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So my Macbook Pro is set to turn off the screen after 10 minutes of activity, but then if I play a movie the screen switches off after 10 minutes unless I hit a key or touch the mousepad. I don’t want to do that. Yes, I know I can change the setting before I put the movie on but wouldn’t it make sense to let QuickTime (or whatever) override that setting when something ‘hands off’ is happening?

Yes, we’re back from our week in the old country, had a pretty good time though mostly family matters rather than sight-seeing etc. Finally got to see the nephew, quite a cute young lad (as babies go), I think he’s going to be a real handful when he gets older though! Other than hanging out with my sister and family, we also spent time in Exeter with some of my mum’s family, drinking way too much wine and eating some fine BBQ.

There is no doubt that England does pig way better than the US. England has good bacon (as opposed to the crap over here), gammon steaks, and pork rashers. All are delicious and sadly unavailable here.

With the dollar being largely worthless, things were real expensive. I couldn’t stop doubling every price and then recoiling in shock at what I was getting. Food especially got me going every time, we’d be getting double the portion at half the price in the US.

The number of speed cameras seems to have dramatically increased and they are very effective at slowing people down – virtually everyone does the speed limit when warned there might be a camera near by. And a new thing – ‘average speed zones’ where, allegedly, they have two cameras spread over a few miles which will measure your average speed through the zone and send you a ticket if that measurement is too high. I almost don’t believe it, though.

Saw a lot of MINIs but no MINI Clubmans. I saw quite a few in Champagne which I quite liked.

Political correctness is running amok in the UK, it almost seems like it has gone beyond what it is here. I had a couple of examples in mind as I started typing this but now they’ve gone. Grrr… well, take my word for it.

Saw some live football on the TV which was good. Not so good was watching my arch-rivals Portsmouth win the FA Cup. My brother-in-law was at the game and very pleased for the result but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

Weather was really warm and sunny for the first few days, sat out in the garden and got burnt at the sea front for one day down in Dawlish. Even though it was probably only around 75/78 it somehow felt worse than the 90+ that I am used to home here. Maybe some comment about “dry heat” is appropriate?

Going to upload some pictures to my Flickr page this weekend so watch for those if you are interested.

Almost a little bit country, but I love the Irish (even though she is from Scotland) twang in her voice. Amy Macdonald This Is The Life:

And with that, we’re out of here for a week – off to old Blighty to suffer the pain of a worthless US dollar.

For some reason people bring their dogs to work all the time, probably not a day without at least one dog in the building, and we’re not talking miniature poodles, either.

This could be coming to an end, though. On Monday one of the project managers left his dog in his office for a couple of hours while he attended a meeting. According to reports, the dog started barking and howling until eventually his boss went and got him to tell him to take care of the animal. On opening the office door, an odorous stench escaped and all could see that the dog had enjoyed ripping up whatever he could get into his jaws and, at the same time, suffered some kind of rectal issue.

It was bad enough that 10 minutes later the entire office was sent home lest the smell make them sick.

This all happened in a different part of the building so I didn’t get to enjoy the experience but the guy who owns the dog is an idiot so I think it’s pretty funny. Probably going to ruin the dog-friendly environment though.

Forget Jared’s “where’s the meat” $5 footlong special, get ye to Popeye’s Chicken for their Tuesday special – a leg and thigh for just 99c! Yep, you can get two pieces of tasty chicken and a small drink for about $2.50. Now that’s what I call a deal. The place was packed too, person in front of me wanted 10 orders – that’s 20 pieces of chicken for $10!!!!

And whilst we’re talking about Popeye’s, what’s up with that book “what to eat and what not to eat” and the section on Popeye’s saying you can eat there as long as you remove the skin. Remove the skin?? What’s the point of that? That would be like going to Morton’s Steakhouse and being only allowed to order a soup.

Just some updates from the list of projects a couple of weeks ago:

• new bbq – purchased and installed, but not yet used.
• living room ceiling fan – thanks to my brother-in-law’s efforts, this is installed and working nicely
• pergola roofing – done, gives the dogs some nice shade in the morning, not that they seem to have noticed yet
• outdoor speakers – installed yesterday, sound great. And it turns out my super-expensive Sony receiver can do clever tricks with speaker zones – who knew?
• floor tiles – postponed.

Feels good to have some things done, but with the new grill and the speakers installed, I think it’s time to have db and josh over for steaks?

Yes, the patron Saint to rule them all is celebrated today and, er, nobody gives a damn. At least very few Englishmen do these days though there has been talk of forcing a celebration on the country, try and get some patriotism going.

The astute amongst you will notice that the picture in this post is not that of St. George but, rather, Paul Weller, of The Jam and The Style Council fame. Whilst many revere Paul McCartney as the hero English song-writer, I’d rather listen to anything written by Mr. Weller, who I think is tragically overlooked by those looking to celebrate the English singer-songwriter.

Being a disco child I wasn’t a huge fan of The Jam until the early 80’s when Paul was already heading towards the more soulful tunes that characterised the Style Council. Beat Surrender is one of my favourite songs ever, and now that I’m older I find I enjoy the early The Jam songs much more. And Introducing the Style Council is some vinyl (or MP3 collection if you must) that everyone should own and enjoy.

So I read that last night’s baseball game between San Diego and Colorado went on for 22 innnings – that’s 22x more boring than baseball usually is. Wow, I’m having trouble staying awake just typing about it.

A little tax refund has led to kicking off some household projects this last weekend:

• A new bbq – knew it was finally time for a new one after the boxer puppy ran off with the cable that goes between the battery and the spark. No, we did not spend $2000 on it.
• ceiling fan for the living room – started to install it but there doesn’t appear to be a ceiling joist we can use to mount it to, will call in the semi-pros (if they’re not too busy grilling on their $2k grill)
• outdoor speakers – bought some cheapos for mounting to the pergola but the wood is so hard I could not get the screws in far enough. Will have to get some molly anchors and screw to the house instead. Oh, and we need a semi-pro to bring a masonry drill (if he’s not too busy installing our fan)
• roofing for the pergola – hope to extend the time we are able to stay outdoors by putting some stuff on the beams, provide some shade for us and the animals in the summer. Haven’t purchased it yet though.
• floor tiles for the living room – job for the real pros, later.

Since buying the Flip I’ve posted some puppet videos, some MINI videos, and a flying video but from now on they will only appear on the appropriate site, and there maybe some videos that I put only on Viddler. So if you want to keep up with my mad directorial skillz you should either:

1. Sign up for your own account at Viddler.com, add me (ukpylot) as a friend and set your preferences such that you are emailed when I upload something new
2. Or, if you want to keep under the radar, you could add my video feed to your favourite RSS reader: my video feed

Now, I can’t say there’s going to be anything great but wouldn’t you kick yourself if there was, and you missed it??