However, more often than not I seem to get the shitty coffee centred chocolate no-one wants. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this metaphor now, it seemed like a good idea to begin with. I guess I’m saying if you put yourself out there, raise your hopes you’re generally going to be disappointed, so make things easier for yourself and don’t have high expectations of anything or anyone, that way you can’t be disappointed or upset.

London isn’t an easy place to live, in fact it’s a down right difficult place to live – but nothing in this life is easy, and in my opinion the benefits of living in London far outweight the downsides. But if you decide you want to leave that’s your own perogative, just don’t expect me to be thrilled, or get pissed off when my genuine attempt to help you make a level headed decision unintentionally  comes across as patronising to you.

*shakes head*

Right, bed time.

Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner made by the good people over at iRobot. What could be better than coming home every day to a freshly vacuumed house or apartment? Well that’s what this product promises, but does it live up to the hype?

I plumped for a the Roomba 560, one of the higher end models with some of the more advanced features such as scheduling and lighthouse mode (I’ll explain later), it arrived in lickety quick time and I got it all set up. Firstly you have to find a place for it to live, I chose the kitchen area of the flat – it seemed a sensible place to keep a vacuum. It lives on what’s called a ‘home base’ where it charges itself, it starts it’s cleaning missions there, and when it’s finished it returns home to charge.

I left my Roomba (now named Juanita) to do an initial charge of 16 hour as recommended in the manual and whilst it was charging I used the buttons on top to set a cleaning schedule, you can schedule Roomba to clean up to once a day – seven times a week, I chose 10am weekdays, and 1pm weekends (so it didn’t wake me up!).

10am the next morning, sure as hell I can hear a truck reversing noise (beep beep beep) as Roomba backed off it’s home base, and Roomba was whizzing around my living area. It uses a series movement patterns (including: spiral mode, wall following mode, and floor crossing mode) to cover the floor as efficiently as it can. It takes about 45 minutes per room, which admittedly takes longer than pushing a normal vacuum about but it covers each part of the floor on average 5 times in one cleaning mission, and most of the time you’re not there, you don’t even have to press a button!

With Cosmo shedding as much hair as he does vacuuming every day was such a faff, getting the hoover out, plugging it in, moving the power cable around, moving furniture to get under it, wasting time doing it, and then putting it all away again. Now I do practically nothing, Roomba turns on automatically, cleans (even under the sofa and bed) every day automatically and then puts itself away automatically. All I have to do is empty the dustbin every other day, which takes about 10 seconds. Honestly, my floors have never been so spotless, and I’ve noticed a dramatic decrease in dust levels on surfaces around the apartment.

I’ve already converted three other people to Roomba, and I’ve already bought another Roomba for the bedroom, and a Scooba (which mops your floor instead of vacuuming), I’m going robot mad!

Here’s a short video of my Roomba in demo mode, for those who are curious…

“Many miles, we’re yet to travel
Many lives we’re yet to know.
There’s a road, that we must follow
and there’s still time for us to grow.”

He’s got a few songs on his website, some available for pay-for download, some on CD which you can order from Jon himself and one, this track ‘Going Home’ which is available for free download in MP3 format. He’s from Winchester originally, now he lives in London – he’s also playing a gig on the 22nd April at The Bedford in Balham which I might go along to if I can.

‘Going Home’ is one of the best tracks I’ve heard for months. It’s simple, yet it has an amazing way of pulling you in, making you listen to it over and over again, so that you can hear a different part each time. Be it the beautifully relaxing guitar notes, or his gentle but masculine voice that reminds me ever so slightly of Chris Rea – I think every part of this track is pretty much perfection.

I’m going to place an order for his CD on pay day, and I encourage you to have a listen to the tracks via his music player on the website, download the free track and take it with you on your iPod if you like it. Jon Allen gets a two thumbs up from me.

Tesco turned up 20 minutes late in the morning delivering party food and drink, I’ve never seen quite so much coca-cola in one place before. Gari turned up around 5pm to help me get ready. I had both Roombas on dirt patrol, whilst we set out drinks, glasses and hid expensive possessions.

The first guests turned up about 6.45, a tad early – I was in the shower getting ready, so I had to send Gari to collect them from the DLR station. Guests arrived pretty thick and fast from 7.30 onwards, I could keep up with putting out sweets, and pizza! I got to meet some new neighbours, and a few friends I hadn’t seen in a good long while. We managed to squeeze in a SingStar competition, I think Alan won with his rendition of ‘Losing My Religion’ by REM. Everyone had left by about 2.30am and I got everything pretty cleaned up before hitting the sack.

