Sick :(

I don't like being sick. I'm dosed up on paracetamol, sudafed, piriton, and caffeine. I can work, but my head is still wrecked. According to someone at work who had this dose already, it's not really succeptible to the normal painkilling drugs, so I might be on a downhill slope. And perfect timing, as usual. This bank holiday weekend was going to be my last-ditch run at getting a lot of work done. Now I'll probably be in a bad way for the duration. Fun and games.

Had to pay FedEx various taxes for a shipment of CDs I got. Dreadful. I forgot about it and then their solicitors sent a nasty letter, claiming to chop off various bits of me if I didn't pay them. So I just did. And I've to go pay my car insurance today, and tax over the next few days, all good fun. All in the name of a good credit rating. Oh, the banks love me.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 10:55  |  

Thursday, October 23, 2003

No.

Right, so I've had my little holiday. My friends are gone home. We had a good time. Now I've to settle back in for more of the same drudge.

Currently, I have 3 houses to view this weekend and next week, which is pretty good, because up to now they've been snapped up quickly. The bad news is that one of the ones I wanted to view had its price jump up by about 20% since it was listed. I can't afford jumps like that!

Parents are on holiday - big family party when they get back, sometime. And again, I've to stress about getting all my work done in time. I'm rubbish at this. Students have done their exam, now they're just waiting to get their work results back from me, and they're done.

Anything else? A gig last week, and another this week, that's really it. Not having many of those lately, but they're good fun, so I'll keep doing them.

Oh, and I'm going to Copenhagen for work in December, if that's any use to anyone. I'm meeting my friend over there, the one I went to Sweden with last year, seeing as she lives just across the water from Copenhagen.

Fascinating, really.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 18:41  |  

Friday, October 10, 2003

Geek!

Just did my Geek Code. Here it is, ridiculously small so it doesn't mess up my page format.

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GIT/CS/ED/MU/P/TW/B/CM/CC/H/L/S/SS/O d--(++)>+pu s:(+)>- a-----(-)>+++
C++++$ U++>+++$ L+++(+)>++++$ P+++>++++$ !E- W++$ N+ o? K w++(--)$ !O !M
V(--) PS+>++ PE(++) Y+(++) PGP(+)>+++ t 5++() X++() R(++) tv--(+)?
b++(+++) DI++++ D !G e++$>++++ h(-)>++$ r+(++%)?>$ y+*>++++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

If you want to decode it, go to the Geek Code Decoder, and paste mine in. If you want to generate your own (hours of endless fun...) go here.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 14:36  |  

Sunday, October 05, 2003

OK, I stuck in a quick comments feature here, some of you have suggested a "chatroom" feature, well this is as close as you'll get! For now, you'll see a little "Discuss this post" link at the bottom of every comment now, even those going back three years. It's hosted by the lovely BlogSpeak, and will probably last as long as I keep using Blogger. Enjoy.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 23:26  |  

Appropriate?

Today's userfriendly cartoon is entitled "When geeks move house". Ho hum.

In much much less appropriate fashion, I decided to journal in pictures my walk home yesterday. Not pretty.

I was working relatively late, and arrived at the train station only to find I'd have to wait some time for my train, as the one I'd hope to get was cancelled. Bored, peckish, sitting there in the cool semi-open air, I decided to get some junk food from the machines on the platform.





The foodie stuff on my side of the tracks was all gone, so I crossed under, through the tunnel, to get some more. It was quite unpleasant, really. Very "Jacob's Ladder" to begin with.





All white shining tiles, crisp clinical white lights, constrasting with the grey-orange out on the platform, and the blue vein-hiding light in the toilets.


As I crossed underneath, I saw something I really couldn't understand. How could someone be so crass and unstylish?





And I've no idea about the technicalities - would someone - yards from the toilets - perform their sanitary functions in the tunnel? or even weirder - would they do the deed in the toilet and then transfer the evidence to the tunnel? Why?

Sorry the colour is so bad - these were taken with my new phone, which incidentally is quite sweet! Shame about the content.

I'm debating whether to ever put pictures of people up here. I don' think it would be appropriate, but then some people enjoy a little bit of publicity. I'm not one of them (at least not in that way, odd as that may seem), but the fact that I have a digital camera and another in my phone means I will likely have more pictures as time goes on. We'll see.

Let's hope they're more appropriate.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 15:42  |  

Saturday, October 04, 2003

Time for a change

I'm moving. Yeah, yeah, I know I've said that. But I'm moving this site too. I've just registered or modified a couple of my domains, so it's possible you're coming here from somewhere else. One of my domain names has been around for a while, not doing much, kinda a rainy day project. Well with the advent of my new home, it's getting a revamp. I'll be spending time setting up my two domain names, and moving this to one of them. It hasn't been finalised yet, so there's no point saying what it is. You'll know soon enough. When I do the transfer, I'll put a redirect on the location of the current blog, so it goes to the right place. The upshot is that anyone with shortcuts to any page on this site other than the front page will need to update them. You have been warned. Anyway, knowing me, it probably won't happen for a couple of months, so don't rush.

