Everything, Everything

Kev was getting his words wrong tonight. Even though he asked for the correct drink tonight, he'd forgotten Hogshead don't serve it. I saw a few nice girls tonight, but Kev didn't introduce me to them. Not that I'm looking. I've already got my eye on a couple people at work.

My left hip has been playing up recently, it aches and hasn't felt right for a few days. It clicked a couple times earlier tonight, I'm hoping that means it'll get better, tather than worse. It might be because I usually sit in the most awkward looking position at work.

For a long time I've wanted to be 25, and the closer I get to it the more I wish I was younger and had more time and opportunities. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I guess.

I bought myself a DVD player. It's a Yamada DVX-6600 and it's lovely. So far it's played everything I've thrown into it (MP3, DivX 4, DivX 5, XviD) all without any problems. The picture looks great, and best of all it only cost me £79.99 from Maplin. It's also really slim and looks nice.

Kev and I watched Kill Bill Volume 2 tonight, I think I preferred Volume 1, but it was entertaining. The beard stroking bit in the second movie was so over the top it became painful. I loved the long fight scene in the first movie, that's how they should have done the fight scene in the middle Matrix film, when you had all the Agent Smiths.

I had a Netscape 4.x induced headache today, but I feel better now. Just tired, so I'm going to grab some sleep and hope I feel great in the morning.

Considering I've only seen mid to low ratings for this film, I thought it was really good. I won't spoil it for anyone, but the ending is perfectly pitched. I'm glad I watched it.

Had a pretty quiet weekend, watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail at Jonathan's new house, with Maria (and Jess near the end) on Saturday night. And I've seen Kev a lot over the last few days.

I had loads to say, but it's all slipped my mind. All I can think about is the omelette I made yesterday. And how I've been flirting with a few people recently.

Katie's not been feeling well recently, a nasty tummy bug apparently, so her mum's been looking after her. I think everyone around here's got a cold of some form. Maria and Jonathan are still coughing away, I still have a bit of a sore throat, and Judith was off for a couple days last week. I can't wait until it's summer and everyone's fine (except hayfever sufferers).

I've recently bought a couple packs of breakaway biscuits (on offer at Safeways) and they say on the back "one is never enough..." and it's true. I have to eat at least 2 at a time, usually 3. There's 4 left now, but not for long, I feel peckish...

We had jam donuts at work today, as it's Helen's birthday (she wouldn't tell us her age though). As for Helen from uni, she's gone home now (aww) to be replaced by Nat (yay). Kev's dragging her over later tonight, and talking about going out for drinks.

We played the Friends game last night, it was quite good fun, but the adult questions weren't as 'adult' as they should have been! Although I suspect we'd need plenty of alcohol to play that. I was pretty accurate with Helen and Jackie.

Must remember to fix the \ bug added to the title at some point (or bring in the new CMS on here a little sooner than planned). Also, my bank has raised my credit card limit again by the look of things. Must go to sleep!

Damn that Red Bull!

Helen's here! Yay! I'd forgotten just how much I miss her. She looks great, and she's hanging around for a few days. Hopefully when Nat gets here on Wednesday we can all play the Friends game.

In 1885, Charles Alderton was a pharmacist at the Morrison's Old Country Drug Store in Waco, Texas. Alderton invented Dr. Pepper. However, Mr. Morrison (the owner of the drug store) was the one who named Alderton's new soft drink. Morrison had worked for a Dr. Charles Pepper, and probably chose the name Dr. Pepper because it allowed him to pay tribute to the first person to give him a job, the name had a nice ring to it, and it was common practice to include "Dr." in a drinks title. (The period was dropped from Dr. Pepper in the 1950s). So there you have it.

Also, on May 29th, 1886, the following ad appeared in the Atlanta Daily Journal:

"Coca-Cola, Delicious! Refreshing! Invigorating!

The New and Popular Soda Fountain Drink, containing properties of the wonderful coca plant and the famous cola nuts. For sale by Willis Venable and Nunnally & Rawson."