I woke up laaaaate the next day, about 3pm to be precise. Gari helped me do the minimal amount of cleaning up that was needed, I set off the two Roombas again, and swapped over the dishwasher before setting Scooba off to mop the mucky looking floors. The rest of Saturday was spent watching DVDs and eating snacks and drinking diet coke!

Today I’ve just got up late again, not quite so late as yesterday though, finished putting everything back to normal around the flat, cleaning the sofa, and putting my nic-nacs back. Checking on my stocks of drink it seems at the party we managed to consume 4 litres of gin, 3 litres of gin, and 6 bottles of mixers. I’m left with about half a litre of gin and a litre of vodka, that’ll keep me going for a week or two!

So I spoke to my ISP today, who suggested changing some DNS settings, I did that – but still nothing. So it wasn’t my ISP. Next stop was Microsoft, or the Windows Live team to be precise. After filling in A MILLION support forms, and providing endless identifying information I was told my account had been corrupted in a server malfunction, and that it wouldn’t be possible to restore it from back up.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I’ve created a new MSN account. I should have added pretty much everyone on the old account(s), but if you’re not on my new one, or haven’t seen me online for a couple of days etc – please message me and I’ll let you know the details.

I don’t have much luck with MSN do I? *sigheth*

So I’ve ordered about £70 worth of food, guests are bringing alcohol but I’ll get some anyway in case they forget, then I’ve been working out seating capacity, standing room, how many glasses and ice I’ll need, who will need to stay over and do I have enough room, what the last DLR times are for people who want to get the last service, who’s allergic to what, where I’m storing the cat, creating  a party playlist and finally choosing an outfit.

I’m hoping all will go well on the night, if not I’ll just have to learn to laugh at myself won’t I?

Juanita (my Roomba) set off as usual at 10am this morning and did a sterling job of hoovering all my floors.  Then I set off Scooba, which is the mopping version of Roomba – I’m borrowing it from my neighbour Rodden. It’s amazing, my wood floors have never looked so good!

I must remember to get to M&S and grab some nice flowers for the party!

(click image to enlarge)

I recently acquired an Asus EEE PC-701 4G, from a very very kind person (you know who you are). I’m not sure whether it’s classified as a sub-notebook or a handheld computer, or what. I know it’s not a UMPC as those have very specific specifications, into which the EEE PC does not fit, either way it’s bloody small. Standing for ‘Easy to Learn, Easy to Work, Easy to Play’ the EEE PC is designed for those who aren’t perhaps as tech savvy as some people, the marketing is aimed towards education, and older people and priced to match with models from £189 to £239.

“omfgz robotchicken ftw!!!111″

I have the 4G model, the range comprises of the 2G, 2G Surf, 4G, 4G Surf and 8G models. The number denotes the size of the SSD (solid state drive) storage, and the Surf models lack a webcam and come with a lower capacity battery. It is initially available in ‘Galaxy Black’ and ‘Pearl White’ with ‘Powder Blue’, ‘Lush Green’ and ‘Luscious Pink’ to follow soon.

Specifications
CPU: 900MHz Intel Celeron
RAM: 512Mb (expandable to 2Gb)
Storage: 4Gb SSD (Solid State Drive)
Screen: 7″ LED backlit TFT (800×480)
Wireless: 802.11b/g
Ports: 3x USB 2.0, VGA out
Other: SD/SDHC card reader, VGA webcam

First impressions
On taking it out of the box the first thing that hits you is how light it is. At 890g it’s less than 30% the weight of my MacBook, and the MacBook isn’t a heavy laptop. Popping it on top of my MacBook (as you can see in the photos below) it’s also got a much reduced footprint, whilst being pretty much the same thickness. The finish ‘Pearl White’ isn’t quite as glossy as the MacBook, it’s more off white with a silkier sheen to it. The battery simply snaps into the back of the unit, and the mains charger is more like something you’d get with a mobile phone than a laptop – very compact for travelling. I popped it on for it’s initial charge which took about 3 (very painful) hours whilst I went through everything else in the very small box. You get a small neoprene slip case which is quite handy if you plan to carry it in your backpack, a Quick Start Guide, a thicker User Manual and a Restore CD containing extra drivers (we’ll get to those later).

