Poison.. Poison.. Tasty Fish!

This post was about to be called Tree Node database management system because I used the BlogThis! bookmarklet on an internal webpage. It sounded kinda cool but my Simpson reference idea trumped it. Simpson's is the highest trump suit if you ask me. I also did a quick Google for the quote to make sure I didn't put to many "poison"s into it and a Wiki page on Fugu came up. Turns out that they'd quite easily be able to tell if Homer had ingested a lethal dose (or at least a significant amount) of Tetrodotoxin (the poison in all Fugu, which is actually a family of puffer fish) because it paralyses the victim. While the 24 hours to live thing is correct people die of asphyxiation because they can no longer use their muscles to breathe. Even worse is that you remain fully conscious (until you pass out I guess) but unable to move. So it sounds like a pretty horrible way to die, but then again I'm not sure there's a good way to die. You can wait it out while on a life support machine, but I guess you have to get to hospital before you can't move.

And on that note, let's talk about work. My last post was some time ago and I guess a fair bit has happened since then, but only recently (hence the motivation for the Simpson's quote, it kind of makes sense). Paul found us a place to rent in Ealing (if you want the address just email me) and we tried to get the paperwork happening ASAP but since it was the end of the week things didn't actually get done until the next week. Combined with what seemed to be a real estate agency that was a little slow we were getting a little anxious about how long it took as we were dying to get out of Mark and Lara's (thanks again for letting us stay with you) flat. So it wasn't until Wednesday that we could finish signing everything and get into the place. Maybe we were in a little bit of a rush because there are several things around the place that don't seem to work, like a shower (don't worry, there's two in the flat), washing machine and half the central heating. So now we'll have to battle with the landlord to get all the things seen to and I hope that won't be a big hassle.

Hmmmm, I said I'd talk about work and didn't even mention it in all of that. Work has become quite interesting for me, I've been made to add AirPlay (check out Ideaworks page to find out what that is) support into a game here. So just this afternoon I finished the ground work for all of that, the server/client communication is working fine. All that needs to happen is for some actual data to be passed around to be designed and used. So now I'll be looking at some user interface stuff for this game. Again, it's some code that's already been written but used on a different game so I'll be getting it to link in with this new game. Shouldn't be too hard, that's the point of an object library I guess. Paul also started work with Portcullis Security at the beginning of the week and is off to Oxford for the weekend with the company. It's their AGM which means an almost completely expenses paid weekend in Oxford! That's an AGM I wouldn't mind going to. They've even got most of Saturday to have a look around. Which leaves me on my lonesome, in a new flat, with almost no stuff, *sniff* and broken appliances. I guess that makes me Cinderella and Paul's the Ugly Sisters, except there's only one Paul but there were two sisters, and he's not going to a ball, and neither of us are female ... quite a bad metaphor really. Work-wise Paul's job sounds like it will keep him busy and really interesting too. I'm not big on security stuff but some of the things sound good.

Well maybe I should go home soon, there's some free toys around here that I might pick up. One of the directors bought some mini air-hockey tables just for the cardboard boxes. Judging by the packaging he probably paid less than 50p for them so it makes sense. Anyway he said anyone could grab the toy, he just wanted the box for something. It's called an Emergency Footy Fix even though it's nothing like football (soccer for all those unfamiliar with the European name for the sport), it's just air-hockey on a really tiny table. Still, it's free and it'll give me something to do other than fix appliances on the weekend ... wait a minute, there's no one else to play against. D'oh! Bye for now.