UK Watercooler: Miracle On 34th Street

Yes, Virginia, there is a Higgs Boson...

New board, new thread. As you were.

Whoa, that's nice! It checks to see if there's any similarly titled threads on the system! (Brought up a bunch of Street threads, but not a single Watercooler thread, though.)

Was it down the back of the sofa?

Morning all, isn't this new and exciting.

I keep coming up with all kinds of "whoa, what does THAT do" buttons.

I didn't realise how much I liked getting in at 10 until I had to come in at 9.30 again. Ugh. How can that extra half hour make all the difference?

Morning!

Morning, how's things in Dr. G00blar land?

• London is grey
• I'm still unemployed
• But I've been playing tennis
• So things are alright

How are you?

*like my job
*have no band
*but have booked art show
*so generally, things are pretty OK
*and will get even better once I get paid

Ha ha, I like this bullet pointing thing.

• dammit, that didn't work!

• but that did
• feel less stupid now

Any luck with immigration?

My E. had to get her passport back from the consulate in the end. $400+ for zero result. Came to immigration at london armed with bank statements, her dissertation proposal, wedding invites etc. They have given her 6 months.

• have booked art show, where and awesome?

• thread soundtrack:

immigration situation is hopeful (though maybe that's self-deception). I've got to apply for this post-study worker thing (which, yes, I can apply for, it turns out) when I go to the states in a week and a half, and if I get it will be cool for two years.

• Dulwich Dream Machine
• October
• Opening/aaaahhhhrt paaaaahhhrty supposed to be 4th
• but may be delayed to the Saturday after as cannot get band I wanted to play that night

immigration situation is hopeful (though maybe that's self-deception). I've got to apply for this post-study worker thing (which, yes, I can apply for, it turns out) when I go to the states in a week and a half, and if I get it will be cool for two years.

― Doghouse O RLY (G00blar), Thursday, 11 September 2008 10:41 (20 seconds ago) Bookmark

top tips

• the processing time refered to on the consulate website only refers to the processing time not to the amount of time your application will sit in a mail sack
• New haven is a good place to get your biometrics done quickly
• use an expediter
• don't book your flights home until you have a visa-*
• air india is very cheap at the moment, like less than $800 return cheap although JFK not newark which is less good for you I think.

Argh, that weekend is already the weekend of multiple bookings.

Also can I remphasise the importance of October 18th for beer and steam trains

Yeah flight back to LDN is already booked which I realize may be a mistake; if I have to wait longer I have to wait longer.

ps I haven't seen any processing times yet tho I may be an idiot

Good luck with immigration situation!

Argh argh argh, I hate YouTube. Or rather, I hate how my crappy home connection mangles YouTube. It took me over an hour to watch about half a dozen two minute clips from the upcoming Horizon BRIAN COX: TIME MAYAN 2012 special because my connection is so slow. :-(

That said, the programme does look really really interesting from the clips. (Though they are going to have to edit out the sweary bits obviously.)

Wait, which weekend, the 4th or the weekend after? It's an art show, it will be up all month. But the party will have FREE BEER and LIVE MUSIC. From people who I've done art for. WHIch reminds me to round up Cowboy Jim.

they maybe only on some pages, they may have taken them off because clearly they are all lies.

The weekend of the 4th, which is a shame as I like both free beer and live music, I will definitely be able to see it at some point.

It will probably not going be the 4th, as I cannot get the band I want to play. I'm thinking it's far more likely to be the 11th.

Call me a traditionalist - I picked the "old ILX2 style" stylesheet...

Well that is a whole different kettle of whatsits.

A whole new kettle of ballgames?

• need to do some work
• lots of work
• but first some coffee!

Hello there. Did someone mention steam trains?

(I'm still about-to-be-unemployed myself - another job interview next week though)

Hi all! New Ilx is all very well but I'm sticking to the old stylesheet, I've got no concept of reform at all.

Steam trains and BEER!

REFORM REFORM YOU ARE TAKING APART WHAT WE MADE WITH OUR HANDS AND OUR HEARTS!!!

I am amusing myself while my queries run by mad theories on the interweb. I just found one that reckons EARTHQUAKES are caused by GAMMA RAYS from the STARS. Even when the Gamma Ray Bursts happen AFTER the earthquakes. Because the chances of these things happening separately are 5000 to 1 that means that it couldn't have happened randomly! Somebody clearly needs to go back to probability school. In a galaxy with 500 BILLION stars in it that means it's quite probable indeed.