Using the EEE PC
Once the charging light had gone out, I unplugged it, brought it over to the sofa, opened it up and turned it on. It was one of the quickest boot times I’ve ever seen, 13 seconds from pressing the power button to being ready to use. This is partially due to the rapid read/write speeds afforded by the SSD, but largely the custom built Linux distribution installed on the EEE PC. Yes, I said Linux. The EEE PC runs a custom built variant of Xandros, which itself is a variant of Debian. Over the standard Xandros KDE desktop they’ve implemented an application launcher called ‘Easy Mode’. It contains nice big icons and a simple tabbed layout, giving you access to pretty much anything the average user would need such as FireFox, Thunderbird, Pidigin (IM), Media Player, Internet Radio, Google webapps, Open Office and a handful of games. If you’re so inclined you can have a fiddle around in the console (alt+shift+t) to enable the full desktop, and the familiar task bar, desktop and start menu. Obviously with it’s diminutive form factor the keyboard and trackpad have been made smaller, however unlike the Toshiba Libretto of days past this keyboard is actually usable, sure it takes a bit of getting used to, but I can touch type comfortably on it after a little practise. It was able to handle pretty much anything I threw at it including YouTube, networking, and film trailers. Finally, should you manage to mess something up somehow on the EEE PC, simply reboot and hold down F9 and it’ll restore the main drive back to ‘out of the box’ condition in seconds. Out of the box you’re left with 1.3Gb of space on the SSD.

Easy Mode on the EEE PC

Hacking the EEE PC
It’s only been available for a month or two, but the EEE already has a large fan-base, and a healthy portion of those (including myself) have been exploring alternative uses and ways of running the EEE PC. EEEuser.com is the largest online fan base, covering all manner of hacks from turning it into a car computer, to making it touch screen or running Windows 3.11 on it if you so wish. My chosen hack in comparison is rather vanilla, but was still adventurous. I initially had a nightmare making a bootable USB drive, but then after a bit of googling it turned out the tools recommended on the eeeguides.com tutorial which I used don’t play friendly with Vista or Mac OS X, so I ended up creating a XP install on my MacBook using BootCamp just to make the USB stick! Anyway, so once that was done I followed the guide to the letter, and ended up with my nlite’d version of Windows XP on my EEE PC. Thing is I hadn’t installed anything and I already only had 1.2Gb of space left! So I followed this guide to Slimming Down Windows XP and managed to cut about 650mb of crap out of my install. Then once I reduced the page file to 250mb I had a whole 2.5Gb to play with. After installing cut down versions of Microsoft Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop and a few other choice tools I’m left with a much more manageable system and 1.9Gb free! See some of the screen shots below, click the images to enlarge.

Conclusion
Insanely small, incredibly well built, speedy, fun to use and cheap. Asus aims this product squarely at the general public and education in specific, and it certainly fits that market well, but I feel the Asus has more potential than that, and so do many other consumers, so much so that it’s near impossible to get hold of one in the UK at the moment. With it’s lack of moving parts, small size and solid build quality the EEE PC is perfect to throw in your backpack to take camping, or on a business trip, or anywhere else you fancy going for that matter. With a 24 month warrantee, features you wouldn’t expect for a laptop at this size or price point, and an undeniable air of cool the Asus EEE PC-701 is a hit with me.

Over the next week or two I’ll be weining myself off of the internet. Gaydar is already deleted, next will be FaceBook, I’m not sure I’ll delete it, maybe just stop using it so much. Then MSN Messenger, I waste far too much time on that. I’m not sure whether I want to keep this blog or not yet, I guess I’ll decide that last.

I was planning a party on the 22nd February at my place via FaceBook, but considering the circumstances I’m not sure I’m going to go ahead with that. I’ll sleep on it and make a decision in the next day or two, in enough time for people to make new plans if need be.

Ultimately the plan is to move out of London in the near future, perhaps back up to the Midlands, or down into one of the nicer home counties, but certainly to leave London.

To the person(s) who abused the trust I put in them when I confided in you with my problems, and issues – I hope you’re happy, maybe this is what you wanted, maybe knowing that I feel dead on the inside, as my doctors steadily increase my anti-depressants and sleeping pills makes you happy who knows. To the people who this will inconvenience, please accept my apologies – but it’s for the best, and you know how to contact me if you want to stay in touch.

All I have to go on is quite a funny, simply card with “Be Mine” on front (with a picture of a bee), and “from ME” on the inside. Also the card was hand made in New York, with American prices on the back, which could be a clue. But it was posted inside the UK yesterday. Look at me getting all Jessica Fletcher!

Anyway, I do hope they reveal themselves – even if it was just a joke, otherwise I’ll never know!

I’ve developed a real taste for peanut M&M’s over the last few days, well since Friday really when Gari left a huge bag here. Since then I’ve gone through another party sized bag already. I know it’s hardly healthy – but they’re soooo nice. Donations most welcome…

Not sure what to do with myself this week, I mean I’ve got “Kuesday Drinks” (Ku Bar + Tuesday, yes I know) tomorrow which will be nice, more party planning too I suppose. Maybe I’ll spend some time downstairs in the gym and pool, try and get a bit fitter. Not that I’ve let myself go or anything, but exercise is supposed to be an good mood elevator, so yeah – we’ll see.