I am chamomile

I’m in the process of wiping my hard drive and starting again from scratch. Not fun. Presently in the planning stages, listing all the CDs and downloads I have to find to reinstall my programs, from essentials, like XP, Office, Firefox, etc to when-i-get-the chance programs like Google Earth and Audacity. Then there’s all the photos, videos, mp3s, drivers, translations, extensions, websites, you name it, to back up to an external hard drive…

The computer’s shutting down with alarming frequency, and though the heat is definitely a factor, this reinstall needs to be done. I took it apart and the fans and vents are all clean, but something’s amiss. If this nuclear option doesn’t sort it out I’ll not be best pleased…

So it seemed to be about time to organise another Guadalajara Photo Tour. I’ve alerted various forums and my flickr contacts, and here’s hoping it all goes well. Instead of setting a time and date, I’ve put up a poll to choose, if you’re in the area feel free to vote on a combination that suits you here. If you’re not in the area then please don’t vote, so those who can make it get a say in when they can come. It was good fun last time and no mistake, a cantina usually features in it somewhere and the rest is wandering around in the sun and chatting about apertures and suchlike with likeminded peeps…

Last time we got photos published in various blogs, which was nice and it was grand to meet up with a few of the other Flickeros.

**Cack-handed tech alert**: Any readers know how to embed database driven data into Drupal pages? I’m having an in-at-the-deep-end go at getting a listings site up and running and it’s all new to me. Still trying to find some PHP classes… have an eyeful here of my noodlings… login: test, pword: password none too impressive for the minute, I’ll grant you…

One Flickr Pro account won by the Sociomolology/Contractor tag-team from Virginia and their assorted pets.
Vive le weekend!

I’ve been at the online scrabble a fair bit of late. It’s a good way to pass the time during bouts of insomnia. Probably the most important factors are:
a) it’s never more than 2 players, meaning there’s a greater chance of you getting decent tiles at some point and
b) each player has a time limit (I go for between 10 and 15 minutes per side, depending how alert I’m feeling) so there’s no interminable waits and
c) I like the optional chat feature where you can discuss the weather in Cheltenham, or Istambul and so forth
d) Using the “SOWPODS” dictionary means you’re playing against other denizens of the UK or ex-pats so you can be certain your conversation won’t be misinterpreted by someone in Alabama, and they won’t question words like ‘chuffed’.

I wish there was an online Spanish version too, but for now there’s only English, French, Romanian, Italian, or Dutch. It’s almost as if people in Spanish-speaking countries have better, more interesting, more fulfilling lives…Surely not?

Anyroad, my favourite number’s always been 23 and now I know why:

Pholph’s Scrabble Generator My Scrabble Score is: 23. What is your score? Get it here.

I was planning to do some kind of E-advent calendar- I only just realised it’s december, that means there’s already 2 chocolates waiting to be devoured- anyroad, it may still happen. In the meantime, I never got round to posting any Mexico photos from last year. I had planned to write a novel of some sort, but instead I took about a thousand photos and learnt how to use photoshop. I was a bit too enamoured with the photo border plug-ins, but have a look at a sample of pix from the trip here

I’ve got a fair few projects on at the minute, so the blog’s on the back burner for a bit as it were… In the meantime, consider this a chance to explore the site, there’s the gallery, our rabbits, our dog, and the immediate family. Oh and book and film reviews. Some of those pages were even updated within the last year. Off you go now, Ah, go on, go on, go on…