This is a scary plant. I'm not actually sure what it is, but it's taken up residence in my parents' living room, and I'm sure it was looking at me strangely the other day.

Apparently it falls over occasionally. You don't need a degree in physics to figure out why...

I upgraded my Debian install last week, from Sarge (stable) to Etch (testing).

The main reason for doing this was to keep up-to-date with various bits of software. In theory I could compile it all manually, but that's more work and doesn't always work anyway, as my failed attempt at upgrading KDE a few months ago proved.
Etch uses x.org rather than xfree86, and I'd been having some issues with that involving X exiting as soon as it started up. That was happening far too often (about 1 in 3 attempts), and was getting annoying as I couldn't figure out... continue reading »

Stoke looks so much less grotty when it's covered in snow.
By covered I do only mean two inches, but that's more than enough to bring the entire city to a halt. There's more forecast overnight too. Now if only I had a sledge...

This week we've made pancakes, Scotch pancakes/drop scones and Welshcakes. I burnt some of the Welshcakes but they still tasted nice.