I have started to treat my confinement as if it was a slightly strange eastern-European stag weekend. Accommodation is very similar, disturbed sleep, strange noises in the night, the smell - there are differences, the primary one is the limited access to alcohol (apart from the every present green alcohol hand wipe bottles…) also the women are a little older, but in a similar state of flimsy attire.

I watched Trainspotting last night just to get a baseline with the toilet scene…my wife has kindly provided a selection of DVDs - however none are really daytime viewing it must be said…I am now trying to work out when would be an acceptable time of the morning to watch Reservoir Dogs!

One other thing that is keeping me sane (apart from the dinky little Sony TX, that has enabled all of this distraction) is music, my antique iPod gave up the ghost days ago (it only normally lasts a days commute at best). So instead I have an external 2.5″ disk that has all my, and Tonio’s music - again this makes for a slightly surreal scenario. Tonio’s music collection is extensive, but primarily dance oriented - so I am sitting here having my own little rave [Altern 8 - Infiltrate 202] whilst the other inmates chat away in their little worlds.

And these worlds are a little different to yours, or mine - yesterday one patient thought his bedside trolley was a car, initially he couldn’t find the starter (no shit), however later in the day he must have overcome this problem (hotwired?) as he was arguing with the nurses that his trolley car was parked on double-yellows and obstructing traffic…

One of the nurses(?) helpfully laughed that I look unwell, fucking great - how would she feel stuck in this situation when you physically feel fine… [note to self - must get hair wax!]

Anyway, I was interested in seeing how much these ‘free’ vouchers were selling for - and was surprised that they were selling for up to £31.59 (for a discount of £118.80 off the standard price). I then looked at the category as a whole (Other Gift Vouchers) and looked at other voucher and was astonished by the price of Argos vouchers, often only a tiny percentage below face value. The discount off of higher face value vouchers was potentially useful (£370 for a £500 voucher, a 26% discount) however with smaller denominations they were tiny (~£19 for a £20 voucher, a 5% discount). I don’t know about you but my time is worth more than £1.00…mind you that said I have probably spent an hour investigating this phenomenon and writing this entry, without a penny of compensation - looks like I’m the idiot!

My favourite was one person who paid £10.60 for a £10.00 voucher!! - maybe it was a particularly collectable voucher, a first edition perhaps…

A very interesting application, that is best of all free - there are some running costs as the communication with the server uses GPRS and incurs associated data costs.

Get on with it you say, what is your issue? the incorrect usage of 0207 / 0208 xxx xxxx as opposed to 020 7xxx xxx or 020 8xxx xxxx. What’s the big issue, I hear you say…well if you are in London you only need to dial the 7/8xxx xxxx element, this takes an unnecessary degree of mental translation if written as 0207/8.

I currently travel on the train past a new development where in two metre high lettering the telephone number is 0207 xxx xxxx. I had also been annoyed for a while about Computer Cabs, this is a large black cab (taxi) company who have 0207 908 0207 on their cabs, it took me a while to realise that the reason was that the number was symmetrical ‘0207′ and therefore easy to remember - ironically on their website it is shown (correctly) as 020 7908 0207…

I subsequently found out that there were a number of services that performed this service (although primarily based in the US) such as Shrink Digital or RipDigital

I didn’t in the end do too much about progressing this service, but did register the domain - ripPod and I still feel it is a cool name!

For those interested there is a mock up of the front page here

I used to discuss these over the odd cup of Nero’s finest, unfortunately my fellow closet geek has moved on to pastures new. I thought I would share my world with a larger audience.

I had been looking for a travel cup that could be sealed (as opposed to the less than sturdy lids on standard travel cups) and came across the Thermos Leakproof Travel Cup [below], this provides as the name implies a leakproof method of transporting coffee and other hot beverages without danger to myself and others. Not show on the photo, is that it is provided with a carabiner so you can hang it from your backpack or other suitable location (ironically on the carabiner it stated ‘not for climbing’!)

I had tried to obtain it within the UK and emailed Thermos directly for stockists, they pointed me in the direction of Amazon - who unfortunately no longer stock it (why!!). So I looked for US stockists who would ship to the UK and came across Thermos Onine - after shipping it cost a significant sum ($63.74/£33.54!! - it cost me more to ship than to buy…), however as with all gadgets once I get it in to my head I have to have it now!

The upshot is now I have it several colleagues and friends have enquired where to obtain one (I may be starting a trend, with people rakishly wearing their coffee mugs from their belts in the knowledge that they are safe from leaks!…)

So if anyone knows of a UK stockist or a US company that is able to provide it at a more reasonable cost - please let me know. I may have to start some kind of bulk purchase or import if I get any more interest.

More information can be found at Moon Software Also take a look at their freeware with useful utilities such as ‘Font Explorer’