be sure.

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It’s the only way to be sure.

Maybe my phone had a virus.  Maybe it was all the chewing on it my daughter does.  Maybe it just got fed up with me telling it it was on borrowed time and how I’m going to upgrade *SOON*, damn its buttons.  Whatever, I was faced with a non-functioning mobile phone and a big button marked “Hard reset”.  What choice did I have?  I dusted off and nuked the site from orbit.

It worked!  Ok, so a lot of my settings have been lost, and some of my programs no longer work properly but I can make calls and look at the internet so everything’s just fine for me.  And I’m upgrading it *soon*, anyway.  HTC Hero, in case you’re interested.  Fuck you, apple.

New game – Bayonetta.  Sleazy, violent, addictive fun.

Obligatory baby bit:

New teeth, apparently.  Arrived today.  Not seen them yet.  Scared for my fingers.  Already live in terror of existing teeth.

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Brrrrr!

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Brrrrr!

Bit cold, innit?       

Hello, again.  Happy new year, indeed happy new decade!  And don’t give me that crap about how it’s not a new decade, there’s a 1 where there was a 0, you can’t tell me that’s not a different decade.

So, what did you get for Christmas?  Peace, goodwill?  An X Box?  I’ve had Christmas and a birthday since my last post, you know, that makes me a whopping thirty three.  Still early thirties, but not comfortably.

Things my baby can do:

Rub noses

Chuckle

Have a conversation consisting of “a-tah” at different intonations

“A-tah?”

“A-tah!”

“A-tah.”

Roll over onto her back

Roll over onto her front

Eat teeny tiny burgers

Drink water from a sippy cup.

Amongst other things.  Maybe more.  Maybe some of that list is just wishful boasting.  But by gosh, she does seem to be coming on fast.  Within the next couple of weeks I expect her to be able to pick up small objects between finger and thumb.

A-tah.

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Nearly christmas!

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Nearly christmas!

Woo!  Although it’s snuck up on me a bit this year, what with the baby and all.  I doubt very much that I’ll have all the cards and presents and stuff done in time.  But, eh, that’s life.  At least we’ll have a tree by the end of the weekend, and that’s the important bit.  For me.  For to feel Christmassy (which I, at present, do not, really).  We had the chimney swept and so E saw her first real fire (as well as her first snowfall, the two extremes in one week!).

I am falling apart a bit, it has to be said, in the cold.  My fingers! They crack and chafe! Oh, the agony! Oh the torture! Oh the slight discomfort!  I’m sure it wasn’t this cold last year.  To add to all this, my lovely Thinsulate fingerless gloves have had coffee spilled on them by… someone… and now my hands stink of it. Boo!  I need a trip to the dry-cleaners… and a hat…

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Obligatory baby addendum

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Obligatory baby addendum

She sat up, unaided, for a good few seconds this week.  She rocked about, but didn’t fall over, she corrected her balance without guidance.  I reckon she’ll be sitting properly by, oh, my birthday, say.

Yes, that is a deadline.

Not really.

Hello!

You still here?

Oh, she’s making more consonant noises, too.  She has discovered the letter “G”.

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Power and influence

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Power and influence

I just mentioned on Twitter that I didn’t consider asos’s weekly email “Treat” of free delivery particularly treaty.  I went on to list treats which would be acceptably treatsome – chocolate, wine and porn – and was somewhat embarrassed and yet oddly proud to have asos’s Twitter account reply.  This is the joy of Twitter.  Previously distant institutions become bored people behind a keyboard, representing the brand.  Celebrities are right there, and you can call them a dick if you feel like it (and want to be blocked by them).  It won’t last, of course.  Celebs will get bored and businesses will cease to be arsed employing someone to piss about on the interweb all day.  But for now…

Baby update!

She’s cuuuute.  Good lord, yes.  And six months old, too.  Half a year!  I started thinking “Do that again and she’s a year old.  Do it 35 more times and… no, no no no no”.  You have to pull yourself back from the precipice of melancholy quite often, being a parent.  It’s reached the point where I can hear her breathing in her sleep, her lungs are big enough.  Before, I used to sometimes sneak over to her basket and put my hand under her nose to feel the breath on my skin.  Reassuring, and odd. I am enjoying this.

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wreathed in smoke

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Lord of the Rings Online has a great ESRB warning – it’s rated T (Teen) for blood & gore, violence and use of alcohol and tobacco.

Gandalf smoking a pipe is too cool an example to set to today’s youth.