Steam trains *where* though???

The link was... uh, on the old board. Which I've deleted the address of. Ooops.

the Real Ale Train on October 18th on the Watercress line.

Call me a traditionalist - I picked the "old ILX2 style" stylesheet...

me too

me three

I've changed all the colours of all the boards on New Board Answers though. Because I embrace change! All is flux!

New Grails album is teh awesome. Album of the year maybe. Check it out everyone.

We just had a fire drill. Must say that the collected employees of this organisation have the best display of spectacles of anywhere I've ever worked.

They didn't go to Specsavers then?

Ta Ed. Whether I can make it to the Watercress Line depends on a) my bank balance and job status by then b) whether or not that's one of the weekends we have friends coming to visit or not.

I've not bothered changing any colours. I know that on this computer I can't permanently change my stylesheet (cos cookies get deleted automatically on shutdown), and I haven't bothered yet trying to see if the colour-settings are stored the same way.

My favourite style was always the new ILX2 one with the pink boxes at the top of the page.

Now the shop ain't answering my emails about changing the opening date. I'm beginning to entirely lose my nerve about the whole thing and am thinking of just cancelling. :-(

NO DON'T!

I know.

I've done this before. I got offered a show in NYC, just randomly because some gallery owner saw a poster I'd done and came to the show just to find the artist. And I totally wimped out in the end and wouldn't do it.

So I'm not not NOT going to get cold feet this time. I just feel a bit... underwhelmed right now. If that's a word. And no it's not coz I looked it up.

hehe

Morning. I'm feeling pretty crap today.

A few weeks back I applied for a job. The recruiter was highly enthusiastic, as the ones who bother to reply to applications usually are. I got a phone interview, and the recruiter was highly enthusiastic and told me that they were very very impressed. I got a second interview, and the recruiter assured me that this was a very good sign, only 10% of candidates got this far, etc etc.

The interview seemed to go well. The interviewer was a very friendly chap. He closed the interview with the words "I'll get feedback for you tomorrow, and hopefully I'll speak to you soon."

Three days later, my recruiter phoned up: sorry, they're not interested, because the second interviewer felt that I didn't have the experience they were looking for.

And now, they've re-advertised the job, through the same recruiter. Grrr. Should I email the recruiter and say "I'll work for less money!" or is that just one step too demeaning?

I sympathise wildly FP but if they can't bring themselves to hire you it's almost certainly not an issue of money.

No, I don't think so. They seem to do this kind of thing all the time. You can email your recruiter and remind them that you are still available. (They often don't even look at the people they've got on the books when they get in new roles.) But the decision to readvertise the job has come from the client, not the recruiter. Keep looking! I know it's hard not to get discouraged when you have been interviewing and getting rejected over and over. The best thing to do to keep from getting discouraged is work on your skillset and review stuff you know but haven't used in a while, so you come off as sharp in future interviews. Good luck!

It is very definitely autumn. The boys keep getting cuter and cuter in their autumn sweaters. I lost my heart coming out of the tube station, and then he followed me down the street, oh tall pointy nosed floppy auburn haired boy with startling blue eyes and ginger eyebrows, oh can I have my heart back, not that I need it, but it would be polite?

It's just all a bit depressing, you know. I am unemployable.

You sound like me 2 months ago. Look at me now. Wasting work time on the internets like a pro.

You said you were unloveable until you found a girlfriend, too.

Life is subject to continual change.

xpost

lol speaking as somebody who borderline is, you'll be alright dude.

for emil.y http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7798194.stm

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I've been mostly booking hotel rooms in NYC and drawing the Belvedere Apollo. With a, erm, Jaguar Custom HH.

I fully expect to be banned from life for this...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/3131727061_9b6780b863_o.jpg

just like christmas mp3

Hey Kate, didn't have patience to read the whole thread, but are you coming to the states seriously? West coast? Perhaps a FAP could be arranged for your trip? If you're gonna be in the vicinity of LA CA, drop a line via email if you're inclined to have a get together.

today, I am be mostly booking hotel in Edinbucket.

Xmas Trees

Yes, I am coming to the States, but I'm not going to be getting down to LA. I'm going to be in San Fran/Tiburon from Boxing Day to the 11th and then I'm spending a week in NYC.