This clearly indicates that Coca-Cola was a Soda Fountain Drink, and not a medicine that was mixed with plain water as maintained by the official Coca-Cola folklore.

And as for Pepsi: Caleb D. Bradham's drink didn't contain either the kola nut or any caffeine, but it did taste pretty close to the already popular "Coca-Cola" and that was the reason for using the term "Cola" in its name. The "Pepsi" part of the Pepsi-Cola name comes from pepsin, an enzyme which aids in digestion and was also a popular ingredient in early soft drinks (and chewing gum). There has been some dispute as to whether or not the original Pepsi-Cola actually contained pepsin as an ingredient. The term "Pepsi" in its name is surely an indicator. One of Pepsi-Cola's earliest known advertisement is found in the Feb. 25th, 1903 New Bern Daily Journal, and one of it's claims was that it "Aids Digestion" - a popular claim for items containing pepsin. Lastly, another newspaper ad produced in 1908 flatout said "PEPSI-Cola is an absolutely pure combination of pepsin - that's what your stomach needs these days - acid phosphate and the juices of fresh fruits." (However, it is a fact that by 1923 Pepsi-Cola no longer contained pepsin as an ingredient).

But 7 UP is a whole other matter. Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda became 7 UP Lithiated Lemon Soda, and then to just 7 UP in 1936. But nobody knows where the 7 UP comes from. But it definitely did contain Lithium at one point. It also used to be popular, but now Sprite is way ahead of it. Hurrah. But 7 UP did bring us Spot, such a cool character!

I should head to bed if I'm to have lunch and then go looking for a new sofa for Kev.

I got the damn fly!

Yes, those little tiny ones that fly about in your face, but somehow manage to escape being squashed, making you look like a fool when you clap the air.

I've managed to make a lot improvements to the BeerSoc CMS, it now does what I want it to do (with the exception of links with titles and a couple extras). Hopefully it won't be another 6 months until I work on it again. Eventually I'll move it into this site. I don't know how I made BeerSoc into my test site, but it's not very popular so that's okay.

I've been listening to the latest Air album, it's surprisingly good. Normally I only like less than half the tracks on their albums and love the odd couple, but this ones grown on me. Most of it's very nice easy listening, like Mike Mills. Hopefully I'll get to listen to the new Zero 7 album shortly, I hope it's as good as the last one.

I finally caught up on the missed episode of ER. And found my Dilbert books again, I'll take one into work next week. In fact there's a good strip online this week about 360-degree reviews, which I'll have to print off at work.

Kev arrives tomorrow! I'll have to get in touch with Jonathan from work, and see if we can organise a few of us from work getting together next week.

This crappy server doesn't support preg_replace so I'm stuck with ereg_replace and it's proving impossible to do what I want to do. There must be a way, but I think most people use preg as it's faster and better and easier. Time for bed, I think.

Yes, I somehow failed to watch an episode of ER! I have it, I just haven't seen it yet. I was going to watch it tonight, but I got distracted by Kev and looking into PHP.

My grand plan for tomorrow was to look into a way of removing html tags from text submitted via a form, and eventually to support bbcode (tags with square brackets, as used in forum software), and eventually JavaScript buttons to add the tags to the text area. And eventually perhaps some kind of interface (Java?) so people can just type like in a word processor and it all ends up in bbcode. So how long would this take?

I hoped all day, but in half an hour I've discovered PHP has a built in function to remove HTML tags, and a function to replace text that is far too clever for its own good (it can store parts of the string into variables, making it incredibly easy to switch bbcode for HTML output). Ah well, that still leaves the JavaScript buttons (half an hour to implement?) and the Java applet (a lot longer, and I get to play with Java again sometime) but the applet will have to wait for now. Then I can add a preview page and some nice extras, to both this site and the BeerSoc site, and eventually build up a nice Content Management System (CMS) that I can use in the portfolio I'm starting.

