Zoe Imogen

If you're going to run a British-themed pub in America, you need to get it right because chances are you'll have visitors that'll laugh at your mistake. ( Cut for image )

(Food was nice though and it's authentic inside, if a little 1960s for my taste)

Looks like google aren't the only people doing streetview, unless it's being contracted out. ( Cut for image )

I appear to have accidentally signed myself up to do a 10km run. Oops. I blame lack of coffee...

I tend to assume that I've lost contact with most of my ex-coworkers - particularly those from 8+ years ago. I'm always surprised to find that I may have lost contact with them but they haven't with me - every time someone pops up from the past, they know exactly who I am! I suppose it's obvious to anyone with enough clue to use google!

Not a meme, I was just surprised to find just that that the ever increasing pile of paper on the bathroom floor has:

• Three issues of G3 Magazine ("For Gay/Bi Women")


• A copy of Diva Magazine


• A Patagonia Outdoor Clothing Catalogue


• A copy of Trail Magazine


• Three editions of What's Brewing, the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) newspaper


• A copy of Beer magazine, What's Brewing's sister publication.

In this household, I suppose that's quite predictable.

On a box of Puma shoes - "Average contents: 2". (So I might get lucky and get three shoes for the price of two? How useful!)

On the back of an animal food lorry: "None of our products are tested on animals". (So how do you know it's not poisonous to them then!)

Annoyingly, it seems the know-it-all shop assistants in Utah actually didn't know much. It seems quite a bit of the kit we've got, whilst just about OK for canyoneering in safety terms, really isn't designed for it - in particular some of the carabiners we have weren't even designed for belaying and the harness I have is for climbing, not going down - which explains why Sarah and Sylvia find certain things easier than I do.

Note for future reference - do not trust rude, cocky sales assistants in Utah outdoor equipment stores.

16:30 to run 1.34 miles. (According to my GPS anyway, Google Maps recons 1.5 miles)

I am unfit. I used to be able to do that sort of run in 10-11 minutes. Even allowing for age and transition, I should still be able to do it in 11-12 at worst.

As a result of today's impromptu expedition down a cliff, there's a few more bits I need to add to my list - eye protection, (For that added Colonel Carter look) abseiling gloves and the ability to tie a mule knot. (As demonstrated by Sylvia in the last photo) A lot of 5-6mm accessory cord would also be handy, as would some sort of assault vest or fishermans vest for camera bits and pieces. (Those ones are expensive and OTT for what I'd need though)

This seems to be creating quite a fuss - I'm not sure why though. I'm not going to get too wound up if some computer system only lets me choose Miss or Mrs, but labeling an initiative to get rid of it as "political correctness gone mad" seems a bit... patriarchal.

It's weird, there are Windows registry-based fixes for all sorts of strange complaints. Perhaps more on topic for this journal would be this helpful page.

(How long before they spot everyone linking to their site and fix this I wonder?)

• Figure eight in a bight for clipping carabiners on to rope.


• Alpine Butterfly (Both as a Bight and as a Bend) for anything where you need more than a figure-eight-in-a-bight


• Double Fisherman's for a basic bend


• Clove Hitch for Biner Blockers


• Munter Hitch for top belaying


• Prusik for ascending etc.


• Water Knot for anything involving webbing.

And I need to buy more Carabiners, 6mm accessory cord, webbing, Rapide links and a helmet. I think a ropebag might be handy too.

OK, so it's a deliberately tabloid attention-grabbing headline, but I don't think they realise what they're doing with this story.

As an ISP, this disturbs me greatly. We have customers that pay for bandwidth and the BBC are using that bandwidth? And did they bother to consider the fact that DDoS and spam attacks can have an detrimental effect on networks in the middle as well as their "willing" targets. The full BBC article makes it clear they just purchased an existing botnet from someone online, but supply and demand means this will just stimulate the botnet economy. The BBC even report themselves on the link between organised crime and botnet herders - fraud, blackmail, all that sort of thing. This isn't just scare tactics, it's part of my day job to deal with the fallout from such things so I've seen it first-hand.

And just because they didn't have "criminal intent" it doesn't make it legal - they freely admit to multiple violations of the computer misuse act.

Being ill I can cope with. Doing my back in because I slept awkwardly due to being ill is a complete pain in the... back.

I think it stems from when I was at school - I was one of the few people in my year that due to circumstances, never had a locker so I was carrying heavy bags full of text books round all day. I saw a consultant when I was about 15 for something unrelated (Glandular Fever) and he commented that my spine was curved. Now my back goes every year or so and I have to suffer for a few days. It's a bunch of muscles at the bottom of my back that are the problem.

Currently have private medical insurance via work - I guess I should ring them up and see if I can see someone about some tips to strengthen them to prevent it happening again.

Meanwhile, I'm walking round using a hiking pole. I look like I'm about 80.

Edited to add: Does anyone know if anyone makes a decent quality hiking pole that uses captive balls (Rather than screw in) for extending, has a camera head and also a walking-stick style handle? Closest I can find is the Camlink CMP1, but it doesn't say if it's captive-ball or screw-lock and it looks rather cheap and heavy.

Learn to fly
Learn to play the guitar

I'm sure there were others too...

I so totally should use this internet thing more. Day three of a week off work on holiday and I'm slowly catching up on stuff...

So, this morning I was running late and thought I'd get a McDonalds on the way into work. Despite the diet, I barely ate yesterday so I figured this was justified. Besides, I like their coffee and I'd not had time for my usual cup that morning.

I had no cash on me and the cashpoint nearby I usually use wasn't working for some reason, so I thought I'd pay by card. Mistake. It seems that a couple of low-value transactions on a couple of US-based websites, Ancestry (Checking out my grandparents details for Irish Passport application) and Intermail (tikitag, which the uknotters reading this will recognise...) had caused my card to be flagged as suspect, and they wanted to talk to me next time I used it.

The next time I tried to use my card was on a site that didn't support 3D Secure so coudln't pass on a message to me, which triggered a further flag which meant I coudln't get into online banking this morning. Finally, we get back to McDonalds. The flag on the card was for them to talk to me, but McDonalds don't do that at all and their automated system not only refused the request but did not pass on the message for me to ring them.

Result: Card cancelled as nicked. Didn't work in online banking, nor to dial up to telephone banking.

Moral: Don't use debug cards for micropayments in places like McDonalds. I'm not sure they're really supposed to just dump potentially difficult transactions without passing on messages but it seems they do. I'd have thought in this day and age it woudln't be too hard to display a message on the PIN pad from the bank - perhaps it did, I wasn't paying attention the first time and the staff member just pulled the card out and reinserted it without asking me.

I turned off loudtwitter... it seems unpopular!

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I was right, and I called it months ago :-)