And in other news, I got provisional approval for a €10k loan last night, to help with getting a deposit on a house. Don't need it yet, probably won't get it at all (at least until I've moved in... Dr Who economics, eh?). The story is this: I currently have no loans, which makes me attractive to the mortgage lenders, so they'll give me the maximum they can. I have enough for most or all of a deposit (10% of the house price) in savings, but not enough for that plus solicitors' fees, broker fees, and stamp duty (weird tax on buying certain types of home). Now - if I borrow money to pay all that, it affects my repayment power from the mortgage provider's point of view, because I'd then have other loans. So they'd give me a lower mortgage. So I'd need less deposit. Which I could then afford, so I wouldn't need to get a loan. So the mortgage provider could give me more. Um... see the problem? This is your common or garden catch 22 situation: big mortgage means big deposit, which I'd need to borrow for, but then I'd only get a small mortgage, which means small deposit, which I wouldn't need a loan for, so I could actually get a big mortgage, but then I'd need a big deposit, etc....

One way around this is to get a "gift", which is a no-strings-attached payment to me. This is more complicated than it looks: Irish law forces banks and other financial institutions to watch for uncharacteristic transactions. Because I've had to provide bank statements to the lenders, they can see my track record in how much money I've had in my accounts, and how much I've been regularly saving. If I suddenly make a lodgement of €5000 or so, they are obliged to satisfy themselves (and possibly the powers that be) that I came across that money legally, due to the money laundering act of whenever it was. That's only half the story. If I say "Oh, that was a gift from my parents", then the lender needs to be satisfied that the provider of said "gift" is not actually looking for a stake in the house. The usual way to do this is for the "gift" provider - i.e. my parents - to get their solicitor to sign a notarised form stating that it's a no-strings-attached gift.

So, let me recap. My mortgage warrants a reasonable property, but my savings won't stretch to the deposit without a loan, which would affect the mortgage so much that the deposit on any property I could then afford wouldn't necessitate a loan. I can get a "gift" with some legal juggling, which I could repay if I felt like it (hi mum! I really don't mean that, honest!), but not officially.

Further complicating matters is the fact that my broker will refund any commission they get on the mortgage, probably around €2k, which might get me out of the hole I'm in. But here's the clincher: I don't get that until 2 - 3 months after "closure". But up to the moment of closure I can't have any other loans. And closure is when I need to pay the broker.

So this returns me to the loan I got provisional approval on last night. If I can organise a "gift" in the next few weeks, and then soon after closure take out a loan (perfectly allowable AFTER closure) and repay that "gift", then soon after that get a refund of €2k from the broker, then I'm back in reasonable condition!

Now, even after I explained all of that very patiently and carefully, I still can't follow it at all. If any of you guys can understand it, a very well done to ye. I'm off to have a lie down. I can't cope. Time for a change.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 17:03  |  

Apologies in advance

"I am not a homosexual necrophiliac!" said Tom in dead earnest.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 13:52  |  

Friday, October 03, 2003

Bush quote

Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right and wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.

Oh wait. That was about Bush, but by Oscar Wilde. Silly me.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 09:32  |  

Exhiliration, not

For some bizarre reason, I've been feeling really good for the last couple of days. I have no idea why. It might be because I got up at 6am both mornings, but then I did that because I needed to get to work early, and needed some computer downloading done before I left the house. It might be because I've been exercising, but I only did that because I felt good. It might be because I've "acheived" something, but I haven't. All I've acheived is that I've spoken to a mortgage broker and organised some paperwork - that's why I got up early this morning, ostensibly. It might be because I sat down last night and painstakingly worked out my finances, and they're looking good. But I was never really one to worry about money, so it might not be that either.

And I've still got the dreaded dangling deadlines. So it's not a release of pressure. Day job is still the usual day-in-day-out stuff, not boring, but not challenging either. Certainly when compared to the other stuff. It's nothing to do with my music, which always cheers me up. I haven't gigged in a month, which usually causes withdrawals. I haven't as much as PLAYED guitar in as long, aside from literally 5 minutes last Saturday while I was at work. I haven't been listening to music, aside from whatever rubbish is on the radio at 6am and again when I'm going home, usually after 8pm. And while I never talk about my love life here, rest assured it's not that either, which is acting in its usual bizarre chess-by-mail fashion.^*

It's not that I've got moderator rights in Slashdot again - that happens almost as often as George W. Bush gets a nose trim (bad joke hint: think "Pinocchio") - or that my sister (hi sis!) has joined. Um, why? Slashdot is "news for nerds", and you're, like, not a nerd?

It's not that it's nearly my birthday either. I've never really been a birthday person, I don't really think about it except when I need to, like when I was speaking to the insurance company guy yesterday... "How old are you?" "I'm... wait, no I'm not, I'm older. Bah." I've definitely reached the age where you have to think before you can say how old you are. I'm not even a big pressie person, although I've received one or two very nice happybirthday pressies in the last while. Incidentally, if any rich readers are looking for a hint, "a deposit on a nice house" would go down well. Hey, even "a nice house" would do!

Oh, I know what it is! It's caffeine! It's my daily (well, yesterday and today) dose of 300mg of caffeine before 9am! 200 of those before 06:30! That's enough to get anyone's spirits up. Although I did nearly fall asleep while giving a course yesterday afternoon. Must keep caffeine pills handy today. All hail chemicals!

^* Chess-by-mail(or Go-by-dragon) generally involves long drawn-out games-of-the-mind played between two people who rarely play in person. The games tend to make best use of fleeting infrequent moments of genius, along with plenty of "why did I do that?" hindsight, slow progress, inability to keep track of your own strategy, let alone that of your companion, and not having to wonder what to do with the bits you don't need anymore.

posted by Jeremy Smyth 09:12  |