Gizmo, one of the cats in our close, was cute as ever today, I've got a photo of him (stored on my phone) sat on the bonnet of my mum's car. I'm definitely a cat lover.

Yep, after working for just four hours today, I ate lunch and slept all afternoon! With the exception of Kev moving here Easter weekend, everyone else seems to be going home. I wish everyone I know a Happy Easter!

But don't expect an easter egg to be delivered by Thorntons. I was looking at their website the other day, just to see what they had on offer for Easter, and noticed that their 'Immediate Delivery' option was for April 14th, and Standard Delivery was April 15th. That meant the expensive immediate option would guarantee it'd arrive at your doorstep in just over a week. A week! That's not immediate! Given the time, you could have placed the order, gotten credit card authorisation within a couple minutes, made the chocolate item, left it overnight, packed it in the morning, sent it to a courier, and let them deliver it the next day. That's what I call immediate! As do many other online places. Ah well, at least they have a shop just around the corner (okay, about two corners, and a little walk).

In fact my respect for retail has gone up since I started work. Most people can't afford to stay in to wait for something, especially if it's 3-5 days for delivery. The amount of time wasted trying to be there for an item often isn't worth the £5-10 saving you'd make from not buying it from a traditional store. Anything less than £50 probably isn't worth your while, as I'd effectively lose that much from taking a day off work to collect it, and you have to pay delivery costs on top (and most big items tend to cost a lot to deliver).

No more work until Tuesday, yay!

Ibuprofen certainly dulls the headache, but it doesn't solve the weird feeling when I stand up. Still, the nosebleeds have stopped, and the throat feels a lot better. I've even been eating a little bit, and should be back at work tomorrow.

I got an email today saying "The decision has been made not to shortlist your application on this occasion due to an unsuitable background for this specific role" - a total surprise for me, as it was for a job as a Web Designer/Developer. They wanted "candidates with varying leveles [sic] of experience" with "experience in web design, content creation,search engine optimisation,database applications etc.Skills in HTML,CSS and ideally some knowledge/exposure to ASP/PHP/Javascript/DHTML." Yes, I hear you cry, I can do all that (okay, so I've only toyed with ASP and not used it anywhere near as much as PHP). But I'm not bitter. It looked like a bulk rejection email, I shouldn't take it personally. And it was based in Buckinghamshire.

Kev scored a higher quirkyalone core than me (he got 104), but I'm sad to say my BMI (Body Mass Index) was lower than a friend of mine, apparently I'm underweight (even though I knew that) and "Weight loss offers no health benefits" - isn't that what the word underweight implies?!?

Kev currently has his MSN name set to Master and Commander - One boat chases another boat. That's it. For 2 hours. which reinforces my decision not to watch it because it looked crap. Maybe when he's here we can go to the Odeon more often and only watch good films.

Comedy night wasn't as good as usual, and it didn't help that I have a horribly sore throat. So now I'm listening to David Bowie, eating coco pops from a huge 900g box. Can't help feeling some female companionship would be better (not that I'm going to try it, but the coco pops box doesn't look very 'cuddle-friendly' with those sharp corners).

Work again tomorrow, at least it's not a full week, what with Easter coming up. Kev should be here soon, should be fun, and would be good to see Helen and Natalie when they inevitably come up to visit.

Who needs them? I don't need a minute-by-minute refreshing page, I have a flatmate called Jackie who screams wildly whenever someone scores. Luckily I knew it was Arsenal vs Manchester United, but Richard came out to check everything was okay. Shame Arsenal are currently losing 1-0, I await loud screams when Henry equalises while I watch E.R.

Why is Dr Pepper called that? Was the man who invented it a doctor, and/or called pepper? There's no pepper in the list of ingredients, and it's not like Dr Pepper is a cool name. Mind you, everyone drinks coke, the informal trademark for Coca Cola, but thankfully there's no solid grey substance in it. Who comes up with these names?!?

I think Arsenal are about to lose the semi final.