Ah, cheers, Ed!

My next door neighbour died today :(

Aw man, I'm sorry to hear that. Bad time of year.

yeah. He had been in hospital for about a month but it wasnt life threatening. He got out but he fell out of bed the day after and he was back in for a week and put in an old peoples hospital til they could get a place in a home at the end of the week. Looks like he just gave up on life. Never known anyone deteriorate so fast. He was about 80. He had spent years looking after his wife who had Alzeihmers, she died about 5 years ago.
they lived in this street since the houses were built in 1960. We've been here nearly 19 years and now in a year we've lost neighbours on both sides(the other neighbours are in a home).

Both were great neighbours and great people so we miss them. Will miss Jim a lot.

My 94 year old neighbour (best friend's dad) is fading and kind of lives in an endless now; his wife is much younger and has a lot to cope with organising in-home hospice care for him. I'm going to take a look at the DVD they gave me of the interviews he did for the Smithsonian in better days. I found out that a couple of days ago he asked his wife 'who killed me?' :-(

Was at his funeral today. He was a private man, but a gentleman. Glad he got a decent turn out esp as he had no living relatives on his own side of his family. Will miss him.

Was our 1st Christmas without my Gran this year. It's nearly a year now since she died.

I hope 2009 is better.

Hope you all have a good new year when it comes.

yes happy new year to all cooleristas!

HAPPY NEW YEAR cooler shakers...

welcome back!

Morning all.

Happy New Year, Kerr I hope this one is better for you.

I'm in Pittsburgh.

How's Pittsburgh? It's snowing in London.

I bet it's snowing in Pittsburgh. I'm in Minneapolis. It's below zero in the Fahrenheit and Celsius sense.

Welcome to Pgh, Ed. Whereabouts did you finally find a place? (We live in North Oakland.)

Hi all, (Thanks ed)
It's bloody cauld here. Still no snow though.

I'll repost this from the FOPP thread. Just incase any of you are near a woolies that hasnt closed down yet.

I went into Woolies in Hamilton today. They're selling packs of 5 cds for a fiver. Some good stuff mixed in with shite. I bought 2 packs.
Got Portishead - Third, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, 2 Metallica cds and some other stuff like huey lewis,status quo(which i gave to my mate), tony christie (which i gave to my dad) . If I had been in earlier I expect there wouldve been even better stuff. but i was quite pleased to finally get the Portishead cd.

― Pfunkboy Formerly Known As... (Herman G. Neuname),

There's some half-price (actually, 60% off now) stock...

They close tomorrow, so maybe they reduce further.

pick n mix is gone though

t'was contracted out.

Anyone read about this? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7811686.stm

My brother *finally* took me to Amoeba Records, and I've *finally* seen what all the fuss about SF is about.

Oh. My. God.

Maybe I won't come home. Maybe I'll try to get a job at Amoeba and live in a painted lady and walk around selling paisley shooooooooesssss...

It's sunny and cold here.

Did you go to subway guitars, kate?

Where is Subway Guitars? I'll go there tomorrow!

I went to Amoeba last week and yes yes yes it is awesome. I had to make my brother drag me out after a pre-specified amount of time. Otherwise I would have drained my bank account with purchases.

Amoeba is incredibly dangerous for your bank balance. I only stopped myself when I physically couldn't hold any more discs when I was on holiday in San Francisco last year.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianvisits/sets/72157611633177884/

check that guys photos londoners

doo dah, I am i North Oakland, corner of craig and bayard. Was looking at cheaper and further away but theses people were able to communicate by internet and phone enough to rent me the place without actually being there. It is huge and very nice though.

Kate, subway guitars is

http://www.fatdawg.com/

1800 Cedar Street
Berkeley
Planet Earth

home of the jizz-blaster and danelectro mandocello.

http://www.fatdawg.com/banjos.html

can you find out what a 'dooky japanese mandolin' is and possibly send me one?

Ah, good, Ed. If you haven't already found them, there is an Indian grocery (Kholi's) on Craig, between Fifth and Forbes; a Korean grocer (Seoul Market)at Fifth and Neville, and Middle Eastern (Salim's) at Centre and Neville. The closest regular grocery is Giant Eagle at Centre and Negley.
If you have any questions, or are looking for something, let me know.

