Saturday: GMail and Sodastream

Saturday is a day in.

Sodastream

For my birthday, my sister bought me a Sodastream. Everything seems to be going late 1970's, with a coalition government, a flourishing music scene (Private Trousers, Hollywood Doll, One Day Elliot, Wet Dog), rising unemployment and, to cap it all, Sodastream gets re-launched. I bought a sample box and some basic flavours from Lakeland and have been going through the samples the last few days.

• Cola tastes like a superior own-brand Cola;
• The Cranberry and Raspberry doesn't seem to taste of anything really: not unpleasant, just undefinable;
• The Ginger Ale was about the worst, so far: didn't even taste of ginger;
• Lemon and Lime tasted of, well, lemonade but not lime;
• Zero Cola isn't bad considering it uses a sugar substitute;
• Apple tastes of apple, but with a slight aftertaste.

The most interesting seems to be XTreme, which is their Red Bull copy. Not bad, and tastes a bit better than the original. A good mixer with vodka, apparently. Worth getting a Sodastream for that alone.

PopTray & GMail

I've also been looking at how to connect to GMail programmatically. I wanted a small email notifier, something that just sits in the system tray on the PC and checks my email every so often. I found PopTray:

PopTray

This is quite a nice little program which works fine but has some limitations, e.g. it won't work with the VPN I sometimes use. It's also open source and written in Delphi, although a later version than I have. It also has a GMail extension, which I couldn't get working. I've downloaded the source and have been tinkering with it the last few days, becoming gradually more frustrated. There doesn't seem to be an open API or web service for GMail, which would be handy and the GMail plugin source is all HTTP Gets and Posts, very crude. I've even resorted to looking at the source of a Python application which does the same thing.

Friday Sign-on

This Friday is sign-on day at the dole office, sorry, Job Centre Plus. The office is at the other end of Broadmayne from the flat, Broadmayne being the large dual-carriageway running the length of Basildon. It's about two miles, so I walked in, which took about 40 minutes. I have to sign in once a fortnight and demonstrate that I have been looking for work, so I keep a list of job applications on a spreadsheet and print them out.

The last time I signed on, it took about an hour or so, because one of their systems had screwed up. In the end, I pointed out that I was just there to sign on and had been waiting a while. They just filled in a line on a form and asked me to sign to prove that I'd attended. This time was the same, but he paid attention to the spreadsheet and what was on it. He also asked me to bring a little form they'd given me about voluntary work. Plus everyone seemed to be on the ball and it all took about ten minutes from me walking in through the door: I'd barely got started on a new number puzzle.

And there could be worse times to be out of work...

Thursday and Morning Shift at Oxfam

I usually do about an hour or so in the afternoon at the Oxfam Bookshop in Chelmsford on Mondays and Thursdays. However, yesterday, I got a text from Gill asking if I could come in earlier to do the morning shift as the woman who does the upstairs till, which is the music and DVD's, was on holiday. The up-side of this is that a) it's quiet first thing and b) you get to play your own tunes. I made up some CD's last night to play and I started off with Miles Davis (Kind of Blue) followed by Dave Brubek (Time Out). Cool Jazz is easy on the nerves and difficult to object to by the punters, especially if it's good. I followed this up with a dubstep remix of Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds and an old-school rave mix by Moby, which made things easier while I sorted through a load of DVD's which needed culling.

After my shift ended, I went shopping and ended up having a look in Games Workshop. I exchanged pleasantries with the assisstant on duty and left. As I went out of the shop, a thought struck me and I went back in.

"Back already", said the assistant.

"I know it's a funny question", I asked, "but how do you get to work for Games Workshop?".

"I'll just get you a form", he said and disappeared into the back of the shop.

"Fill it in", he said as he handed me the form, "Bring it back and we send it up to HQ (Nottingham) and they take it from there".

The form is just like any other (previous experience, qualifications, etc), but with the Imperial double-headed Eagle emblasoned on the front and it's got questions like "What's your favourite Warhammer/W40K army and why?". All job application forms should be like that.

The End of the Line

It's Wednesday and I'm sat typing with a (large) cup of coffee at my elbow, while the budgies are en-caged in the kitchen.

I usually go walking along Southend sea front at least one day a week and today's the day (Monday/Thursday I'm in the Oxfam shop and Friday is sign-on day this week, so Wednesday it is). Actually, I'm not travelling on the train to Southend Central, but to Shoeburyness, the end of the Fenchurch Street - Southend C2C/National Express line.

I was thinking of wearing my Vivo Barefoots for walking, but I'm not entirely sure what the effect on my feet will be. I usually wear the DM's as they're hard wearing and comfortable, especially for "off road", which you do get in Shoeburyness.

The town does have a kind of end-of-the-line feel about it but in a nice way. The developers have moved in and created a New-Shoeburyness, but this has the same empty feel as the original because, of course, it's a dormitory for London.

Update:
Here are some photos I took.

Quiet Tuesday Morning

It's all quiet in Chez Lemon at the moment. I'm writing on the laptop and the budgies are sitting in the cage with the covers on. The curtains are closed, everything is as dark as a Goths makeup bag and the neighbours are not rowing, for a change.

Update:

I've cleaned the budgies:



So they've been a bit subdued for the last few hours.