HippyCentral

..just an excuse for time off work and beer drinking.

Second life – now THAT’s big news. It’s a 3D virtual world, where you can look like you want, and build what you want. It’s all free – although you can subscribe and get more stuff to play with – like “land”.

I’m currently putting together a clothing empire to rival Marks and Spencer 🙂 (ok, so I’m still learning how to make clothes but….)

Find out about it at http://secondlife.com, then when you want to join, go to http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b90d28ff138c408ea7a7dcc0abeb8178 – I’ll get notified and can help you get started by giving you help and freebies! I get the kudos for having referred you too.

If you prefer to join by yourself, or you’ve already got an account, then send an IM to “Hippyjim Starbrook” and say Hi. I can still chuck freebies and help your way too.

My eldest has a “blog” on myspace. At least I think you call it a blog. I call it a reason to reach for the headache pills. If you don’t have enough pain in your eyes, turn up the brightness on your monitor and head over to : http://www.myspace.com/keripixiedust.

In the last few weeks I’ve been getting very popular. With spammers anyway. Suddenly I’m getting loads of comments with contain words such as “< edited to stop the comment spammers going nuts for my blog>” and the like.

Does that mean my blog’s getting more attention? I dunno, but at least I can get my <edited to stop the comment spammers going nuts for my blog> now…..

Ok, I’m scared. Or post-scared. Or scared-for-what-could-have-happened. However you say it – not good. For the last week I’ve been living in a fire risk house without knowing it.

Mrs Hippy got two of her workmates husbands to do some stuff in our house. A nice shiny new bathroom (literally shiny – it’s all chrome and white), various boring bricks-and-mortar related bits, new flooring throughout, tiling in a few rooms, new doors, new skirting boards, new lights.

Now these guys work for a council, doing this kind of stuff all day. One is a tiler/bricklayer and the other a plumber. The bathroom was fine. The various floors and doors will be (when they’re finally finished). The lights – hmmm.

After the lights were fitted in the kitchen, the lights upstairs stopped working. We worked out that we could have light upstairs if the kitchen lights were off. And even weirder, if the bathroom light was on, it turned on the kitchen as well – but dimmed.

After lots of head scratching I called my friendly electrician. It’s weird, but he immediately became “Phil”. Not “the electrician” or “phil the electrician”, just “Phil”. that’s how friendly he is. Anyway, he came, scratched his head for a a bit, and decided to come back when the – er – professionals who did the job were about. That he did. After taking down the lights they’d fitted, and fiddling with the spaghetti they left, he worked out they’d wired the “Neutral” straight to the “Earth”. Serious fire risk. Neutral + Earth = NO NO NO!! Not only that, but the fuse wire had been mysteriously replaced with ordinary non-fuse wire so it didn’t blow as it should. Fuse + ordinary wire = NO NO NO!!

The only reason I’ve still got a house is ‘cos I’m lucky.

The “professionals” are back next weekend – but not touching any electrics!! I’ll let you know what happens if I survive.

I decided I’d get a jump on visiting our other office today. It’s in Skelmersdale – about 50 mins ride from home. At least, that’s what all the online maps told me.

Firstly, I missed a motorway turnoff. Anyone can do that, right? I got off at the next exit (I think it was the next, it felt like miles away). I went around the roundabout, and back on the motorway. Heading completely the wrong way. I got off at the next exit, rode for what felt like weeks, and eventually found a pokey little petrol station. I bought an A to Z, and worked out where I was, and how to get back to the right motorway.

Back on the motorway, on the right track, following the directions given to me by Google (from memory, you can’t hold a map on a bike), off I went. Until I saw the sign for Tatton Park, and figured I was probably going the wrong way (again). I got off the motorway at Holmes Chapel (where?), found a much nicer petrol station, and ate.

Back on the motorway, hit traffic. Lots of it. Now a lot of people say “but you’re on a bike, go past it”. That only works if you can feel your hands, and you’re not a scaredy-cat. So I sat doing 15-20mph for a while. Then it mysteriously cleared up, and off I toddled. I followed the signs for Manchester, and ended up on a 50 mph limit road – crawling in 1st gear.

What should have been a simple 2 hour there-and-back-again ride, turned into a four hour mystery tour. And I still don’t know how to get to Skem!!

Now I need to convince Mrs Hippy to spend lotsa money on a Tom-Tom. Either that or get a better memory. Or the train.

It’s amazing how tired you get after a few hours of pure terror.

I always get nervous before interviews, even if I don’t really care about the job. And this one was worse than most ‘cos there were three interviewers!! Most of the talking was done by just one of them though.

Anyways, I don’t reckon I’ve got the job, and to be honest I don’t really mind. I’ve decided I really like the job I’ve just started – I spend all day writing code. Bliss! And no budgets to worry about.

Shame I’ve got to use crappy Micro$oft and Lotus software…..I’m working on that 😉