XP!

Where is Kate? Sad news out of Ann Arbor she needs to know about.

yeah, I thought that.

wouldnt want her holiday spoiled

hi everybody btw

I know. Can't get D on email right now, but I'm gonna give her a call as soon as I get back to my room.

I'm just... I'm in shock right now and waiting for the grief to clear a bit.

She's not answering her phone, obviously. I've texted and emailed, feel so helpless, like there's nothing I can do.

((((Kate))))

SO sorry to hear that kate. Hope you get hold of D soon.

doo dah, questions I will take to the PGH thread.

OK, of all the places in the world to find a hotel with my name on it...

http://www.thesainteclaire.com/

So yesterday when we came home (like 5pm) both me and K noticed the light in the bathroom was a little dimmer than usual. Also my digital clock was flashing. Then K thought that all the lights in the apartment were dimmer. And I, now perhaps paranoid, noticed that the water on our electric stove took an awful long time to boil (and when it did boil, it wasn't really the violent rolling boil as usual when I have the heat all the way up).

Are we going crazy, or is it possible to have a little less power than usual? How can we have electricity but just a little less of it?

Definitely possible for there to be a drop in voltage or current or both. If it's not just your building, the electricity company are probably already aware of it. It may be because the cold weather means an increase in demand for electricity. The power here jacks around all day, but especially at 5PM (regardless of weather) because that's when most people come home from work and there is a sudden increase in demand.

Yep, I'd suspect a drop in voltage. Our voltage fluctuates (I guess most homes do, though there is something odd about our electricity supply - it's usually over 240V and there are frequent little glitches which make the lights flicker, and a combination of those means we go through lightbulbs like crazy) and sometimes the lights definitely get dimmer or brighter.

I have one of those mains power usage monitors (about £15 from Maplin) which I got mainly to see how much power things like the computer and the hi-fi used, and it also has a mode that tells you the voltage your mains is providing, which is how I know it's quite high and drifts around.

(Using this we once saw the voltage drop very slowly all the way from 240V to about 115V. When we told the electricity board, they brought round a gadget to record our voltage fluctuations which we were supposed to have plugged in for several weeks. A bit before the end of the recording period, its lights all went off, so we called them up again. It had been toasted by, errr, a voltage spike...)

There was a period where e-d-f e-n-e-r-g-y were supplying too much voltage to our house, something like 285V, which is just on the limit of acceptability. Over a couple of months a number of items got fried, including a computer monitor and most of a PC (I was able to salvage some bits). They also installed one of those voltage logger gadgets. Then the engineer came round to pick it up, and he couldn't download the data from it because his laptop kept crashing. Infuriatingly, because the voltage was "just" below the limit, they initially refused to do anything about it, though it got corrected later when part of a nearby substation caught fire and they thought that they'd better fix out substation as well...

wow ok sounds pretty common!

285V! FIRES! Erk. 250-odd seems pretty reasonable now. Until I turn on the light and it goes pop and I think "what in the hells that bulb was only six weeks old" AGAIN, I mean.

The voltage has gone down a bit now, but we've had a few powercuts where only one of the substation's three phases cuts out, so seemingly at random roughly a third of the houses go out and the ones in between are still on. I got a bit grumpy the week before Christmas at being in the cold and dark hunting for candles while the house opposite still had all its gardenful of neon reindeer flashing away.

The only time we've had just one phase cut out was when a mineral oil cooled gubbins in the substation leaked and overheated. Every other time we have power cuts it's a proper "oh wow I can see the stars!" absolutely-everything-out/off-for-two-hours power cut.

So apparently there's a vegan cafe around the corner where I could eat breakfast but I can't get anynoe to tell me where it is. I need to rest my liver after the meatfeast of the past few days. Asked my dad to take me to some Mexican - and he took us to this dreadful 1950s place where everything turned out to be fried in LARD and there was CHICKEN in my cheese burrito which I didn't even see until it was in my mouth - UGH. Large applications of pepto bismol have still not stopped the ... coronal mass ejection. I need to eat something made of wheatgrass and twigs and beancurd to get my system back to normal.

Today we are going back to 1 Infinite Loop (it was closed last night) to buy a t-shirt that says "I VISTED THE MOTHERSHIP!" They so know their audience,.

(I saw yr ref to a troll, apparently been banned...)